Suchergebnisse

Although on the surface Russia remains distant and disengaged from the South China Sea (SCS) dispute, its comprehensive strategic partnership relations and large-scale arms deals with China and Vietnam—Russia's closest Asian allies but also major rival parties to the dispute—reveal that Moscow has strategic interests and goals that affect, directly or indirectly, the evolution of the dispute. Russia's ambivalent stance toward the dispute in the form of supporting both China and Vietnam is the manifestation of two different modes of great power behavior that unfold at different levels but happen to intersect in the SCS. One is systemic balancing, which is aimed at checking and blocking the strongest power in the system—the United States. The other is regional hedging, which combines engagement and containment and helps to avoid taking one side at the obvious expense of another. These two different modes of great power behavior coexist in Russia's behavior toward the SCS. Untangling the two levels sheds light on the essence and evolution of Russia's policies in the region, which have created a win-win situation, however imperfect, for China and Vietnam and have contributed to the formation of a more manageable negotiation environment.

In 1963, the USSR and Japan started promoting a relatively new form of bilateral co-operation - coastal trade. This trade has been carried out in the form of barter deals. The article looks at the goods exported and imported in this trade. Soviet trade organisations involved in it etc. and suggests organisational transformations that could have a positive effect on coastal trade between Japan and the USSR. (DÜI-Sen)

Post-Cold War China-Russia strategic cooperation has displayed significant development and become an increasingly important factor in contemporary international politics. However, there has been no theory-grounded framework and corresponding measurements that would allow an accurate and systematic assessment of the level of China-Russia alignment and its progress over time. How closely aligned are China and Russia? How to define and measure strategic alignments between states? This book bridges area studies and International Relations literature to develop a set of objective criteria to measure and explain the development of strategic alignment in post-Cold War China-Russia relations. It establishes that on a range of criteria, China-Russia alignment is moving towards a full-fledged alliance. It is solid and comprehensive and continues to show a consistent incremental upward trend. There are strong structural incentives for furthering the China-Russia alignment, and there is little that might hinder the effective functioning of a China-Russia alliance. The alignment framework developed in the book can be applied to other cases of interstate strategic cooperation to facilitate comparisons between different strategic alignments

Abstract
Despite being ubiquitously used, the concept of alignment remains inchoate. Existing literature offers more than 30 interpretations of the term and very few attempts to develop an objective indicators-based metric of alignment. This state of the field makes assessments of the degree to which states are aligned problematic. This article systematises the theoretical knowledge about alliances, alignments, strategic partnerships, and other forms of cooperation and draws on some empirical observations to develop a 'stadial model of alignment formation' (SMAF). The model conceptualises, operationalises, measures, and explains interstate alignment with greater precision and consistency. It also includes the explanatory factors in the form of the three balances – the balance of power, the balance of threat, and the balance of interest – and connections between them located along the stages of alignment formation. As such, the SMAF framework gauges the relative scale and depth of strategic alignments and can facilitate comparative analysis.

The article examines the social space of modern Kronstadt, a small historical town within the boundaries of St. Petersburg, whose residents still claim to preserve a special collective identity. The work is based on materials collected during interviews with locals in the spring of 2021. Kronstadt's social space is characterized and described as an assemblage in which heterogeneous forces interact, thereby determining the prospects for the town's development — both in terms of urban economy and the perception of the townspeople. There are four main elements of the current urban identity— or four components of the "Kronstadt palimpsest": first, the townspeople's perception of the town's status and resource position within the hierarchy of St. Petersburg's urban environment. Second, the determination of the administrative and "natural" boundaries of the town on the territory of Kotlin Island. Third, the ranking of neighborhoods based on the degree of prestige, along with the folklorization of "disadvantaged" zones. And fourth, the attitude toward the influx of tourists and the perception of "strangers" by local residents, as well as the division of city attractions into "ceremonial" and "personal" ones. It is concluded that the townspeople's ongoing pursuit of the "right to the city", based on the history, geographical location of the settlement, and their own ideas about the preferred urban way of life, largely determines the uniqueness of the Kronstadt assemblage. This sets this small town apart from the array of satellite towns around Russian megacities.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China-Russia relations have demonstrated a significant and consistent progress on a number of issues advancing to the strategic alliance. However, the existing explanations of such progress have rarely gone beyond simple recognition of the continuous deterioration of relations between these countries and the West, particularly the United States. However, such explanations seem insufficient since they do not reveal the key determinants of the Russian-Chinese alignment and cannot help assess the sustainability of this trend. In order to provide a comprehensive and methodologically consistent assessment of the main drivers of the China-Russia relations within the framework of the post-Cold War international system evolution, this paper draws on the latest findings in the theory of international alliances. To this end, the author harnesses the epistemological potential of the three main approaches to the root causes of interstate strategic alliances, namely the 'balance of power', the 'balance of threat' and the 'balance of interests'. The paper examines the Russian-Chinese cooperation both within the framework of each of these three balances separately and in their interrelatedness and interdependence. The author shows that trend towards a closer strategic cooperation between China and Russia in the post-Cold War period stemmed from the inner dynamics of all of these balances. This strategic alignment is based on a complex of shared views on the United States as the main source of threats for national security and the commitment of both states to the idea of a multipolar world. The author concludes that not only will the trend towards strengthening Russian-Chinese cooperation continue, at least in the medium term, but it can receive a new impetus to evolve into a full-fledged alliance.