Abstract: The article is devoted to the Third Wave geopolitics concept, stated in the context of the post-nonclassical approach of V.S. Stepin, the theory of self-organizing systems of H. Haken, the “managed chaos” concept of S. Mann, and the synergetic vision of contemporary geopolitical processes. The world community entered the age of a permanent crisis, which is presented today as a system crisis of the modern civilization. Social and political tendencies which had occurred during the revolutions in the Middle East and the Northern Africa, and the range of “color” revolutions on the post-Soviet space, the protest actions of the Russian opposition formulated the urgent task of development of new instruments for the research of the modern world political transformation processes. In such conditions geopolitics should study the processes, occurring not only within the relations between the states, but also inside the states, closely connected with each other, in order to reveal the threats and to develop the mechanisms of parrying them. Auspicious conditions for appearance of threats to international and domestic security arise from the use by the international policy subjects of the “managed chaos” technologies, the strategies of “soft power” and “indirect actions” against the background of worsening of territorial, demographical, confessional, ecological, food and water problems on the vast territories of the Central Asia and the Middle East.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, geopolitics, postmodernism, the third wave of geopolitics, soft power, security, interests, values, self-organization.

Abstract: The article touches upon the range of urgent aspects, related to the cooperation between India and the USA in the sphere of atomic energetics. The author attempts to analyze the agreement, signed between New Delhi and Washington in 2008 and called the “123 Agreement” or the “Nuclear Bargain”. The article reveals the range of prerequisites, impelling India to cooperate with the USA more closely, gives the examples of Washington’s aggressive politics, affecting New Delhi’s foreign policy in the light of the agreement signed. 1. The source study analysis is used in relation to the legislative and office work sources; 2. The chronological method is used in order to reveal the peculiarities of foreign and domestic policy of India changes, directed at provision of its own and regional security; 3. The situational analysis helps to reconstruct particular events in the development of the problem of regional security, and the attempts to settle the conflicts in the region according to the legislative and office work sources and Mass Media; 4. The system approach is used to analyze the problem as a complex, dynamic and integral phenomenon on the base of the analysis of the elements interdependency separately and in complex; 5. The quantitative analysis allows revealing the interconnection of the processes, taking place on the domestic arena, with political and economic component of foreign policy; 6. The comparative method helps to trace the peculiarity of India and the USA relations with the states-partners and the states, potentially threatening their security in general. After the Bharatya Janata Party and its leader Narendra Modi coming to power in India in 2014 the question of continuation of cooperation between New Delhi and Washington has been raising, first of all in the sphere of energy. The topicality of the research can also be explained by the fact that due to the crisis in Ukraine and worsening of relations between Moscow and Washington, the USA can repeat the attempts to strengthen their positions in South Asian region, particularly on the Indian direction, remaining one of traditional and the most important directions for Russia.

Keywords: international relations, nuclear industry, energy supply, energy security, NSG, IAEA, the 123 Agreement, the Nuclear Bargain, India, the USA

Abstract: The object of the research is the role of the international institutions – the UN (as a bearer of international law), NATO, positioning itself as a guarantor of security, and the EU as a regional leader – in the fortunes of partly recognized states of Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniestria. In the age of globalization new space and new frameworks of action appear: politics goes beyond the state borders, causing the emergence of new actors, new roles, new resources, unknown rules, new contradictions and conflicts. Therefore it is necessary to act within the institutions’ frameworks, since it allows raising awareness, reducing transactional expenses, and opens new opportunities. The research is based on the system method which gives the opportunity to find correlations between the interacting elements and to reveal the “rules” of such interaction, and to provide integration and systematization of the data collected. The choice is made in favor of the comparative approach, particularly the case oriented comparison, allowing the author to consider the specific features of the abovementioned cases. The historical approach is also used, since it is necessary for the adequate understanding of the international institutions level of participation in these processes. Moreover, for the analysis of state-building in unrecognized or partially recognized states the author uses the institutional approach which made it possible on the one hand to evaluate the institutions’ influence on the political process, and on the other hand, to understand the specificity of their functioning with account taken of the influence of informal norms and practices. The scientific originality of the article is explained by the fact that the author attempts to objectively evaluate the actions of international organizations in relation to unrecognized states on the example of Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniestria, and offers his own “recipes” of elaboration of a more rational approach to them on the base of the facts reported in the article.

Keywords: international institutions, declaration of sovereignty, strategy, Kosovo, Abkhazia, Transdniestria, the UN, unrecognized states, NATO, the EU.

Abstract: On 28th July exactly 100 years ago, Central Europe declared a war to Eastern Europe, an event that marked the official outbreak of World War I. This was a turning point which finally fractured a fragile equilibrium of La Belle Èpoque, and set the Old Continent and the whole world with it into the series of motions that lasted for almost a century, before docking us to our post-modern societies. From WWI to www. too smooth and too good to be true? Let us use this occasion and briefly examine our post-modernity and some fallacies surrounding it. In the (Brave New) world of www. where, irrespectively from your current location on the planet, at least 20 intelligence agencies are notifying the incoming call before your phone even rings up, how is it possible to lose jumbo-jet for good? The two huge aviation tragedies affecting same country – Malaysia, are yet another powerful reminders that we are obsessed with a control via confrontation, not at all with the prosperity through human safety. Proof? Look at the WWI-like blame-game over the downing of the plane – a perfect way to derail our most important debate: Which kind of future do we want? Who seats in our cockpit and why do we stubbornly insist on inadequate civilizational navigation?! Consequently, Ukraine today is a far bigger crash site, which is – regrettably enough – well beyond an ill-fated MH 17.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, Ukraine, Russia, the USA, crisis, Boeing, sanctions, conflict, security.

Abstract: The article raises the problem of identification of the most perspective strategy of the Russian foreign policy on the modern stage of the world politics evolution. The first part of the article considers the international political and intellectual context of the scientific concepts of “soft power” and “smart power” formation, analyzes the Russian specificity of their understanding. In the second part of the article the authors consider the “soft power” and “intelligent power” analyses as the international political strategies of states. Structuring these strategies, the authors correlate them with the strategies of “hard power” and “smart power”. The resources, instruments and goals of each of the four strategies are analyzed and compared to each other. In the third part of the article the authors consider several particular cases of successful use of “intelligent power” in the Russian foreign policy. In the result of the research the authors come to the conclusion that the states, competing for the world leadership, possess the ability to choose one of these four strategies. The analysis held shows that the “intelligent power” strategy corresponds to the demands of the modern world political system best of all. It gives the state the opportunity to act in the world politics as a “responsible leader” but not as a “manipulator”, to form a more stable collective decision-making system, to solve the problems of global development by means of innovative and flexible, but strategically well-thought approaches.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, Russia, “Soft power”, strategies, “Hard power”, “Smart power”, “Intelligent power”, “responsible leadership”, security.

Abstract: The article considers the reasons which prompted Charles de Gaulle to create the military and political, financial and economical networks of influence on the African continent after the World War II; the article reveals the essence of the political phenomenon called “Françafrique”, describes the goals and methods of secret French policy realization in Africa. The object of the research is the French policy in Africa in the period of de Gaulle presidency. The subject of the research is the forms and the methods of “Françafrique” architecture in the former colonial areas of France in Africa. The methodology of the research includes the system, the structural and functional approaches, the cultural and civilizational approach, the comparative historical and the comparative political methods of scientific research, the theories of ethnicity, the methods of induction, deduction, observation, analysis, synthesis, analogy, intent look. The article offers the characteristic of the French political influence on its former colonies, known as “Françafrique” – the phenomenon, which had become a stumbling block on the way of maintenance of the international image of France as a democratic and legal state. At the cradle of this ugly child of the Fifth Republic, unfortunately, was the person who saved France from a disgrace of collaborationism: the national hero and President of the Republic Charles de Gaulle. The article presents the list of the most resonant crimes committed by the French special services on the Black continent.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, de Gaulle, Françafrique, France, Africa, colonialism, independence, security, political regime.

Abstract: The article studies the influence of the Ukrainian internal environment on its state stability and regional politics from the point of view of Kiev balancing between the European Union and Russia. The very internal environment is considered in dynamics. The author emphasizes the range of social and political and social and economic processes, considering them in the historical context from the moment of the Ukrainian independence in 1991 till the system crisis of 2014, which spread to various spheres of the public life. The author uses the complex system approach to the study of domestic political situation in Ukraine and its correlation with the regional policy. The author studies not only the modern Ukrainian crisis and its participants, but also carries out the system analysis of those domestic factors which had been creating favorable conditions for the large-scale and the long-term destabilization of Ukraine. The research shows that the domestic factors, such as national disintegration, economic inefficiency, and social and political chaos, created the conditions for the current crisis, and consequently compelled Ukraine to survive. In these circumstances the abilities and the will of Kiev to assume the maximal and even the unpopular measures for the long-term stabilization of the Ukrainian society and state give rise to doubt.

Keywords: Ukraine, disintegration, crisis, political process, foreign policy, Russian vector, European vector, political chaos, separatism, economic inefficiency.

Abstract: The article analyzes the theoretical, conceptual and applied aspects of ethno-political conflicts settlement on the post-Soviet space, defining the context of regional security on the post-Soviet space (South Caucasus region). The modern society of this region is diverse and heterogeneous; it forms a complex structure which includes several thousands of various ethnic communities, different in the population size, the linguistic, political, socio-cultural, civilizational and religious guidelines. Undoubtedly, in their complex these differences to some extent determine the genesis of ethno-political conflicts in this region. The methodological base of the research includes the following methods: system, structural and functional, cultural and civilizational, comparative historical, comparative political, geopolitical, and the methods of induction, deduction, observation, analysis, synthesis, and modeling. The end of the 20th century brought into the world the variety of unprecedented challenges and threats. The decline of the socialistic order, caused by the collapse of the USSR, marked the appearance of the expected critical ethno-political contradictions on the post-Soviet space. They had been developing into bloody armed conflicts, and their endings caused the appearance of virtually independent self-proclaimed states like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, Russia, South Caucasus, ethno-political conflict, diplomacy, state, interests, values, security.

Abstract: The article considers the problem of the development of relations between the states, included in the suggested by the USA in 1980s list of the so-called “rogue states”. The author carries out their comparative analysis and studies the process of building of the long-term allied relations between them on the example of the interactions between Libyan Jamahiriya and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last decade of the 20th – the early 21st century. The article considers the influence of ideological guidelines and internal and external political conditions on the formation of the foreign policies of Tripoli and Tehran on the post-revolution stage of development. The chronological limits of the research include the period from the 1970s till the early 2000s. The reconstruction of the events is based on the results of the analysis of a wide range of resources, and the experience of the Russian, the Soviet, and the foreign schools of oriental studies. Using his own methodological approach, the author studies the problem of the particular “rogue states” relations from a practical point of view, when the research concentrates on the dynamics of development of bilateral relations between Libyan Jamahiriya of Muammar Gaddafi and the Islamic Republic of Iran after the Islamic revolution of 1978-1979.

Keywords: Libya, Iran, foreign policy, the rogue states, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, Islamism, Gaddafi, Khomeini, history.

Abstract: The article analyzes one of the key problems of Russia-NATO relations – the problem of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe adaptation. The article briefly touches upon the history of the Treaty, analyzes the reasons of its crisis and the appearance of the need to adapt the Treaty to the modern geopolitical conditions. Studying the imbalances in correlation of armed forces of NATO and Russia in Europe and the examples of the US and NATO aggressive policy near to the Russian borders, the author reveals the reasons of abeyance of the Treaty action by Russia, and speaks about the perspectives of the renewal of cooperation between Russia and NATO in these sphere. The methodological base of the research contains the following methods: system, structural functional, comparative historical, comparative political, geopolitical and cultural civilizational, and the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling and observation. The author comes to the conclusion that the overcoming of crisis of relations between NATO member-states and Russia has real perspectives, but it should be based on equal rights, international law, and intergovernmental agreements.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, international conflict, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, Russia, NATO, interests, values, security, diplomacy.

Abstract: Separatist movements nowadays are gaining power all over the world. Today they are becoming the global ethno-political problem. The main landmarks of separatism development fell on the late 20th century – the period of the rise of anticolonial and national liberation movements. Separatist views were wide spread not only in the third world countries, where the borders between states and tribes were disputable, but also in the developed countries: Britain, France, and the USA. Separatism aims at the separation of a particular territory from a multinational state and the creation of an independent national state. The methodology of the research includes the system and comparative political approaches, the methods of analysis, synthesis, modeling, analogy, expert evaluation. In the modern science there is no universally recognized definition of term “separatism”. But in general separatism can be defined as a political movement, which appears in the states with inhomogeneous territory, ethnicity, confession and economy. It is aimed per se at the separation of the particular territory from the state and the formation of a new state entity. In some cases separatists consider the possibility of joining some other state. These phenomena are called correspondingly secession and irredentism.

Keywords: international relations, policy, separatism, comparative separatism, conflicts, diplomacy, state, interests, values, security.

Abstract: In the late 2010 – the early 2011 the waves of protest spread in the countries of the Arab world, which had been caused by, at first sight, different reasons, but were directed against the ruling elites. In 2011 in Libya the political crisis dramatically worsened, being complicated by the American and the European military interference. The confrontation in Libya resulted in the overthrow of Gaddafi and consequently the dramatic economic decline, which developed in the collapse of the state. This article reviews and analyzes the factors of inner and external economic development, and the results of Libyan foreign trade. The analysis of the economic parameters, such as the budget structure, the balance of trade, the financial condition from the point of view of monetary structure, correlation of foreign and internal assets, reserves, capital movement vectors of Libya, gives the opportunity to reveal the interrelation between their dynamics and a potential threat to the state stability.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, the USA, Libya, economics, conflict, Gaddafi, finances, budget, national interests.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of the foreign sanctions impact on the Russian economy. By means of historical retrospection the author explains why the European policy of sanctions has shown its inefficiency and is going to fail very soon. Special attention is paid to the comparison of the events which had taken place a hundred years ago with the modern events; the author studies the Western trade policy towards Russia in times of the diplomatic and economic isolation of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The methodological base of the research contains the following methods: system, structural functional, comparative historical, comparative political, geopolitical, cultural and civilizational, the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling and observation. The results of the research show that as it was in the 1920s, nowadays Russia is able not only to survive without the import of goods, but also to adjust the production, eliminating the further dependence on the foreign goods. The author uses the data of the Russian and the foreign archives, and it confirms the conclusions made in the process of the research.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, sanctions, geopolitics, political stability, diplomacy, state, interests, values, security.