This article examines the stereotypes about China that prevail in the West and Russia and make them perceive it not only as a strategic challenge, but an existential threat. The article demonstrates that the most common fears are overstated and counterfactual, and that they are grounded in the West itself. Modern China cannot be identified through the concepts and terms commonly used in the West. The West orients itself in the political realm and takes political action mainly through classifying countries according to their political forms, comparing them, contrasting them, and combining them. China does not fit in any known political form: it is not an empire, not a nation-state, not a democracy, not a dictatorship, not a tyranny, not an oligarchy, not a federation. China frightens because it is perceived as formless. And the more uncertain the West is about the stability and legitimacy of its own political forms and its right to impose them, the more frightening China is. Currently, this uncertainty keeps growing.
Amid the ongoing military conflict in Europe’s east, and deepening disagreements within NATO, is transition to a new European geopolitical order possible? This article contends that the EU has little chance of becoming a unitary geopolitical agent. Despite Brussels’s rhetoric about the EU’s growing strategic autonomy and intensifying efforts to defeat Russia, there is no reason to believe that it will be able to cope with this task. The EU exploits confrontation with Russia to consolidate its members and assert its geopolitical agency, but the determination of some EU countries for geopolitical identity will only accelerate its fragmentation. And a European military-political alliance is unlikely without the participation of the U.S.— given the growing transatlantic rift.
This article examines the evolution of diplomacy as a professional form of international communication in the 21st century. The degradation of the normative international order, coupled with the growing capabilities of small and middle states, is fueling asymmetric competition, while internal political changes in many countries are exacerbating international uncertainty. To adapt to these changes, diplomacy is diversifying. State behavior and structural changes, examined in this article, indicate what the new ‘diplomacy of asymmetric balance’ will look like.
The article "The Persian Gulf: Seven More Lessons" by Ivan N. Timofeev analyzes the 2025 U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran and draws seven additional lessons from the conflict's low-level prolongation. The author argues that major powers may retreat when escalation becomes too costly; diplomacy and compromise remain possible even in asymmetric conflicts; the willingness to absorb losses determines outcomes; a state's margin of safety—built through long-term militarization—is critical for survival; nuclear weapons have limited utility in defeating a prepared adversary; information warfare, despite its scale, produces limited results; and exit strategies are far more complex than entry strategies. The article concludes that the conflict has revived elements of classical diplomacy while exposing the limits of military power against a resilient, prepared state.
The article examines the collapse of the Soviet Union as a tragic but isolated and unique episode. The author analyzes its causes and consequences and emphasizes that the experience of 1991 should not be directly applied to modern Russia.
