Speak about modern international relations: general trends.

International relations (IR) is a branch of political science. It represents the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). It is both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative as it both seeks to analyze as well as formulate the foreign policy of particular states.

Substantial changes have taken place on the world scene in recent years. The growing processes of globalization lead to a more even distribution of resources of influence and economic growth, thus laying the objective basis for a multipolar construct of international relations. There continues the consolidation of collective and legal principles in international relations on the basis of the recognition of the indivisibility of security in the contemporary world. In world politics there has risen the significance of the energy factor and access to resources as a whole. Russia’s international standing has firmed markedly. Strong, more self-confident Russia has become an important component part of the positive changes in the world.
As a result the competitive environment that was lost with the end of the Cold War is gradually being restored. The object of competition now consists of value orientations and development models. With the universal acknowledgement of the importance of democracy and market as the foundations of a public system and economic life their realization takes on a variety of forms depending on the history, national peculiarities and the level of social and economic development of states.
Along with the positive changes negative trends also persist: an expanding conflict space in world politics, and disarmament and arms control problems fallen out from the global agenda. Under the flag of the struggle against new challenges and threats attempts continue to establish a “unipolar world,” to impose on other countries one’s own political systems and development models while ignoring the historical, cultural, religious and other specificities of the rest of the world.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that this occurs against the background of the fight against international terrorism, a fight requiring a broad dialogue among cultures, religious confessions and civilizations, their counteraction against extremism within their own environment, and resolute advancement in tackling the problems, including regional conflicts, that form the breeding ground of terrorism.
At the same time it is becoming increasingly obvious that the existing international problems have no force-based solutions.

Allow me to call your attention to the domintaion of the USA in the modern world regardless of the fact that it’s considered to be multipole. The USA regard themselves as a superpower & continue to impose their will on the rest of the world, ingnoring the resistance of other states & even the opinion of the UN & major principles of international law, which are considered to be imperative & were designed to govern the international relations.

The myth of a unipolar world has been definitively busted in Iraq. The model itself has turned out to be unworking, because at its core there is no moral base of modern civilization, nor can there be. The impossibility of providing the claims to single-state leadership with adequate military-political and economic resources also attests to this. Under these conditions, there grows the need for a collective leadership of key states, objectively bearing special responsibility for the state of affairs in the world.
Under these conditions, the role and responsibility of Russia in international affairs have qualitatively grown. The chief achievement of recent years is the newly acquired foreign policy independence of Russia.

And now let me define the major features of the modern internationl relations.

First of all, it’s worth bearing in mind that nowadays not only states are the participants of international interaction but also such entities like: intergovernmental organizations, NGO, TNCs & TNBs and also domestic regions. And these entities take more & more active part in the international sphere.

Two other distinct features are integration & globalization. Economic integration is one form of cooperation among countries. It involves agreements among countries to establish links through the movement of goods, services, capital, and labor across borders.

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world. Proponents of globalization argue that it allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their standards of living, while opponents of globalization claim that the creation of an unfettered international free market has benefited multinational corporations in the Western world at the expense of local enterprises, local cultures, and common people.

Another problem is nuclear proliferation. According to the Non-proliferation Treaty 1958 only 5 states have the right to possess nuclear weaponary. Unfortunately nowadays far more states than 5 possess the weapons of mass destruction, which makes the international climate much more unstable.

Now let me turn to the demographic problem. According to the experts of the UN during the next 50 years the population of our planet will reach a critical point & will be equal to 9 bln 300 mln & this will mean overpopulation of the planet.

And the problem of the low-income countries is another hot point. First and foremost, low-income countries need policies that will promote their economic growth & at least partly eliminate global imbalances. To achieve economic growth countries need at a minimum three things: economic and financial stability, structural policies that help the private sector to flourish, and a supportive external environment.

The last but not the least - environmental problems. Various kinds of pollution, extinction of some species of animals & plants, greenhouse effect, climate change & many other problems could push the world into the worst recession since the Great Depression, with many countries facing economic ruin.

To conclude let me define my position, I consider that only by cooperation, consensus & mutual efforts states can somehow make the inetrnational relations less chaotic & co-exist peacefully.

In modern international relations it is difficult to find a more fundamental issue than the definition of the current stage in global development. This is important for any country in order to correlate a development strategy and a foreign policy with the vision of the world we live in. It seems that a consensus is already being formed on this score, albeit at the level of the expert community both in Russia and abroad. This is largely a consequence of debates, on which Russia insisted. Moreover, this emerging consensus largely reproduces the analysis which Russia offered as a starting position for discussion in Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich in February 2007.

It is already obvious that individual problems of world politics cannot be solved without understanding the “big issues” of global development and without reaching a common vision of them in the international community.

I will try to outline some of these issues, which are directly related to the building of Russia’s foreign-policy strategy.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 2061