Vol 25, No 2 (2025): The Difficult Path from Bipolarity to a Multipolar World Order: To the 80th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War

In the struggle for the future world order, various concepts of a just global order collide. Russia’s foreign policy documents emphasize the importance of establishing a world order that is multipolar and based on the dialogue of civilizations, respect for national sovereignty and mutual security. These principles are only partially shared by other participants in international relations, among which the United States and China stand out in terms of their ideological and power potential. Due to the importance of these powers and the growing contradictions between them, the danger of the formation of a new bipolar system of international relations is increasing in the world. The experience of the Yalta-Potsdam system shows the tendency of the bipolar system to ideological and value confrontation and the use of force to resolve conflicts. The emergence of such a system of international relations was the result of fundamental differences in the understanding of the principles of a fair world order by the two sides with the existing parity of military and political capabilities of the parties. The basis of the fragile peace in the conditions of the bipolar system of international relations became the danger of mutual destruction of the parties with nuclear weapons. International rules and institutions, including the UN Charter, proved incapable of guaranteeing peace. Therefore, the main lesson of the Cold War should be considered the need to prevent the very emergence of bipolarity, which could bring the world on the brink of war and even total destruction. This article analyzes the threats of the formation of a new bipolarity in connection with the escalation of the conflict between the United States and China in international relations. Today, these countries have the most powerful material and force capabilities, as well as fundamentally different visions of a fair world. Since the Cold War, the United States has been guided by the universality of its democratic ideals, while China offers a concept of global “harmony” in accordance with the ideals of economic development and the recognition of civilizational differences. The election of Donald Trump as president implies a revision of democratic priorities in favor of confirming the military-economic dominance of the United States in the world. Russia could play a special role in the formation of a multipolar and multilateral order in Eurasia as a prototype of the future world order. The conditions for progress in this direction are associated with strengthening the military-political balance in the region, developing inter-civilizational dialogue, economic openness, and multilateral institutions.

The study focuses on the transformation of China’s grand strategy in the context of the ongoing, long-term Sino-US strategic rivalry. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the study of China’s grand strategy in global politics. To date, at the international level, the relevant study has been overwhelmingly dominated by the American school and narrative based on American realism. This paper therefore conducts the relevant research from a Chinese perspective. The study explores the evolution of the US China policy and the transformation of China’s grand strategy in the context of the Sino-US strategic rivalry. In particular, it demonstrates the linkage between China’s grand strategy evolution and the Sino-US relations. Furthermore, it provides an analysis of the implications of China’s grand strategy transformation. The research methodologies mainly contain comparative, analytical and inductive approaches. A conceptual framework is outlined, illustrating how the US policy and approaches towards China navigate the Sino-US rivalry and transform China’s grand strategy-making and its foreign policy implementation. The author concludes that it is the strategic rivalry and US policy towards China that are transforming China’s “grand strategy” from a defensive to an offensive model. Bloc-driven policy is one of the defining factors in the Chinese-American confrontation. However, in the case of the U.S., the obvious anti-Chinese orientation of the blocs created by Washington may cause a negative reaction from potential allies. In turn, China, relying on the states of the Global South, is also building a network of global partnerships in which such structures as the BRICS, which is becoming increasingly attractive to developing countries. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is also a significant player, and if it expands further, it could become the largest military-political bloc in the Eurasian space.

The entry into force of the Protocol on Sweden’s Accession to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 7 March 2024 draws a historic line under the Scandinavian country’s more than 200-year policy of neutrality. First proclaimed by King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden in August 1814 and put into practice in 1834, the principle of permanent neutrality has been an integral pillar of Sweden’s foreign policy. Adherence to the policy of neutrality allowed Sweden to avoid the devastating consequences of the two world wars and to remain an economic beneficiary of the confrontation between the USA and the USSR during the Cold War. On the other hand, what is commonly referred to as ‘permanent neutrality’ - with reference to the Swiss benchmark - in the case of Sweden deserves at least a more detailed analytical approach and at most a critical rethinking. The authors of this study use the methodology of historical and political science: the historical and analytical method, the method of comparison, the method of socio-historical and socio-political analogies and the method of political analysis. The authors also apply a behavioral approach and rational choice theory to identify the factors that influenced the decision of Sweden’s political elites to end the era of neutrality and join the NATO politico-military bloc. The subject of the proposed article is Sweden’s policy of formal neutrality during the World War II. It is no coincidence that the authors use the term ‘formal’ to refer to the nature of Swedish neutrality in the period 1939-1945, since it was during the World War II, in the authors’ opinion, that the practical content of the Swedish understanding of ‘neutrality’ was most clearly demonstrated. This, in turn, makes it much easier to understand the motives behind the country’s rapid accession to NATO in 2024. Assessing the current trends in the development of Sweden’s foreign policy course, the authors in the final part of the study cite the key factors behind the decision to join NATO: historical continuity and traditional political Western-centrism.

The formation of a new world order in the 21st century is in its infancy, and the growing contradiction between international actors continues to intensify. In an effort to preserve unipolarity and counteract multipolarity, the United States adheres to the concept of information warfare, involving the rest of the world in this process. Conflict remains a prevalent feature of international relations, and dialogue is frequently perceived either as a sign of weakness or as a planned maneuver by an opponent. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the axiological and technical aspects of information warfare in a multipolar world. Two key aspects of information warfare are examined separately: the information-psychological and the information-technical. The analysis of the use of information warfare tools enables the identification of the direction of actions by global actors, the main methods employed, the goals pursued and the results achieved. The research methodology is based on systematic and axiological approaches, which have facilitated the conceptualization of information warfare as a form of non-kinetic influence on the value and institutional foundations of the enemy. The present study employs a hermeneutical analysis of sources, incorporating elements of lexico-semantic analysis, as a methodological approach. The main conclusion of the study asserts that information warfare, in which the United States remains the main actor, poses a serious threat to the emerging multipolar world and the security of its supporters, while acknowledging their potential for resistance, which is likely to emerge in the future. In conclusion, the following directions for further research are proposed: firstly, the practice of interaction between the allied states that prevent the restoration of a unipolar world; secondly, the information pressure from the United States and the collective West; thirdly, Russia’s transition from defensive to offensive actions in the information warfare; and fourthly, the analysis of new tools and methods of conducting information warfare, as well as other relevant topics.

The study examines the role of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) in shaping Russia’s image in East Africa. The AKDN is viewed as an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) in East Africa, whose stance on Russia currently coincides with that of the collective West. The authors proceed from the assumption that since 2022, the AKDN, in particular its media branch, the Nation Media Group , has sought to portray Russia in a negative light. The study consists of two sections. The first section provides an overview of the AKDN’s activities in East Africa since the emergence of Ismaili communities in the region and describes the key areas of its work on a country-by-country basis, as delineated on the official website of the organization. The analysis pays special attention to humanitarian, educational, and media projects, which give the organization more advantage in terms of shaping images, values, and ideas. After analyzing the activities of the AKDN, the authors conclude that the organization has built substantial social capital in East Africa through such development projects. The second section aims to verify the initial hypothesis of the AKDN’s anti-Russian slant through building a corpus of news items from outlets affiliated with the AKDN, using methodology for text analysis such as named entity recognition, LDA machine learning, and sentiment analysis of publications throughout the year 2023. The resulting tonality, topics and geographical coverage of the news publications allow the authors to conclude that the media do indeed construct a negative image of Russia in East Africa by invoking connotations of aggression, conflict and destabilization in Africa and the entire world, which may be caused by the AKDN’s orientation towards the West as well as differences between the AKDN and Russia’s positions in Central Asia. It is recommended that Russia take into account the power and resources that the AKDN employs in the information field.

Economic globalization not only leads to significant changes in the international economic system, but also to the formation of the institution of economic sanctions. It identifies the targets, structure and consequences of economic pressure on sovereign states in the context of economic globalization. Methodologically, the study is based on the dialectical method, which implies the study of phenomena in constant development and interrelation, in addition to methods of comparative and structural analysis, abstraction, synthesis and others. A special feature of the study is the inclusion of data from the Global Sanctions Data Base together with the World Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on the socio-economic indicators of the objects and subjects of sanctions since 1960. The author concludes that the intensification of sanctions over the past three decades has more to do with the declining share of major actors in international production and trade than with concerns about, for example, territorial integrity and human rights. A study of the sanctions’ dynamics and their impact on the socio-economic development of the most popular objects (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Russia) reveals a cyclical nature of the processes. After the peak of sanctions pressure, the intensity of sanctions pressure diminishes, although unilateral economic measures are lifted more slowly, especially financial ones, the value of which gradually increases. It is evident that trade sanctions are more frequently lifted, while visa restrictions are less frequently imposed. This reveals the impact of economic sanctions on the sanctioned country in general is often overstated or considered to be short-term. The size of the sanctioned country’s economy remains a significant barrier to negative effects. However, the effects of economic sanctions on the (economically active) population are more noticeable and may lead to an increase in the gap of their national income and well-being with the global level. The impact of sanctions on the global economic landscape is evident, with their intention being to preserve the prevailing distribution of wealth and power, favoring the declining economies of the United States and the United Kingdom while concurrently fortifying those of China, India, and other emerging economic powers. The following conclusions and recommendations are posited for the purpose of enhancing the adjustment policy of the sanctioned country.

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