International relations in the modern period. Features of modern international relations. Systematic approach to the study of international relations

The global scale and radicality of the changes taking place today in the political, economic, spiritual spheres of life of the world community, in the sphere of military security allow us to put forward the assumption of the formation of a new system of international relations, different from those that have functioned throughout the last century, and in many ways since from the classical Westphalian system.

In the world and domestic literature, a more or less stable approach to the systematization of international relations has developed, depending on their content, the composition of participants, driving forces and patterns. It is believed that international (interstate) relations proper arose during the formation of national states in the relatively amorphous space of the Roman Empire. The starting point is the end of the “Thirty Years' War” in Europe and the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Since then, the entire 350-year period of international interaction up to the present day is considered by many, especially Western researchers, as the history of a single Westphalian system of international relations. The dominant subjects of this system are sovereign states. There is no supreme arbiter in the system, so states are independent in pursuing domestic policies within their national borders and, in principle, have equal rights. Sovereignty presupposes non-interference in each other's affairs. Over time, states developed a set of rules governing international relations based on these principles - international law.

Most scholars agree that the main driving force of the Westphalian system of international relations was rivalry between states: some sought to increase their influence, while others sought to prevent this. Conflicts between states were determined by the fact that national interests, perceived as vitally important by some states, came into conflict with the national interests of other states. The outcome of this rivalry, as a rule, was determined by the balance of power between states or alliances into which they entered to realize their foreign policy goals. The establishment of equilibrium, or balance, meant a period of stable peaceful relations; a violation of the balance of power ultimately led to war and its restoration in a new configuration, reflecting the strengthening of the influence of some states at the expense of others. For clarity and, naturally, with a great deal of simplification, this system is compared with the movement of billiard balls. States collide with each other, forming changing configurations, and then move again in an endless struggle for influence or security. The main principle in this case is one’s own benefit. The main criterion is strength.

The Westphalian era (or system) of international relations is divided into several stages (or subsystems), united by the general patterns indicated above, but differing from each other in features characteristic of a specific period of relations between states. Usually, historians identify several subsystems of the Westphalian system, which are often considered as independent: the system of predominantly Anglo-French rivalry in Europe and the struggle for colonies in the 17th - 18th centuries; the system of the “European Concert of Nations” or the Congress of Vienna in the 19th century; the more geographically global Versailles-Washington system between the two world wars; finally, the Cold War system, or, as some scientists define it, the Yalta-Potsdam system. It is obvious that in the second half of the 80s - early 90s of the XX century. There have been fundamental changes in international relations that allow us to talk about the end of the Cold War and the formation of new system-forming patterns. The main question today is what these patterns are, what are the specifics of the new stage in comparison with the previous ones, how does it fit into the general Westphalian system or differ from it, how can a new system of international relations be defined.

Most foreign and domestic international experts take the wave of political changes in the countries of Central Europe in the fall of 1989 as the watershed between the Cold War and the current stage of international relations, and consider the fall of the Berlin Wall to be its clear symbol. In the titles of most monographs, articles, conferences, and training courses devoted to today's processes, the emerging system of international relations or world politics is designated as belonging to the post-cold war period. This definition focuses attention on what is missing in the current period compared to the previous one. The obvious distinctive features of the system emerging today in comparison with the previous one are the removal of the political-ideological confrontation between “anti-communism” and “communism” due to the rapid and almost complete disappearance of the latter, as well as the winding down of the military confrontation of the blocs grouped during the Cold War around two poles - Washington and Moscow. Such a definition does not adequately reflect the new essence of world politics, just as in its time the formula “after the Second World War” did not reveal the new quality of the emerging patterns of the Cold War. Therefore, when analyzing today's international relations and trying to forecast their development, one should pay attention to qualitatively new processes emerging under the influence of changed conditions of international life.

Recently, one can increasingly hear pessimistic complaints about the fact that the new international situation is less stable, predictable and even more dangerous than in previous decades. Indeed, the clear contrasts of the Cold War are clearer than the variety of undertones of the new international relations. In addition, the Cold War is already a thing of the past, an era that has become the object of leisurely study by historians, and the new system is just emerging, and its development can only be predicted on the basis of a still small amount of information. This task becomes even more complicated if, when analyzing the future, we proceed from the patterns that characterized the past system. This is partly confirmed by the fact that

It is a fact that, essentially, the entire science of international relations, operating with the methodology of explaining the Westphalian system, was unable to foresee the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the change of systems does not occur instantly, but gradually, in the struggle between the new and the old. Apparently, the feeling of increased instability and danger is caused by this variability of the new, as yet incomprehensible world.

New political map of the world

When approaching the analysis of the new system of international relations, apparently, one should proceed from the fact that the end of the Cold War, in principle, completed the process of forming a single world community. The path traveled by humanity from the isolation of continents, regions, civilizations and peoples through the colonial gathering of the world, the expansion of the geography of trade, through the cataclysms of two world wars, the massive entry onto the world stage of states liberated from colonialism, the mobilization of resources from all corners of the world by opposing camps in the confrontation of the Cold War, The increase in the compactness of the planet as a result of the scientific and technological revolution finally ended with the collapse of the “Iron Curtain” between East and West and the transformation of the world into a single organism with a certain general set of principles and patterns of development of its individual parts. The world community is increasingly becoming like this in reality. Therefore, recently increased attention has been paid to the problems of interdependence and globalization of the world, the common denominator of the national components of world politics. Apparently, the analysis of these transcendental universal trends can make it possible to more reliably present the direction of change in world politics and international relations.

According to a number of scientists and political figures, the disappearance of the ideological driver of world politics in the form of the confrontation “communism - anti-communism” allows us to return to the traditional structure of relations between nation states, characteristic of the earlier stages of the Westphalian system. In this case, the collapse of bipolarity presupposes the formation of a multipolar world, the poles of which should become the most powerful powers that have thrown off the restrictions of corporate discipline as a result of the disintegration of two blocs, worlds or commonwealths. The famous scientist and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in one of his last monographs “Diplomacy” predicts that the international relations emerging after the Cold War will increasingly resemble European politics of the 19th century, when traditional national interests and the changing balance of forces determined the diplomatic game, education and the collapse of alliances, changes in spheres of influence. A full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, E. M. Primakov paid considerable attention to the phenomenon of the emergence of multipolarity. It should be noted that supporters of the doctrine of multipolarity operate with previous categories, such as “great power”, “spheres of influence”, “balance of power”, etc. The idea of ​​multipolarity has become one of the central ones in the programmatic party and government documents of the PRC, although the emphasis in them is placed, rather, not on an attempt to adequately reflect the essence of the new stage of international relations, but on the task of countering real or imaginary hegemonism, preventing the formation of a unipolar world led by the United States. States. In Western literature, and in some statements by American officials, there is often talk of “sole leadership of the United States,” i.e. about unipolarity.

Indeed, in the early 90s, if we look at the world from a geopolitical point of view, the world map underwent major changes. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance put an end to the dependence of the states of Central and Eastern Europe on Moscow and turned each of them into an independent agent of European and world politics. The collapse of the Soviet Union fundamentally changed the geopolitical situation in the Eurasian space. To a greater or lesser extent and with different speeds, the states formed in the post-Soviet space fill their sovereignty with real content, form their own sets of national interests, foreign policy courses, not only theoretically, but also in essence become independent subjects of international relations. The fragmentation of the post-Soviet space into fifteen sovereign states also changed the geopolitical situation for neighboring countries that previously interacted with the united Soviet Union, for example

China, Turkey, countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia. Not only have the local “balances of power” changed, but the diversity of relations has also sharply increased. Of course, the Russian Federation remains the most powerful state entity in the post-Soviet and Eurasian space. But its new potential, very limited in comparison with the former Soviet Union (if such a comparison is at all appropriate), in terms of territory, population, share of the economy and geopolitical neighborhood, dictates a new model of behavior in international affairs, if viewed from the perspective multipolar “balance of power”.

Geopolitical changes on the European continent as a result of the unification of Germany, the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the obvious pro-Western orientation of most countries of Eastern and Central Europe, including the Baltic states, are superimposed on a certain strengthening of Eurocentrism and independence of Western European integration structures, a more pronounced manifestation of sentiments in a number of European countries, not always coinciding with the US strategic line. The dynamics of China's economic strengthening and the increase in its foreign policy activity, Japan's search for a more independent place in world politics befitting its economic power are causing shifts in the geopolitical situation in the Asia-Pacific region. The objective increase in the share of the United States in world affairs after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union is to a certain extent offset by the increased independence of other “poles” and a certain strengthening of isolationist sentiments in American society.

In the new conditions, with the end of the confrontation between the two “camps” of the Cold War, the coordinates of foreign policy activities and a large group of states that were previously part of the “Third World” have changed. The Non-Aligned Movement has lost its former content, the stratification of the South and the differentiation of the attitude of the resulting groups and individual states towards the North, which is also not monolithic, has accelerated.

Another dimension of multipolarity can be considered regionalism. With all their diversity, unequal rates of development and degree of integration, regional groupings bring additional features to the change in the geopolitical map of the world. Supporters of the “civilizational” school tend to view multipolarity from the angle of interaction or collision of cultural and civilizational blocs. According to the most fashionable representative of this school, the American scientist S. Huntington, the ideological bipolarity of the Cold War will be replaced by a clash of multipolar cultural and civilizational blocs: Western - Judeo-Christian, Islamic, Confucian, Slavic-Orthodox, Hindu, Japanese, Latin American and, possibly, African. Indeed, regional processes are developing against different civilizational backgrounds. But the likelihood of a fundamental division of the world community precisely on this basis at the moment seems very speculative and has not yet been supported by any specific institutional or policy-forming realities. Even the confrontation between Islamic “fundamentalism” and Western civilization loses its severity over time.

More materialized is economic regionalism in the form of a highly integrated European Union, other regional formations of varying degrees of integration - Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, ASEAN, the North American Free Trade Area, and similar formations emerging in Latin America and South Asia. Although in a slightly modified form, regional political institutions retain their importance, for example, the Organization of Latin American States, the Organization of African Unity, etc. They are complemented by such interregional multifunctional structures as the North Atlantic Partnership, the US-Japan link, the trilateral structure of North America-Western Europe-Japan in the form of the “seven”, to which the Russian Federation is gradually joining.

In short, since the end of the Cold War, the geopolitical map of the world has undergone obvious changes. But multipolarity explains the form rather than the essence of the new system of international interaction. Does multipolarity mean the full restoration of the traditional driving forces of world politics and the motivations for the behavior of its subjects in the international arena, characteristic to a greater or lesser extent of all stages of the Westphalian system?

The events of recent years do not yet confirm this logic of a multipolar world. First, the United States is behaving much more restrainedly than it could afford under the logic of the balance of power given its current position in the economic, technological and military fields. Secondly, with a certain autonomy of the poles in the Western world, the emergence of new, any radical dividing lines of confrontation between North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region is not visible. With a slight increase in the level of anti-American rhetoric in the Russian and Chinese political elites, the more fundamental interests of both powers are pushing them to further develop relations with the United States. NATO expansion did not strengthen centripetal tendencies in the CIS, which should be expected according to the laws of a multipolar world. An analysis of the interaction between the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the G8 shows that the area of ​​convergence of their interests is much wider than the area of ​​disagreement, despite all the outward drama of the latter.

Based on this, it can be assumed that the behavior of the world community is beginning to be influenced by new driving forces, different from those that traditionally operated within the framework of the Westphalian system. In order to test this thesis, it would be necessary to consider new factors that are beginning to influence the behavior of the world community.

Global Democratic Wave

At the turn of the 80s - 90s, the global socio-political space changed qualitatively. The refusal of the peoples of the Soviet Union and most other countries of the former “socialist commonwealth” from the one-party system of government and central economic planning in favor of market democracy meant the cessation of the largely global confrontation between antagonistic socio-political systems and a significant increase in the share of open societies in world politics. A unique feature in history of the self-liquidation of communism is the peaceful nature of this process, which was not accompanied, as usually happened with such a radical change in the socio-political system, by any serious military or revolutionary cataclysms. In a significant part of the Eurasian space - in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the territory of the former Soviet Union, in principle, a consensus has developed in favor of a democratic form of socio-political structure. If the process of reforming these states, primarily Russia (due to its potential), is successfully completed, into open societies in most of the northern hemisphere - Europe, North America, Eurasia - a community of peoples will be formed, living according to similar socio-political and economic principles, professing similar values, including in approaches to the processes of global world politics.

A natural consequence of the end of the largely confrontation between the “first” and “second” worlds was the weakening and then the cessation of support for authoritarian regimes - clients of the two camps that fought during the Cold War in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Since one of the main advantages of such regimes for the East and West was, respectively, an “anti-imperialist” or “anti-communist” orientation, with the end of the confrontation between the main antagonists, they lost their value as ideological allies and, as a result, lost material and political support. The fall of individual regimes of this kind in Somalia, Liberia, and Afghanistan was followed by the disintegration of these states and civil war. Most other countries, for example Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Zaire, began to move away from authoritarianism, albeit at different rates. This further reduced the latter's global field.

The 1980s, especially their second half, saw a large-scale process of democratization on all continents not directly related to the end of the Cold War. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile moved from military-authoritarian to civilian parliamentary forms of government. Somewhat later, this trend spread to Central America. It is indicative of the outcome of this process that the 34 leaders who attended the summit of the Americas in December 1994 (Cuba did not receive an invitation) were democratically elected civilian leaders of their countries. Similar processes of democratization, of course, with Asian specifics, were observed at that time in the Asia-Pacific region - in the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. In 1988, an elected government replaced the military regime in Pakistan. A major breakthrough to democracy not only for the African continent was South Africa's abandonment of the apartheid policy. Elsewhere in Africa, the move away from authoritarianism has been slower. However, the fall of the most odious dictatorial regimes in Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire, and some progress in democratic reforms in Ghana, Benin, Kenya, and Zimbabwe indicate that the wave of democratization has not bypassed this continent.

It should be noted that democracy has quite different degrees of maturity. This is clearly evident in the evolution of democratic societies from the French and American revolutions to the present day. The primary forms of democracy in the form of regular multi-party elections, for example, in a number of African countries or in some of the newly independent states in the territory of the former USSR, differ significantly from the forms of mature democracies, say, of the Western European type. Even the most advanced democracies are imperfect, based on Lincoln’s definition of democracy: “government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of the people.” But it is also obvious that there is also a demarcation line between types of democracies and authoritarianism, which determines the qualitative difference between the domestic and foreign policies of societies located on both sides of it.

The global process of changing socio-political models took place in the late 80s - early 90s in different countries from different starting positions, had unequal depth, its results in some cases are ambiguous, and there are not always guarantees against relapses of authoritarianism. But the scale of this process, its simultaneous development in a number of countries, the fact that for the first time in history the field of democracy covers more than half of humanity and the territories of the globe, and most importantly, the most powerful states in economic, scientific, technical and military terms - all this makes it possible to do conclusion about a qualitative change in the socio-political field of the world community. The democratic form of organization of societies does not eliminate contradictions and sometimes acute conflict situations between the respective states. For example, the fact that parliamentary forms of government are currently functioning in India and Pakistan, Greece and Turkey does not exclude dangerous tension in their relations. The significant distance Russia has traveled from communism to democracy does not negate disagreements with European states and the United States, say, on issues of NATO expansion or the use of military force against the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. But the fact is that throughout history, democracies have never fought with each other.

Much, of course, depends on the definition of the concepts “democracy” and “war”. Typically, a state is considered democratic if the executive and legislative branches are formed through competitive elections. This means that such elections involve at least two independent parties, there is voting rights for at least half of the adult population, and there has been at least one peaceful constitutional transfer of power from one party to another. In contrast to incidents, border clashes, crises, and civil wars, international wars are considered military actions between states with combat losses of the armed forces of more than 1000 people.

Research of all hypothetical exceptions to this pattern throughout world history from the war between Syracuse and Athens in the 5th century. BC e. up to the present day, they only confirm the fact that democracies fight with authoritarian regimes and often start such conflicts, but they have never brought contradictions with other democratic states to war. It must be admitted that there are certain grounds for skepticism among those who point out that during the years of the Westphalian system, the field of interaction between democratic states was relatively narrow and their peaceful interaction was influenced by the general confrontation of a superior or equal group of authoritarian states. It is not yet entirely clear how democratic states will behave towards each other in the absence or qualitative reduction of the scale of the threat from authoritarian states.

If, nevertheless, the pattern of peaceful interaction between democratic states is not violated in the 21st century, then the expansion of the field of democracy currently taking place in the world will mean an expansion of the global zone of peace. This, apparently, is the first and main qualitative difference between the new emerging system of international relations and the classical Westphalian system, within which the predominance of authoritarian states predetermined the frequency of wars both between them and with the participation of democratic countries.

The qualitative change in the relationship between democracy and authoritarianism on a global scale gave the American researcher F. Fukuyama grounds to proclaim the final victory of democracy and, in this sense, to declare the “completion of history” as a struggle between historical formations. However, it appears that the large-scale promotion of democracy at the turn of the century does not yet mean its complete victory. Communism as a socio-political system, although with certain changes, survived in China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and Cuba. His legacy is felt in several countries of the former Soviet Union, in Serbia.

With the possible exception of North Korea, all other socialist countries are introducing elements of a market economy and are being drawn into the world economic system in one way or another. The practice of relations of some surviving communist states with other countries is governed by the principles of “peaceful coexistence” rather than “class struggle.” The ideological charge of communism is focused more on domestic consumption; pragmatism is increasingly taking over in foreign policy. Partial economic reform and openness to international economic relations are generating social forces that require a corresponding expansion of political freedoms. But the dominant one-party system works in the opposite direction. As a result, there is a “seesaw” effect moving from liberalism to authoritarianism and back. In China, for example, it was a movement from the pragmatic reforms of Deng Xiaoping to the violent suppression of student protests in Tiananmen Square, then from a new wave of liberalization to tightening the screws, and again to pragmatism.

Experience of the 20th century shows that the communist system inevitably reproduces a foreign policy that conflicts with the policies generated by democratic societies. Of course, the fact of radical differences between socio-political systems does not necessarily determine the inevitability of military conflict. But it is equally justified to assume that the presence of this contradiction does not exclude such a conflict and does not allow us to hope for achieving the level of relations that are possible between democratic states.

In the authoritarian sphere, there still remains a significant number of states whose socio-political model is determined either by the inertia of personal dictatorships, as, for example, in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or by the anomaly of the prosperity of medieval forms of eastern rule in combination with technological progress in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states , some Maghreb countries. At the same time, the first group is in a state of irreconcilable confrontation with democracy, and the second is ready to cooperate with it until it seeks to shake the socio-political status quo established in these countries. Authoritarian structures, albeit in modified form, have taken hold in a number of post-Soviet states, for example in Turkmenistan.

A special place among authoritarian regimes is occupied by countries of “Islamic statehood” of an extremist persuasion - Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan. The international movement of Islamic political extremism, known under the not entirely correct name “Islamic fundamentalism,” gives them a unique potential for influencing world politics. This revolutionary ideological movement, which rejects Western democracy as a way of life of society, allowing terror and violence as a means of implementing the doctrine of “Islamic statehood,” has become widespread in recent years among the population in most countries of the Middle East and other states with a high percentage of Muslim populations.

Unlike the surviving communist regimes, which (with the exception of North Korea) are looking for ways of rapprochement with democratic states, at least in the economic field, and whose ideological charge is fading, Islamic political extremism is dynamic, massive and really threatens the stability of the Saudi regimes , Gulf countries, some Maghreb states, Pakistan, Turkey, Central Asia. Of course, when assessing the scale of the challenge of Islamic political extremism, the world community should observe a sense of proportion, take into account the opposition to it in the Muslim world, for example, from secular and military structures in Algeria, Egypt, the dependence of the countries of the new Islamic statehood on the world economy, as well as signs of certain erosion extremism in Iran.

The persistence and possibility of increasing the number of authoritarian regimes does not exclude the possibility of military clashes both between them and with the democratic world. Apparently, it is in the sector of authoritarian regimes and in the zone of contact between the latter and the world of democracy that the most dangerous processes fraught with military conflicts can develop in the future. The “gray” zone of states that have moved away from authoritarianism but have not yet completed democratic transformations also remains conflict-free. However, the general trend, which has clearly emerged recently, still indicates a qualitative change in the global socio-political field in favor of democracy, as well as the fact that authoritarianism is waging rearguard historical battles. Of course, the study of further ways of developing international relations should include a more thorough analysis of the patterns of relations between countries that have reached different stages of democratic maturity, the influence of democratic predominance in the world on the behavior of authoritarian regimes, etc.

Global economic organism

The socio-political changes in the global economic system are also commensurate with these changes. The fundamental refusal of the majority of former socialist countries from centralized economic planning meant the inclusion in the global system of a market economy of the large-scale potential and markets of these countries in the 90s. The talk, however, was about ending the confrontation not between two approximately equal blocs, as was the case in the military-political field. The economic structures of socialism have never presented any serious competition to the Western economic system. At the end of the 80s, the share of CMEA member countries in the gross world product was about 9%, and that of industrialized capitalist countries - 57%. Most of the Third World economy was market oriented. Therefore, the process of including former socialist economies into the world economy had rather a long-term significance and symbolized the completion of the formation or restoration at a new level of a unified global economic system. Qualitative changes were accumulating in the market system even before the end of the Cold War.

In the 80s, there was a broad breakthrough in the world towards the liberalization of the world economy - reducing state guardianship over the economy, providing greater freedoms to private enterprise within countries and abandoning protectionism in relations with foreign partners, which, however, did not exclude assistance from the state in entering world markets. It was these factors that primarily provided the economies of a number of countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, with unprecedentedly high growth rates. The crisis that has recently struck a number of countries in Southeast Asia, according to many economists, was a consequence of the “overheating” of economies as a result of their rapid takeoff while maintaining archaic political structures that distort economic liberalization. Economic reforms in Turkey contributed to the rapid modernization of this country. In the early 90s, the liberalization process spread to Latin American countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico. The abandonment of strict state planning, the reduction of the budget deficit, the privatization of large banks and state-owned enterprises, and the reduction of customs tariffs allowed them to sharply increase the rate of economic growth and take second place in this indicator after the countries of East Asia. At the same time, similar reforms, although of a much less radical nature, are beginning to make their way in India. The 1990s saw tangible benefits from China's opening up to the outside world.

The logical consequence of these processes was a significant intensification of international interaction between national economies. The growth rate of international trade exceeds the global rate of domestic economic growth. Today, more than 15% of the world's gross product is sold in foreign markets. Involvement in international trade has become a serious and universal factor in the growth of the welfare of the world community. The completion of the GATT Uruguay Round in 1994, which provided for further significant reductions in tariffs and the extension of trade liberalization to service flows, and the transformation of GATT into the World Trade Organization marked the emergence of international trade to a qualitatively new level and the increased interdependence of the world economic system.

In the last decade, a significantly intensified process of internationalization of financial capital has developed in the same direction. This was especially evident in the intensification of international investment flows, which since 1995 have been growing faster than trade and production. This was the result of a significant change in the investment climate in the world. Democratization, political stabilization and economic liberalization in many regions have made them more attractive to foreign investors. On the other hand, there has been a psychological turning point in many developing countries, which have realized that attracting foreign capital is a springboard for development, facilitating access to international markets and access to the latest technologies. This, of course, required a partial renunciation of absolute economic sovereignty and meant increased competition for a number of domestic industries. But the examples of the Asian Tigers and China have prompted most developing countries and countries with economies in transition to join the competition to attract investment. In the mid-90s, the volume of foreign investment exceeded 2 trillion. dollars and continues to grow rapidly. Organizationally, this trend is consolidated by a noticeable increase in the activity of international banks, investment funds and securities exchanges. Another facet of this process is the significant expansion of the field of activity of transnational corporations, which today control about a third of the assets of all private companies in the world, and the volume of sales of their products is approaching the gross product of the US economy.

Undoubtedly, promoting the interests of domestic companies in the global market still remains one of the main tasks of any state. Despite all the liberalization of international economic relations, interethnic contradictions, as shown by the often violent disputes between the United States and Japan over trade imbalances or with the European Union over their subsidies to agriculture, remain. But it is obvious that with the current degree of interdependence of the world economy, almost no state can oppose its selfish interests to the world community, since it risks finding itself in the role of a global outcast or undermining the existing system with equally disastrous results not only for competitors, but also for its own economy.

The process of internationalization and increasing interdependence of the world economic system occurs in two planes - in the global and in the plane of regional integration. In theory, regional integration could spur interregional rivalry. But today this danger is limited to some new properties of the world economic system. First of all, the openness of new regional formations - they do not erect additional tariff barriers on their periphery, but remove them in relations between participants faster than tariffs are reduced globally within the WTO. This is an incentive for a further, more radical reduction of barriers on a global scale, including between regional economic structures. In addition, some countries are members of several regional groupings. For example, the USA, Canada, and Mexico fully participate in both APEC and NAFTA. And the vast majority of transnational corporations simultaneously operate in the orbits of all existing regional organizations.

New qualities of the world economic system - the rapid expansion of the market economy zone, the liberalization of national economies and their interaction through trade and international investment, the cosmopolitanization of an increasing number of entities in the world economy - TNCs, banks, investment groups - have a serious impact on world politics and international relations. The world economy is becoming so interconnected and interdependent that the interests of all its active participants require maintaining stability not only economically, but also military-politically. Some scientists refer to the fact that the high degree of interaction in the European economy at the beginning of the 20th century. did not prevent unraveling. The First World War ignores a qualitatively new level of interdependence of today's world economy and the cosmopolitanization of its significant segment, a radical change in the ratio of economic and military factors in world politics. But the most significant, including for the formation of a new system of international relations, is the fact that the process of creating a new world economic community interacts with democratic transformations of the socio-political field. In addition, recently the globalization of the world economy has increasingly played the role of a stabilizer of world politics and the security sphere. This influence is especially noticeable in the behavior of a number of authoritarian states and societies moving from authoritarianism to democracy. The large-scale and increasing dependence of the economies of, for example, China and a number of newly independent states on world markets, investments, and technologies forces them to adjust their positions on political and military problems of international life.

Naturally, the global economic horizon is not cloudless. The main problem remains the gap between industrialized countries and a significant number of developing or economically stagnant countries. Globalization processes primarily affect the community of developed countries. In recent years, the trend towards a progressive widening of this gap has intensified. According to many economists, a significant number of African countries and a number of other states, such as Bangladesh, are “forever” behind. For a large group of developing economies, particularly Latin America, their attempts to get closer to world leaders are hampered by huge external debt and the need to service it. A special case is represented by economies making the transition from a centrally planned system to a market model. Their entry into world markets for goods, services, and capital is especially painful.

There are two opposing hypotheses regarding the impact of this gap, conventionally designated as the gap between the new North and South, on world politics. Many international experts see this long-term phenomenon as the main source of future conflicts and even attempts by the South to forcibly redistribute the economic wealth of the world. Indeed, the current serious lag behind the leading powers in such indicators as the share of GDP in the world economy or per capita income will require, say, Russia (which accounts for about 1.5% of the world's gross product), India, Ukraine, several decades of development at rates several times higher than the world average, in order to get closer to the level of the USA, Japan, Germany and not lag behind China. At the same time, we must keep in mind that today's leading countries will not stand still. In the same way, it is difficult to assume that in the foreseeable future any new regional economic grouping - the CIS or, say, emerging in South America - will be able to approach the EU, APEC, NAFTA, each of which accounts for over 20% of the gross world product, world trade and finance.

According to another point of view, the internationalization of the world economy, the weakening charge of economic nationalism, the fact that economic interaction between states ceases to be a zero-sum game, allows us to hope that the economic gap between North and South will not turn into a new source of global confrontation, especially in a situation where, although lagging behind the North in absolute terms, the South will still develop, increasing its well-being. Here, perhaps, an analogy with the modus vivendi between large and medium-sized companies within national economies is appropriate: medium-sized companies do not necessarily face antagonistic relationships with leading corporations and strive to bridge the gap between them by any means. Much depends on the organizational and legal environment in which the business operates, in this case the global one.

The combination of liberalization and globalization of the world economy, along with obvious benefits, also carries hidden threats. The goal of competition among corporations and financial institutions is profit, not the preservation of the stability of a market economy. Liberalization reduces restrictions on competition, and globalization expands its scope. As the latest financial crisis in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Russia, which affected markets around the world, showed, the new state of the world economy means the globalization of not only positive, but also negative trends. Understanding this forces world financial institutions to save the economic systems of South Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia. But these one-off operations only highlight the ongoing contradiction between the benefits of liberal globalism and the cost of maintaining the sustainability of the world economy. Apparently, the globalization of risks will require the globalization of their management and the improvement of such structures as the WTO, the IMF and the group of seven leading industrial powers. It is also obvious that the growing cosmopolitan sector of the global economy is less accountable to the world community than national economies are to states.

Be that as it may, the new stage of world politics is definitely bringing its economic component to the forefront. Thus, it can be assumed that the unification of greater Europe is ultimately hampered not by clashes of interests in the military-political field, but by a serious economic gap between the EU, on the one hand, and post-communist countries, on the other. Similarly, the main logic of the development of international relations, for example, in the Asia-Pacific region, is dictated not so much by considerations of military security, but by economic challenges and opportunities. Over the past few years, international economic institutions such as the G7, WTO, IMF and World Bank, the governing bodies of the EU, APEC, NAFTA, have clearly been compared in their influence on world politics with the Security Council, the UN General Assembly, regional political organizations, and military alliances. , and often surpass them. Thus, the economization of world politics and the formation of a new quality of the world economy are becoming another main parameter of the system of international relations that is emerging today.

New military security parameters

No matter how paradoxical the assumption about the development of a trend towards demilitarization of the world community in the light of the latest dramatic conflict in the Balkans, tensions in the Persian Gulf region, and the instability of non-proliferation regimes of weapons of mass destruction may seem at first glance, it still has grounds for serious consideration in the long term .

The end of the Cold War coincided with a radical change in the place and role of the military security factor in world politics. In the late 80s - 90s, there was a large-scale reduction in the global potential for military confrontation of the Cold War. Since the second half of the 1980s, global defense spending has been steadily declining. Within the framework of international treaties and through unilateral initiatives, an unprecedented reduction in nuclear missiles, conventional weapons and personnel of the armed forces is being carried out. The reduction in the level of military confrontation was facilitated by the significant redeployment of armed forces to national territories, the development of confidence-building measures and positive interaction in the military field. The process of conversion of a large part of the global military-industrial complex is underway. The parallel intensification of limited conflicts on the periphery of the central military confrontation of the Cold War, with all their drama and “surprise” against the background of the peaceful euphoria characteristic of the late 80s, in scale and consequences cannot be compared with the leading trend of demilitarization of world politics.

The development of this trend has several fundamental reasons. The prevailing democratic monotype of the world community, as well as the internationalization of the world economy, are reducing the nutritious political and economic environment of the global institution of war. An equally important factor is the revolutionary significance of the nature of nuclear weapons, irrefutably proven throughout the course of the Cold War.

The creation of nuclear weapons meant, in broad terms, the disappearance of the possibility of victory for any of the parties, which throughout the entire previous history of mankind was an indispensable condition for waging war. Back in 1946 American scientist B. Brody drew attention to this qualitative characteristic of nuclear weapons and expressed his firm conviction that in the future their only task and function will be to deter war. Some time later, this axiom was confirmed by A.D. Sakharov. Throughout the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union tried to find ways around this revolutionary reality. Both sides made active attempts to break the nuclear stalemate by building up and improving nuclear missile capabilities, developing sophisticated strategies for its use, and, finally, approaches to creating anti-missile systems. Fifty years later, having created about 25 thousand strategic nuclear warheads alone, the nuclear powers came to the inevitable conclusion: the use of nuclear weapons means not only the destruction of the enemy, but also guaranteed suicide. Moreover, the prospect of nuclear escalation has sharply limited the possibility of the opposing sides using conventional weapons. Nuclear weapons made the Cold War a type of “forced peace” between nuclear powers.

The experience of nuclear confrontation during the Cold War, radical reductions in the nuclear missile arsenals of the United States and the Russian Federation in accordance with the START-1, START-2 treaties, the renunciation of nuclear weapons by Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, the agreement in principle between the Russian Federation and the United States on further deeper nuclear reductions charges and means of their delivery, the restraint of Great Britain, France and China in the development of their national nuclear potentials allow us to conclude that the leading powers recognize, in principle, the futility of nuclear weapons as a means of achieving victory or an effective means of influencing world politics. Although today it is difficult to imagine a situation where one of the powers could use nuclear weapons, the possibility of using them as a last resort or as a result of error still remains. In addition, the retention of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, even in the process of radical reductions, increases the “negative significance” of the state that possesses them. For example, concerns (regardless of their validity) regarding the safety of nuclear materials on the territory of the former Soviet Union further increase the attention of the world community to its legal successors, including the Russian Federation.

There are several fundamental obstacles to general nuclear disarmament. The complete renunciation of nuclear weapons also means the disappearance of their main function - deterring war, including conventional war. In addition, a number of powers, such as Russia or China, may view the presence of nuclear weapons as a temporary compensation for the relative weakness of their conventional weapons capabilities, and, together with Great Britain and France, as a political symbol of great power. Finally, the fact that even minimal nuclear weapons can serve as an effective means of deterring war has also been learned by other countries, especially those in a state of local cold wars with their neighbors, for example, Israel, India, and Pakistan.

The testing of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan in the spring of 1998 cements the stalemate in the confrontation between these countries. It can be assumed that the legalization of nuclear status by long-time rivals will force them to more energetically seek ways to fundamentally resolve the long-standing conflict. On the other hand, the not entirely adequate reaction of the world community to such a blow to the nonproliferation regime may create a temptation for other “threshold” states to follow the example of Delhi and Islamabad. This would lead to a domino effect, whereby the likelihood of unauthorized or irrational deployment of nuclear weapons could outweigh their deterrent capabilities.

Some dictatorial regimes, taking into account the results of the wars for the Falklands, in the Persian Gulf, and in the Balkans, not only realized the futility of confrontation with leading powers possessing qualitative superiority in the field of conventional weapons, but also came to understand that the possession of weapons of mass destruction. Thus, in the nuclear sphere, two medium-term tasks really come to the fore - strengthening the system of non-proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and at the same time determining the functional parameters and the minimum sufficient size of the nuclear potentials of the powers that possess them.

Tasks in the field of preserving and strengthening non-proliferation regimes are today pushing aside in terms of priority the classic problem of reducing strategic arms of the Russian Federation and the United States. The long-term task remains to continue to clarify the feasibility and search for ways to move towards a nuclear-free world in the context of a new world policy.

The dialectical link connecting the non-proliferation regimes of weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery systems, on the one hand, with control over the strategic arms of “traditional” nuclear powers, on the other, is the problem of missile defense and the fate of the ABM Treaty. The prospect of creating nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, as well as medium-range missiles, and in the near future intercontinental missiles by a number of states, brings the problem of protection against such a danger to the center of strategic thinking. The United States has already outlined its preferred solution - the creation of a “thin” missile defense system for the country, as well as regional missile defense systems for theaters of military operations, in particular in the Asia-Pacific region - against North Korean missiles, and in the Middle East - against Iranian missiles. Such anti-missile potentials, deployed unilaterally, would devalue the nuclear missile deterrence potentials of the Russian Federation and China, which could lead to the desire of the latter to compensate for the change in the strategic balance by building up their own nuclear missile weapons with the inevitable destabilization of the global strategic situation.

Another pressing problem is the phenomenon of local conflicts. The end of the Cold War was accompanied by a noticeable intensification of local conflicts. Most of them were, rather, domestic than international, in the sense that the contradictions that caused them were associated with separatism, the struggle for power or territory within one state. Most of the conflicts were the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the aggravation of national-ethnic contradictions, the manifestation of which had previously been restrained by authoritarian systems or the bloc discipline of the Cold War. Other conflicts, for example in Africa, were the result of weakened statehood and economic devastation. The third category is long-term “traditional” conflicts in the Middle East, in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, around Kashmir, which survived the end of the Cold War, or flared up again, as happened in Cambodia.

With all the drama of local conflicts at the turn of the 80s - 90s, over time, the severity of most of them subsided somewhat, as, for example, in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and finally in Tajikistan . This is partly explained by the gradual awareness by the conflicting parties of the high cost and futility of a military solution to problems, and in many cases this trend was reinforced by peace enforcement (as was the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Transnistria), and other peacekeeping efforts with the participation of international organizations - the UN, OSCE, CIS. True, in several cases, for example in Somalia and Afghanistan, such efforts did not produce the desired results. This trend is reinforced by serious progress towards a peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as between Pretoria and the front-line states. The corresponding conflicts served as a breeding ground for instability in the Middle East and southern Africa.

The overall global picture of local armed conflicts is also changing. In 1989, there were 36 major conflicts in 32 districts, and in 1995, 30 such conflicts were reported in 25 districts. Some of them, for example, the mutual extermination of the Tutsi and Hutu peoples in East Africa, take on the character of genocide. A real assessment of the scale and dynamics of “new” conflicts is hampered by their emotional perception. They broke out in those regions that were considered (without sufficient grounds) traditionally stable. In addition, they arose at a time when the world community believed in the absence of conflict in world politics after the end of the Cold War. An impartial comparison of the “new” conflicts with the “old” ones that raged during the Cold War in Asia, Africa, Central America, the Near and Middle East, despite the scale of the latest conflict in the Balkans, allows us to draw a more balanced conclusion regarding the long-term trend.

More relevant today are armed operations undertaken under the leadership of leading Western countries, primarily the United States, against countries that are believed to violate international law, democratic or humanitarian norms. The most obvious examples are operations against Iraq to stop aggression against Kuwait, enforcement of peace at the final stage of the internal conflict in Bosnia, restoration of the rule of law in Haiti and Somalia. These operations were carried out with the approval of the UN Security Council. A special place is occupied by the large-scale military operation undertaken by NATO unilaterally without coordination with the UN against Yugoslavia in connection with the situation in which the Albanian population found itself in Kosovo. The significance of the latter lies in the fact that it calls into question the principles of the global political and legal regime, as it was enshrined in the UN Charter.

The global reduction of military arsenals has more clearly outlined the qualitative gap in armaments between the leading military powers and the rest of the world. The Falklands conflict at the end of the Cold War, followed by the Gulf War and operations in Bosnia and Serbia, clearly demonstrated this gap. Progress in miniaturization and increasing the destruction capability of conventional warheads, improvement of guidance, control, command and control and reconnaissance systems, electronic warfare systems, and increased mobility are rightfully considered decisive factors in modern warfare. In Cold War terms, the balance of military power between North and South shifted further in favor of the former.

Undoubtedly, against this background, there is an increase in the material capabilities of the United States to influence the development of the situation in the field of military security in most regions of the world. Abstracting from the nuclear factor, we can say: financial capabilities, high quality weapons, the ability to quickly transport large contingents of troops and arsenals of weapons over long distances, a powerful presence in the World Ocean, the preservation of the basic infrastructure of bases and military alliances - all this has turned the United States into a the only global power militarily. The fragmentation of the military potential of the USSR during its collapse, a deep and long-term economic crisis that painfully affected the army and the military-industrial complex, the slow pace of reform of the weapons forces, and the virtual absence of reliable allies limited the military capabilities of the Russian Federation to the Eurasian space. The systematic, long-term modernization of China's armed forces suggests a significant increase in its ability to project military power in the Asia-Pacific region in the future. Despite attempts by some Western European countries to play a more active military role outside the NATO area of ​​responsibility, as was the case during the Gulf War or peacekeeping operations in Africa and the Balkans, and as proclaimed for the future in the new NATO strategic doctrine, the parameters The military potential of Western Europe itself, without American participation, remains largely regional. All other countries of the world, for various reasons, can only count on the fact that the military potential of each of them will be one of the regional factors.

The new situation in the field of global military security is generally determined by the tendency to limit the use of war in the classical sense. But at the same time, new forms of the use of force are emerging, for example “operations for humanitarian reasons.” Combined with changes in the socio-political and economic fields, such processes in the military sphere have a serious impact on the formation of a new system of international relations.

Cosmopolitanization of world politics

The change in the traditional Westphalian system of international relations today affects not only the content of world politics, but also the circle of its subjects. If for three and a half centuries states were the dominant participants in international relations, and world politics was mainly interstate politics, then in recent years they have been crowded out by transnational companies, international private financial institutions, non-governmental public organizations that do not have a specific nationality, and are largely cosmopolitan.

Economic giants, which previously could easily be attributed to the economic structures of a particular country, have lost this link, since their financial capital is transnational, managers are representatives of different nationalities, enterprises, headquarters and marketing systems are often located on different continents. Many of them can raise not the national flag on the flagpole, but only their own corporation flag. To a greater or lesser extent, the process of cosmopolitanization, or “offshorization,” has affected all major corporations in the world. Accordingly, their patriotism in relation to a particular state has decreased. The behavior of the transnational community of world financial centers often turns out to be as influential as the decisions of the IMF and the G7.

Today, the international non-governmental organization Greenpeace effectively plays the role of a “global environmental policeman” and often sets priorities in this area that most states are forced to accept. The public organization Amnesty International has significantly more influence than the interstate UN Center for Human Rights. The television company CNN refused to use the term “foreign” in its programs, since most countries in the world are “domestic” for it. The authority of world churches and religious associations is significantly expanding and growing. An increasing number of people were born in one country, have citizenship in another, and live and work in a third. It is often easier for a person to communicate via the Internet with people living on other continents than with neighbors at home. Cosmopolitanization has also affected the worst part of the human community - organizations of international terrorism, crime, and drug mafias do not know their homeland, and their influence on world affairs remains at an all-time high.

All this undermines one of the most important foundations of the Westphalian system - sovereignty, the right of the state to act as the supreme judge within national borders and the sole representative of the nation in international affairs. The voluntary transfer of part of sovereignty to interstate institutions in the process of regional integration or within the framework of international organizations such as the OSCE, the Council of Europe, etc., has been complemented in recent years by the spontaneous process of its “diffusion” on a global scale.

There is a point of view according to which the international community is moving to a higher level of world politics, with the long-term prospect of forming the United States of the World. Or, to put it in modern language, it is moving towards a system similar in its spontaneous and democratic principles of construction and functioning to the Internet. Obviously, this is too fantastic a forecast. The European Union should probably be considered as a prototype of the future system of world politics. Be that as it may, we can say with full confidence that the globalization of world politics and the growing share of the cosmopolitan component in it will in the near future require states to seriously reconsider their place and role in the activities of the world community.

Increasing transparency of borders, increasing the intensification of transnational communication, and the technological capabilities of the information revolution lead to the globalization of processes in the spiritual sphere of life of the world community. Globalization in other areas has led to a certain erasure of national characteristics of everyday lifestyle, tastes, and fashion. The new quality of international political and economic processes and the situation in the field of military security opens up additional opportunities and stimulates the search for a new quality of life in the spiritual field. Already today the doctrine of the priority of human rights over national sovereignty can be considered universal, with rare exceptions. The completion of the global ideological struggle between capitalism and communism allowed us to take a fresh look at the spiritual values ​​dominating the world, the relationship between the rights of an individual and the well-being of society, national and global ideas. Recently, criticism of the negative features of consumer society and the culture of hedonism has been growing in the West, and a search is underway for ways to combine individualism and a new model of moral revival. The direction of the search for a new morality of the world community is evidenced, for example, by the call of the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel to revive “the natural, unique and inimitable sense of the world, the elementary sense of justice, the ability to understand things in the same way as others, a sense of increased responsibility, wisdom, good taste, courage, compassion and faith in the importance of simple actions that do not pretend to be the universal key to salvation.”

The tasks of a moral renaissance are among the first on the agenda of the world churches and the policies of a number of leading states. Of great importance is the result of the search for a new national idea that combines specific and universal values, a process that occurs essentially in all post-communist societies. It has been suggested that in the 21st century. the ability of a particular state to ensure the spiritual flourishing of its society will be no less important for determining its place and role in the world community than material well-being and military power.

Globalization and cosmopolitanization of the world community are determined not only by the opportunities associated with new processes in its life, but also by the challenges of recent decades. We are talking primarily about such planetary tasks as protecting the global ecological system, regulating global migration flows, and tensions that periodically arise in connection with population growth and the limited natural resources of the globe. It is obvious - and this has been confirmed by practice - that solving such problems requires a planetary approach adequate to their scale, mobilizing the efforts of not only national governments, but also non-governmental transnational organizations of the world community.

To summarize, we can say that the process of formation of a single world community, a global wave of democratization, a new quality of the world economy, radical demilitarization and a change in the vector of the use of force, the emergence of new, non-state, subjects of world politics, the internationalization of the spiritual sphere of human activity and challenges to the world community give grounds to suggest the formation of a new system of international relations, different not only from that that existed during the Cold War, but in many ways from the traditional Westphalian system. Apparently, the end of the Cold War did not give rise to new trends in world politics - it only strengthened them. Rather, it was the new, transcendental processes in the field of politics, economics, security and the spiritual sphere that emerged during the Cold War that blew up the previous system of international relations and formed its new quality.

In the world science of international relations there is currently no unity regarding the essence and driving forces of the new system of international relations. This is apparently explained by the fact that today world politics is characterized by a clash of traditional and new, hitherto unknown factors. Nationalism fights internationalism, geopolitics fights global universalism. Such fundamental concepts as “power”, “influence”, “national interests” are being transformed. The circle of subjects of international relations is expanding and the motivation for their behavior is changing. The new content of world politics requires new organizational forms. It is still premature to talk about the birth of a new system of international relations as a completed process. It is perhaps more realistic to talk about the main trends in the formation of the future world order, its growth from the previous system of international relations.

As with any analysis, in this case it is important to observe the measure in assessing the relationship between the traditional and the newly emerging. A roll in any direction distorts the perspective. Nevertheless, even a somewhat exaggerated emphasis on new trends in the future that is emerging today is now methodologically more justified than an obsession with attempts to explain emerging unknown phenomena solely with the help of traditional concepts. There is no doubt that the stage of fundamental demarcation between new and old approaches should be followed by a stage of synthesis of the new and the unchanged in modern international life. It is important to correctly determine the relationship between national and global factors, the new place of the state in the world community, and to balance such traditional categories as geopolitics, nationalism, power, national interests with new transnational processes and regimes. States that have correctly identified the long-term perspective of the formation of a new system of international relations can count on greater effectiveness of their efforts, while those that continue to act based on traditional ideas risk finding themselves at the tail end of world progress.

Gadzhiev K. S. Introduction to geopolitics. - M., 1997.

Global social and political changes in the world. Materials of the Russian-American seminar (Moscow, October 23 - 24 / Editor-in-chief A. Yu. Melville. - M., 1997.

Kennedy P. Entering the twenty-first century. - M., 1997.

Kissinger G. Diplomacy. - M., 1997. Pozdnyakov E. A. Geopolitics. - M., 1995.

Huntington S. Clash of Civilizations // Polis. - 1994. - No. 1.

Tsygankov P. A. International relations. - M., 1996.

Lecture 1. Basic parameters of the modern system of international relations

1. Order in the international system at the turn of the 21st century

The end of the Second World War marked an important milestone in the development of the international system in its movement from the plurality of the main players in international politics to a decrease in their number and a tightening of the hierarchy - i.e. relationships of subordination - between them. The multipolar system that emerged during the Westphalian settlement (1648) and persisted (with modifications) for several centuries before the Second World War, it was transformed following its results into a bipolar world dominated by the USA and the USSR . This structure, having existed for more than half a century, gave way in the 1990s to a world in which one “comprehensive leader” survived - the United States of America.

How to describe this new organization of international relations in terms of polarity? Without clarifying the differences between multi-, bi- and unipolarity, it is impossible to answer this question correctly. Under The multipolar structure of international relations is understood as the organization of the world, which is characterized by the presence of several (four or more) most influential states, comparable to each other in terms of the total potential of their complex (economic, political, military-power and cultural-ideological) influence on international relations.

Respectively, for bipolar structure Typical is the gap between only two members of the international community (in the post-war years - the Soviet Union and the United States) from all other countries of the world in terms of this aggregate indicator for each of the powers. Consequently, if there was a gap between not two, but only one world power in terms of the potential of its complex influence on world affairs, i.e. the influence of any other countries is incomparably less than the influence of a single leader, then like this the international structure must be considered unipolar.

The modern system has not become the “American world” - Pax Americana. The United States is realizing its leadership ambitions without feeling in a completely defused international environment . Washington policy is influenced by seven other important actors in international politics, around which American diplomacy operates. The circle of seven US partners included Russian Federation- although de facto even then with limited rights. Together, the United States, its allies and the Russian Federation formed the “Group of Eight” - a prestigious and influential informal interstate formation. NATO countries and Japan form groups of “old” members in it, and Russia was the only new one, so it seemed then. However, since 2014, the G8 has reverted to being a G7.

The international system is significantly influenced by non-G8 members China, which since the mid-1990s began to seriously declare itself as a leading world power and achieved at the beginning of the 21st century. impressive economic results.

Against the backdrop of such a balance of capabilities between the leading world powers, it is obviously possible to talk about serious limits to American dominance with a degree of convention. Certainly, modern international system inherent pluralism — key international decisions are made not only by the United States. A relatively wide range of states have access to the process of their formation, both within the UN and outside them. But taking into account the leverage of the United States, the pluralism of the international political process does not change the meaning of the situation:The United States has moved away from the rest of the international community in terms of its capabilities, the consequence of which is the tendency towards the growth of American influence on world affairs.

It is appropriate to assume a deepening trend towards increasing the potential of other world centers - China, India, Russia, united Europe, if the latter is destined to become a politically unified whole. If this trend grows in the future, a new transformation of the international structure is possible, which, it is possible, will acquire a multipolar configuration. In this sense, one should understand the official statements of the leading figures of the Russian Federation about the movement of the modern world towards true multipolarity, in which there will be no place for the hegemony of any one power. But today we have to state something else: the international structure Vmiddle of the first decade of the 21st century. was structuresOuchpluralistic but unipolar world.

The evolution of international relations after 1945 took place within the framework of two successive international orders - first bipolar (1945-1991), then pluralistic-unipolar, which began to take shape after the collapse of the USSR . First known in literature as Yalta-Potsdam- according to the names of two key international conferences (in Yalta on February 4-11 and in Potsdam on July 17 - August 2, 1945), at which the leaders of the three main powers of the anti-Nazi coalition (USSR, USA and Great Britain) agreed on basic approaches to the post-war world order .

Second — has no generally accepted name . Its parameters were not agreed upon at any universal international conference. This order was formed de facto on the basis of a chain of precedents that represented the steps of the West, the most important of which were:

The decision of the US administration in 1993 to promote the spread of democracy in the world (the doctrine of “expansion of democracy”);

The expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance to the east by including new members, which began with the Brussels session of the NATO Council in December 1996, which approved the schedule for admitting new members to the alliance;

The decision of the Paris session of the NATO Council in 1999 to adopt a new strategic concept for the Alliance and expand its area of ​​responsibility beyond the North Atlantic;

The 2003 American-British war against Iraq, which led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

In Russian literature there was an attempt to name a post-bipolar international order Malto-Madrid- at the Soviet-American summit on the island of Malta in December 1989. It was generally accepted that the Soviet leadership confirmed that it had no intention to prevent the Warsaw Pact countries from independently deciding whether to follow or not follow the “path of socialism” , and the Madrid session of NATO in July 1997, when the first three countries that sought admission to the Alliance (Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary) received an official invitation from NATO countries to join them.

Whatever its name, the essence of the current world order is the implementation of a world order project based on the formation of a single economic, political-military and ethical-legal community of the most developed Western countries, and then the spread of the influence of this community to the rest of the world.

This order has actually existed for more than twenty years. Its spread occurs partly peacefully: through the dispersion in various countries and regions of modern Western standards of economic and political life, samples and models of behavior, ideas about ways and means of ensuring national and international security , and in a broader sense - about the categories of good, harm and danger - for their subsequent cultivation and consolidation there. But Western countries are not limited to peaceful means of achieving their goals. In the early 2000s, the United States and some allied countries actively used force to establish elements of an international order that was beneficial to them - on the territory of the former Yugoslavia in 1996 and 1999, in Afghanistan - in 2001-2002, in Iraq - in 1991, 1998 and 2003. , in Libya in 2011

Despite the inherent contradictions in global processes, the modern international order is emerging asthe order of global community, literally global order. Far from complete, imperfect and traumatic for Russia, it took the place of the bipolar structure , which first appeared in the world after the end of World War II in the spring of 1945.

The post-war world order was supposed to be based on the idea of ​​​​cooperation between the victorious powers and maintaining their consent in the interests of such cooperation. The role of the mechanism for developing this consent was assigned to the United Nations, the Charter of which was signed on June 26, 1945 and came into force in October of the same year . He declared the goals of the UN not only to maintain international peace, but also to promote the realization of the rights of countries and peoples to self-determination and free development, encouragement of equal economic and cultural cooperation, and instilling respect for human rights and fundamental individual freedoms. The UN was destined to play the role of a global center for coordinating efforts in the interests of eliminating wars and conflicts from international relations by harmonizing relations between states .

But the UN was faced with the impossibility of ensuring the compatibility of the interests of its leading members - the USSR and the USA because of the severity of the contradictions that arose between them. That's why on in fact the main function of the UN, which she successfully dealt with within the framework of the Yalta-Potsdam order, was not the improvement of international reality and the promotion of morality and justice, but prevention of an armed conflict between the USSR and the USA, the stability of relations between which was the main condition for international peace.

The Yalta-Potsdam order had a number of features.

Firstly, it did not have a strong contractual legal basis. The agreements underlying it were either oral, not officially recorded and remained secret for a long time, or enshrined in declarative form. Unlike the Versailles Conference, which formed a powerful contractual legal system, neither the Yalta Conference nor the Potsdam Conference led to the signing of international treaties.

This made the Yalta-Potsdam principles vulnerable to criticism and made their effectiveness dependent on the ability of interested parties to ensure the actual implementation of these agreements not by legal, but by political methods and means of economic and military-political pressure. That is why the element of regulating international relations through the threat or use of force was more contrastingly expressed in the post-war decades and had greater practical significance than was typical for, say, the 1920s with their typical emphasis on diplomatic agreements and appeal to legal norms. Despite the legal fragility, the “not entirely legitimate” Yalta-Potsdam order survived (unlike Versailles and Washington) more than half a century and collapsed only with the collapse of the USSR .

Secondly, The Yalta-Potsdam order was bipolar . After the Second World War, a sharp separation arose between the USSR and the USA from all other states in terms of the totality of their military-power, political and economic capabilities and the potential for cultural and ideological influence. If the multipolar structure of international relations was typical for the approximate comparability of the combined potentials of several main subjects of international relations, then after the Second World War only the potentials of the Soviet Union and the United States could be considered comparable.

Third, the post-war order was confrontational . Confrontation means a type of relationship between countries in which the actions of one side are systematically opposed to the actions of the other . Theoretically, the bipolar structure of the world could be either confrontational or cooperative—based not on confrontation, but on cooperation between superpowers. But in fact, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, the Yalta-Potsdam order was confrontational. Only in 1985-1991, during the years of “new political thinking” by M. S. Gorbachev, it began to transform into cooperative bipolarity , which was not destined to become sustainable due to the short duration of its existence.

In conditions of confrontation, international relations acquired the character of intense, at times acutely conflictual, interaction, permeated by the preparation of the main world rivals - the Soviet Union and the United States - to repel a hypothetical mutual attack and ensure their survival in an expected nuclear conflict. This gave birth in the second half of the 20th century. an arms race of unprecedented scale and intensity .

Fourthly, The Yalta-Potsdam order took shape in the era of nuclear weapons, which, while introducing additional conflict into world processes, simultaneously contributed to the emergence in the second half of the 1960s of a special mechanism for preventing world nuclear war - the model of “confrontational stability.” Its unspoken rules, which developed between 1962 and 1991, had a restraining influence on international conflict at the global level. The USSR and the USA began to avoid situations that could provoke an armed conflict between them. During these years A new and, in its own way, original concept of mutual nuclear power deterrence and doctrines of global strategic stability based on it based on the “balance of fear” have emerged. Nuclear war began to be seen only as the most extreme means of resolving international disputes.

Fifthly, post-war bipolarity took the form of a political-ideological confrontation between the “free world” led by the USA (political West) and the “socialist camp” led by the Soviet Union (political East). Although international contradictions were most often based on geopolitical aspirations, outwardly Soviet-American rivalry looked like a confrontation between political and ethical ideals, social and moral values. The ideals of equality and equalizing justice - in the “world of socialism” and the ideals of freedom, competition and democracy - in the “free world”. Acute ideological polemics introduced additional intransigence in disputes into international relations.

It led to mutual demonization of the images of rivals - Soviet propaganda attributed to the United States plans to destroy the USSR in the same way as the American one convinced the Western public of Moscow’s intention to spread communism throughout the world, destroying the United States as the basis of the security of the “free world.” Ideologicalization had its greatest impact in international relations in the 1940s and 1950s.

Later, the ideology and political practice of the superpowers began to diverge in such a way that, at the level of official guidelines, the global goals of the rivals were still interpreted as irreconcilable, and at the level of diplomatic dialogue, the parties learned to negotiate using non-ideological concepts and using geopolitical arguments. Nevertheless, until the mid-1980s, ideological polarization remained an important feature of the international order.

At sixth, The Yalta-Potsdam order was distinguished by a high degree of controllability of international processes. As a bipolar order, it was built on the coordination of the opinions of only two powers, which simplified negotiations. The USA and the USSR acted not only as individual states, but also as group leaders - NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Bloc discipline allowed the Soviet Union and the United States to guarantee the fulfillment of “their” part of the obligations assumed by the states of the corresponding bloc, which increased the effectiveness of decisions made during American-Soviet agreements .

The listed characteristics of the Yalta-Potsdam order determined the high competitiveness of international relations that developed within its framework. Thanks to mutual ideological alienation, this natural competition between the two strongest countries had the character of deliberate hostility. Since April 1947 in the American political lexicon at the suggestion of a prominent American entrepreneur and politician Bernard Baruch The expression "Cold War" was coined, which soon became popular thanks to numerous articles by the American publicist who loved him Walter Lippmann. Since this expression is often used to characterize international relations between 1945 and 1991, it is necessary to clarify its meaning.

The phrase “cold war” is used in two meanings.

Widely — as a synonym for the word “confrontation” and is used to characterize the entire period of international relations from the end of World War II to the collapse of the USSR .

In a narrow meaning concept “Cold war” implies a particular type of confrontation, its most acute form in the form confrontation on the brink of war. Such confrontation characterized international relations from approximately the first Berlin crisis in 1948 to the Caribbean crisis in 1962. The meaning of the expression "Cold War" is that the opposing powers systematically took steps hostile to each other and threatened each other with force, but at the same time were careful not to actually end up in a state of conflict with each other. real, “hot” war .

The term “confrontation” has a broader and more universal meaning. High-level confrontation was, for example, inherent in the situations of the Berlin or Caribbean crises. But how low-intensity confrontation took place during the years of détente in the mid-1950s, and then in the late 1960s and early 1970s . The term “Cold War” is not applicable to periods of détente and, as a rule, is not used in the literature. On the contrary, the expression “cold war” is widely used as an antonym for the term “détente.” That's why the entire period 1945-1991. using the concept of “confrontation” can be described analytically correctly , but with the help of the term “cold war” - no.

Certain discrepancies exist regarding the time of the end of the era of confrontation (“Cold War”). Most scientists believe that the confrontation actually ended during “perestroika” in the USSR in the second half of the 80s of the last century. Some try to indicate more precise dates:

- December 1989 when, during the Soviet-American meeting in Malta, US President George W. Bush and Chairman of the USSR Supreme Council M. S. Gorbachev solemnly proclaimed the end of the Cold War;

Or October 1990 G. when the unification of Germany took place.

The most reasonable date for the end of the era of confrontation is December 1991 G. : With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the conditions for confrontation of the type that arose after 1945 disappeared.

1. Transition period from the bipolar system

At the turn of two centuries - XX and XXI - There is a grand transformation of the system of international relations . Transitional period in its development— since mid-1980s , when the policy of radical renewal of the country (“perestroika”), launched by the leadership of the USSR led by M. S. Gorbachev, is complemented by a policy of overcoming confrontation and rapprochement with the West (“new thinking”).

The main content of the transition period is overcoming the bipolar dichotomy in international relations, the Cold War as such a method of their organization, which for about four previous decades dominated the East-West area - more precisely, along the line of “socialism (in its Soviet interpretation) versus capitalism".

The algorithm for this method of organizing international relations, which was formed almost immediately after the end of the Second World War, was total mutual rejection of countries with opposite social systems. It had three main components:

a) ideological intolerance towards each other,

b) economic incompatibility and

c) military-political confrontation.

Geopolitically, it was a confrontation between two camps, in which support groups (allies, satellites, fellow travelers, etc.) were formed around the leaders (USA and USSR), which competed with each other both directly and in the struggle for influence in the world.

In the 1950s there is the idea of ​​"peaceful coexistence" , which becomes the conceptual justification for cooperative relationships between socialist and capitalist countries (competing with the thesis about the antagonistic contradictions separating them). On this basis, warming periodically occurs in East-West relations.

But the “new thinking” proclaimed by the Soviet Union and the corresponding reaction of Western countries to it signaled not a situational and tactical, but a principled and strategically oriented overcoming of confrontational mentality and confrontational politics. Bipolar international political system This development was shaking in the most fundamental way.

1) WITHA severe blow to this system was dealt by the collapse of the “socialist commonwealth”, which occurred by historical standards in a phenomenally short time - its culminated in the “velvet revolutions” of 1989 in countries that were satellite allies of the USSR . The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification of Germany (1990) were widely perceived as a symbol of overcoming the division of Europe, which was the embodiment of bipolar confrontation. The self-liquidation of the Soviet Union (1991) brought the final line under bipolarity, since it meant the disappearance of one of its two main subjects.

Thus, initial phase of the transition period turned out to be compressed in time up to five to seven years. The peak of changes occurred at the turn of the 1980-1990s , when a wave of violent changes - both on the international arena and in the internal development of the countries of the socialist camp - turns out to be absorbed by the main attributes of bipolarity.

2) It took much more time for them to be replaced by new entities - institutions, models of foreign policy behavior, principles of self-identification, structuring of the international political space or its individual segments. The gradual formation of new elements in the 1990s and 2000s was often accompanied by serious turbulence . This process constitutes the content next phase of the transition period. It includes a number of events and phenomena, the most important of which are the following.

In the former socialist camp, the dismantling of the Yalta system is at the center of the unfolding changes , which happens relatively quickly, but still not simultaneously. The formal cessation of the activities of the Department of Internal Affairs and the CMEA was not enough for this . In the vast segment of the international political space, which consists of former members of the socialist camp, necessary , in fact, create a new infrastructure of relations both between the countries of the region and with the outside world .

There is sometimes a hidden and sometimes open struggle to influence the international political orientation of this space. - and Russia participated in it energetically and proactively (although I couldn’t achieve the desired results). Various possibilities are being discussed regarding the status of this zone: refusal to join military-political structures, revival of the “middle Europe” formula, etc. It is gradually becoming clear that the countries of the region are not eager to proclaim neutrality or become a “bridge” between Russia and the West. That they themselves strive to become part of the West. That they are ready to do this at the institutional level by joining the WEU, NATO, and the EU. And that they will achieve this even despite the opposition of Russia.

The three new Baltic states also sought to overcome Russian geopolitical dominance, setting a course for joining Western structures (including military-political). The formula of “inviolability” of the former Soviet area - which Moscow never officially proclaimed, but very interestedly promoted in the international discourse - turned out to be practically impossible to implement.

Throughout the 1990-2000s the inapplicability of some ideas that seemed quite attractive to the new international political realities is revealed . Among these “failed” models are: dissolution of NATO, transforming this alliance into a purely political organization, radically changing its character into a structural framework for pan-European security, creating a new organization to maintain security on the continent and so on.

During the transition period, the first acute problematic situation arises in Moscow’s relations with both Western countries and former Eastern European allies. This has become line for inclusion of the latter in NATO . EU enlargement also causes political discomfort in Russia - although expressed in a much milder form. In both cases, not only the ruined instincts of bipolar thinking are triggered, but also fears about the possible marginalization of the country. However, in a broader sense the spread of these Western (according to genesis and political characteristics) structures on a significant part of the European international political space marks the emergence of a fundamentally new configuration in the region .

In the wake of overcoming bipolarity during the transition period, important changes also occur within these structures. TO NATO the scale of military preparations is being reduced and at the same time the difficult process of searching for a new identity and new tasks begins in conditions when the main reason for the emergence of the alliance - the “threat from the East” - has disappeared. A symbol of the transition period for NATO was the preparation of a new Strategic Concept for the alliance, which was adopted in 2010.

WEIGHT the transition to a new quality was planned with the adoption of a “constitution for Europe” (2004), but this project did not receive approval at the referendum in France (and then in the Netherlands) and required painstaking work to prepare its “abbreviated” version (Treaty about reform, or Lisbon Treaty, 2007).

As a kind of compensation, there has been significant progress towards creating the EU's own capacity to solve crisis management problems. Generally The transition period for the EU turned out to be full of extremely serious changes, the main of which were:

a) two and a half times increase in the number of participants in this structure (from 12 to almost three dozen) and

b) extension of integration interaction to the sphere of foreign policy and security policy.

During the collapse of bipolarity and in connection with this process for almost two decades dramatic events are unfolding in the territorial area former Yugoslavia. The phase of multi-layered military confrontation with the participation of state entities and sub-state actors emerging from its bosom ended only in the 2000s. This marks the most important qualitative shift in the structuring of this part of the international political space. There is also more certainty about how it will fit into the global configuration.

3) The transition period will draw a line with the completion of the work of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the settlement of relations along the Serbia-Kosovo line and the emergence of a practical prospect for the post-Yugoslav countries to join the EU.

At the same time the significance of post-Goslav events goes beyond the regional context . Here for the first time since the end of the Cold War both the possibilities and the limits of the influence of external factors on the development of ethno-confessional conflicts were demonstrated . Right here a rich and very controversial experience of peacekeeping in the new international conditions emerged . Finally, the echo of events in the region is revealed post-factum in a wide variety of contexts - either in Russia’s attitude towards NATO, or in the ups and downs around the issue of the military dimension of the EU, or in the Caucasus war in August 2008.

Iraq had the fate to become another “testing ground” for new international political realities of the post-bipolar world . Moreover, it was here that their ambiguity and inconsistency in the conditions of the transition period was demonstrated most clearly - since this happened twice and in completely different contexts.

When in 1991 Baghdad committed aggression against Kuwait , its unanimous condemnation became possible only in connection with the beginning of overcoming the bipolar confrontation . On the same basis, an unprecedentedly broad international coalition was formed to carry out a military operation to restore status quo ante. In fact, the “Gulf War” turned recent enemies into allies. And here in 2003. A split has emerged over the issue of military operations against Saddam Hussein's regime. , which divided not only the former antagonists (USA + UK versus Russia + China), but also members of the NATO alliance (France + Germany versus USA + UK).

But, despite the directly opposite context in both situations, they themselves became possible precisely in the new conditions and would have been unthinkable under the “old” international political order. At the same time, the emergence of two completely different configurations on the same geopolitical field is convincing (albeit indirect) evidence of the transitional nature of the international system (at least at that point in time).

At the global level, the most important distinguishing feature of the transition period is splash American unilateralism and then - revealing its inconsistency. The first phenomenon can still be traced in the 1990s, driven by the euphoria of victory in the Cold War and the status of “the only remaining superpower " Second - approximately since the mid-2000s, When Republican administration of President George W. Bush trying to overcome the excesses of his own offensive enthusiasm.

An unprecedentedly high level of support for the United States by the international community arises in connection with the terrorist attack against them in September 2001. On this wave American leadership manages to initiate a number of major actions - first of all to conduct military operations against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (in 2002 with the approval of the UN Security Council) And against Saddam Hussein's regime Iraq (in 2003 without such sanction). However Washington not only failed to form around itself something like a “world coalition” on the basis of the fight against terrorism , but amazingly quickly crossed out his shameless politics real and potential benefits from international solidarity and sympathy .

If at first the vector of American policy undergoes only minor adjustments, then in the late 2000s, the question of changing the foreign policy paradigm was raised more decisively- this became one of the components of victory B. Obama in the presidential election, as well as an important component of the practical line of the Democratic administration.

In a certain sense, the noted dynamics Washington's foreign policy reflects the logic of the transition that the international system is experiencing . The beginning of the transition period is accompanied by a “rapture of power.” But over time, the ingenuous simplicity of the forceful approach begins to give way to an understanding of the complexities of the modern world. Illusions are being dispelled regarding the possibility and ability of the United States to act as the demiurge of world development, based only on its own interests and demonstratively neglecting those of other participants in international life. The imperative is not the construction of a unipolar world, but a more multifaceted policy focused on interaction with other participants in international life .

Russia, having emerged from the bipolar confrontation into a new state, also did not escape a certain euphoria. Although the latter turned out to be very fleeting for the Russian foreign policy consciousness, it still took time to be convinced: triumphant entry into the “community of civilized states” is not on the agenda, since it cannot be only the result of political choice and will require significant efforts to transform the country and ensure its compatibility with other developed countries .

Russia had to go through both overcoming the painful syndrome of “historical retreat” and through the phase of “foreign policy concentration”. A colossal role was played by the competent recovery of the country from the default of 1998, and then extremely favorable conditions on the world energy markets . By the mid-2000s, Russia began to increasingly demonstrate offensive activism in the sphere of relations with the outside world. Its manifestation was vigorous efforts in the Ukrainian direction (in order to win back the losses that Moscow saw in the “Orange Revolution” of 2004), as well as, and even more clearly, in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict of 2008.

There are very contradictory opinions expressed on this score.

Critics of Russian politics in the Transcaucasus they see here a manifestation of Moscow’s neo-imperial ambitions, pointing to the unattractiveness of its image and a declining international political rating , note the lack of reliable partners and allies. Supporters of positive assessments Quite decisively they put forward a different set of arguments: Russia, not in words, but in deeds, demonstrated the ability to defend its interests and clearly outlined their area (space of the former Soviet Union minus the Baltic countries) and in general managed to ensure that her views were taken seriously, and not for the sake of diplomatic protocol.

But no matter how it is interpreted Russian politics, there is a fairly widespread belief that it also indicates the end of the transition period in international relations. Russia, according to this logic, refuses to play by the rules, in the formulation of which it could not participate due to its weakness . Today the country is able to loudly declare its legitimate interests (option: imperial ambitions) and force others to take them into account. No matter how controversial the legitimacy of ideas about the post-Soviet territory as a zone of “special Russian interests” may be, Moscow’s clearly expressed position on this matter can be interpreted, among other things, as its desire to put an end to the uncertainties of the transition period . Here, however, the question arises as to whether the syndromes of the “old” international political order are being re-established in this case (in particular, through the intensification of rejection of the West).

Formation of a new world order, like any restructuring of society, is not carried out in laboratory conditions and therefore may be accompanied by the appearance elements of disorganization. These really arose during the transition period. The imbalance in the international political system is quite clearly visible in a number of areas.

Among the old mechanisms that ensured its functioning, there are many that are partially or completely lost or are being eroded. The new ones have not yet been established.

In conditions of bipolar confrontation, the confrontation between the two camps was to some extent a disciplinary element , muffled inter- and intra-country conflicts and encouraged caution and restraint. The accumulated energy could not help but splash out to the surface as soon as the hoops of the Cold War fell apart.

The compensatory mechanism that operated vertically also disappeared - when conflicting topics could, for one reason or another, be mixed at higher levels of interaction along the East-West line. For example, if the United States and the Soviet Union were in a phase of mutual rapprochement, this created a positive impulse for the policies of their allies/clients towards countries of the opposite camp.

A factor complicating the modern international political landscape is the emergence of new states, coupled with the contradictory process of their foreign policy identification, the search for their place in the system of international relations .

Almost everything countries of the former “socialist commonwealth”, which gained independence as a result of the destruction of the “Iron Curtain” and the mechanisms of inter-bloc confrontation, made a choice in favor of a radical change in the vector of their foreign policy . In strategic terms, this had a stabilizing effect, but in the short term was another impetus for the imbalance of the international system - at least in terms of the relations of the corresponding countries with Russia and its positioning relative to the outside world.

It can be stated that on In the final phase of the transition period, the world did not collapse, general chaos did not arise, the war of all against all did not become a new universal algorithm of international life.

The inconsistency of dramatic prophecies was revealed, in particular, in the conditions global financial and economic crisis that broke out in the late 2000s. After all, its scale, admittedly, is quite commensurate with the serious economic shock of the last century, which affected all the largest countries in the world - crisis and the Great Depression in 1929-1933. But then the crisis shifted the vector of international political development to a new world war . Today, the impact of the crisis on world politics is even faster stabilizing character.

This is also “good news” - after all, in conditions of difficult trials, the instinct of national egoism has a fairly high chance of becoming the prevailing, if not the only driver of foreign policy, and the fact that this did not happen indicates a certain stability of the emerging international political system. But, stating the presence of a certain margin of safety, it is important to see the possibility of destabilizing emissions accompanying the process of change.

For example, polycentrism as the antithesis of bipolarity may not be a good thing in everything . Not only because of the associated objective complication of the international political system, but also because in some cases, in particular, in the field of military preparations and especially in the field of nuclear weapons - an increase in the number of competing centers of power can lead to a direct undermining of international security and stability .

The features listed above characterize a dynamic and full of contradictions the formation of a new international system. Not everything developed during this period has stood the test of time; some algorithms turned out to be inadequate (or effective only in the short term) and are likely to fail; a number of models clearly did not stand the test of time, although they attracted attention at the dawn of the transition period. The essential characteristics of post-bipolarity are still quite blurred, labile (unstable) and chaotic. It is not surprising that there is some mosaic and variability in its conceptual understanding.

Multipolarity is most often considered the antithesis of bipolarity.(multipolarity) - organization of the international political system on the basis of polycentrism . Although this is the most popular formula today, its implementation can only be fully discussed as a trend of a strategic nature .

Sometimes it is suggested that the “old” bipolarity will be replaced by a new one. At the same time, there are different judgments regarding the structure of the new binary opposition:

— USA versus China (the most common dichotomy), or

- countries of the golden billion versus the disadvantaged part of humanity, or

- countries status quo versus interested in changing the international order, or

- countries of “liberal capitalism” versus countries of “authoritarian capitalism”, etc.

Some analysts do not consider it at all correct to consider bipolarity as a reference model for assessing the emerging system of international relations. This might have been appropriate in the 1990s to draw a line under the Yalta international order, but today the logic of the formation of the international system follows completely different imperatives.

Obviously The idea of ​​the “end of history” formulated by F. Fukuyama did not come true. Even if liberal democratic values ​​are becoming increasingly widespread, their “complete and final victory” is not in sight for the foreseeable future, which means that the international system will not be able to be tailored according to the appropriate patterns.

Equally the universalist interpretation of the concept of the “clash of civilizations” by S. Huntington was not confirmed. Intercivilizational collisions, for all their significance, are neither the only nor even the most significant “driver” of the development of the international system.

Finally, there are ideas about the emergence of a disordered and unstructured system of “new international disorder.”

The task, probably, should not be to find a capacious and all-explaining formula (which does not yet exist). Another thing is more important: to record the process of formation of a post-bipolar international system. In this sense The 2010s can be characterized as the final phase of the transition period. The transformation of the international political system is still not completed, but some of its contours are already being drawn quite clearly .

The main role in structuring the international system of the largest states that form its upper level is obvious. 10-15 states compete with each other for the informal right to become part of the core of the international political system.

The most important innovation of recent times is the expansion of their circle to include countries that, in the previous state of the international system, were located quite far from its center. This is first of all China and India, the strengthening of whose positions increasingly affects the global balance of economic and political forces and is most likely extrapolated into the future. Regarding the role of these future superstars of the international system, two main questions arise: about the reserve of their internal stability and about the nature of the projection of their influence outside.

The international system continues to redistribute its share of power between various existing and emerging centers of influence, particularly with regard to their ability to influence other states and the outside world as a whole. Toward the “traditional” poles (EU/OECD countries, as well as Russia), in the dynamics of which there are many uncertainties, a number of the most successful states are added Asia and Latin America, as well as South Africa. The presence of the Islamic world in the international political arena is becoming increasingly noticeable (although due to its very problematic functionality as a kind of integrity, in this case one can hardly speak of a “pole” or “center of power”).

Despite the relative weakening of the US position, its enormous potential for influence on international life remains. The role of this state in the world economy, finance, trade, science, and computer science is unique and will remain so for the foreseeable future. In terms of the size and quality of its military potential, it has no equal in the world (if we abstract from the Russian resource in the field of strategic nuclear forces).

The USA can be a source of serious stress for the international system(based on unilateralism, orientation towards unipolarity, etc.), and an authoritative initiator and agent of cooperative interaction(in the spirit of the ideas of responsible leadership and advanced partnership). Their willingness and ability to contribute to the formation of an international system that combines efficiency with the absence of a pronounced hegemonic principle will be critical.

Geopolitically, the center of gravity of the international system is shifting in the East/Asia direction. It is in this area that the most powerful and energetically developing new centers of influence are located. Exactly This is where the attention of global economic actors shifts who are attracted by growing markets, impressive economic growth dynamics, and high energy human capital. At the same time this is where the most acute problem situations exist (hotbeds of terrorism, ethno-confessional conflicts, nuclear proliferation).

The main intrigue in the emerging international system will unfold in relations along the line "developed world versus developing world"(or, in a slightly different interpretation, "center versus periphery"). Of course, there are complex and contradictory dynamics of relationships within each of these segments. But it is precisely from their global imbalance that a threat to the overall stability of the world system can arise. However, it can also be undermined by the costs of overcoming this imbalance - economic, resource, environmental, demographic, security-related and others.

1. Qualitative parameters of the new system of international relations

Some features of modern international relations deserve special attention. They characterize that new thing that distinguishes the international system emerging before our eyes from its previous states.

Intensive processes globalization belong to the most important characteristics of modern world development. On the one hand, they are obvious evidence that the international system has acquired a new quality - the quality of globality. But on the other hand, their development has considerable costs for international relations. Globalization can manifest itself in authoritarian and hierarchical forms generated by the selfish interests and aspirations of the most developed states . There are concerns that globalization is making them even stronger, while the weak are doomed to complete and irreversible dependence.

Nevertheless, there is no point in opposing globalization, no matter what good motives one may be guided by. This process has deep objective preconditions. A relevant analogy is the movement of society from traditionalism to modernization, from the patriarchal community to urbanization .

Globalization brings a number of important features to international relations. She makes the world whole, increasing its ability to respond effectively to common problems , which in the 21st century. are becoming increasingly important for international political development. The interdependence that increases as a result of globalization can serve as a basis for overcoming differences between countries , a powerful incentive for the development of mutually acceptable solutions.

At the same time with globalizationconnected unification with its impersonality and loss of individual characteristics, erosion of identity, weakening of the national-state ability to regulate society, fears regarding one’s own competitiveness - all this can cause attacks of self-isolation, autarky, and protectionism as a defensive reaction.

In the long term, this kind of choice will doom any country to permanent lag, pushing it to the margins of mainstream development. But here, as in many other areas, the pressure of opportunistic motives can be very, very strong, providing political support for the line of “protection from globalization.”

Therefore, one of the knots of internal tension in the emerging international political system is the conflict between globalization and the national identity of individual states. All of them, as well as the international system as a whole, are faced with the need to find an organic combination of these two principles, to combine them in the interests of maintaining sustainable development and international stability.

Likewise, in the context of globalization, there is a need to correct the idea of functional purpose of the international system. She, of course, must maintain his capacity in solving the traditional problem of reducing divergent or divergent interests and aspirations of states to a common denominator - avoid conflicts between them fraught with too serious cataclysms, provide a way out of conflict situations and so on. But today the objective role of the international political system is becoming broader.

This is due to the new quality of the currently emerging international system - the presence in it of a significant component of global issues . The latter requires not so much the settlement of disputes as the determination of a joint agenda, not so much the minimization of disagreements as the maximization of mutual gain, not so much the determination of the balance of interests as the identification of common interests.

The most important areas of action for a global positive agenda are :

— overcoming poverty, fighting hunger, promoting the socio-economic development of the most backward countries and peoples;

— maintaining ecological and climatic balance, minimizing negative impacts on the human environment and the biosphere as a whole;

— solving the largest global problems in the field of economics, science, culture, healthcare;

— prevention and minimization of the consequences of natural and man-made disasters, organization of rescue operations (including on humanitarian grounds);

— fight against terrorism, international crime and other manifestations of destructive activity;

— organization of order in territories that have lost political and administrative control and are in the grip of anarchy that threatens international peace.

The successful experience of jointly solving problems of this kind can become an incentive for a cooperative approach to those controversial situations that arise in line with traditional international political conflicts.

In general terms the vector of globalization indicates the formation of a global society. At an advanced stage of this process we can talk about the formation of power on a planetary scale, and about the development of a global civil society , and about the transformation of traditional interstate relations into intra-societal relations of the future global society.

However, we are talking about a rather distant future. In the international system that is emerging today, only some manifestations of this line are found . Among them:

— a certain activation of supranational trends (primarily through the transfer of certain functions of the state to structures of a higher level);

— further formation of elements of global law, transnational justice (incrementally, but not spasmodically);

— expanding the scope of activity and increasing the demand for international non-governmental organizations.

International relations are relations regarding the most diverse aspects of the development of society . Therefore, it is not always possible to identify a certain dominant factor in their evolution. This, for example, quite clearly demonstrates dialectics of economics and politics in modern international development.

It would seem that in its course today, after eliminating the hypertrophied significance of the ideological confrontation characteristic of the Cold War era, an ever-increasing influence is exerted by a combination of economic factors - resource, production, scientific and technological, financial . This is sometimes seen as the return of the international system to a “normal” state - if we consider this to be the situation of the unconditional priority of economics over politics (and in relation to the international sphere - “geo-economics” over “geopolitics”), If this logic is brought to extremum we can even talk about a kind of renaissance of economic determinism — when exclusively or predominantly economic circumstances explain all conceivable and inconceivable consequences for relationships on the world stage .

In modern international development, there are indeed some features that seem to confirm this thesis. For example, the hypothesis that compromises in the sphere of “low politics” (including on economic issues) are easier to achieve than in the sphere of “high politics” (when prestige and geopolitical interests are at stake) does not work. . This postulate, as is known, occupies an important place in understanding international relations from the standpoint of functionalism - but it is clearly refuted by the practice of our time, when Often it is economic issues that turn out to be more conflicting than diplomatic conflicts. Yes and in the foreign policy behavior of states, economic motivation is not only significant, but in many cases clearly comes to the fore .

However, this issue requires a more thorough analysis. Statements of the priority of economic determinants are often superficial and do not provide grounds for any significant or self-evident conclusions. In addition, empirical evidence suggests that economics and politics are not related only as cause and effect - their relationship is more complex, multidimensional and elastic. In international relations this manifests itself no less clearly than in domestic development.

International political consequences arising from changes within the economic sphere, can be traced throughout history. Today this is confirmed, for example, due to the rise Asia , which became one of the largest events in the development of the modern international system . Here, among other things, powerful technological progress and the dramatically expanded availability of information goods and services outside the countries of the “golden billion” played a huge role. There was also a correction of the economic model: if up until the 1990s, almost limitless growth of the service sector and movement towards a “post-industrial society” were predicted, then subsequently there was a change in trend towards a kind of industrial renaissance. Some countries in Asia managed to ride this wave out of poverty and join the ranks of countries with “rising economies” . And already from this new reality comes impulses to reconfigure the international political system.

Major problematic issues that arise in the international system most often have both an economic and a political component. An example of such a symbiosis is renewed importance of control over territory in light of intensifying competition for natural resources . The limitations and/or shortages of the latter, combined with the desire of states to ensure reliable supplies at reasonable prices, all combine to create increased sensitivity in relation to territorial areas that are the subject of disputes as to their ownership or raise security concerns. and transit security.

Sometimes on this basis conflicts of the traditional type arise and escalate - as, for example, in the case of waters of the South China Sea, where huge oil reserves on the continental shelf are at stake. Here, literally before our eyes:

Intraregional competition is intensifying China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei;

Attempts to establish control intensify over the Paracel Islands and the Spartly Archipelago(which will allow you to claim an exclusive 200-mile economic zone);

Demonstration actions are carried out using naval forces;

Informal coalitions are being built with the involvement of extra-regional powers (or the latter are simply addressed with calls to indicate their presence in the region), etc.

An example of a cooperative solution to emerging problems of this kind could be Arctic. In this area there are also competitive relationships regarding explored and eventual natural resources. But at the same time, there are powerful incentives for the development of constructive interaction between coastal and extra-regional states - based on a joint interest in establishing transport flows, solving environmental problems, maintaining and developing the region’s biological resources.

In general, the modern international system develops through the emergence and “unraveling” of various nodes formed at the intersection of economics and politics. This is how new problem fields are formed, as well as new lines of cooperative or competitive interaction in the international arena.

On modern international relations tangible changes associated with with security issues. First of all, this concerns the understanding of the phenomenon of security itself, the relationship between its various levels ( global, regional, national ), challenges to international stability, as well as their hierarchy.

The threat of a global nuclear war has lost its former absolute priority, although the very presence of large arsenals of weapons of mass destruction has not completely eliminated the possibility of a global catastrophe. But at the same time The danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction, and missile technologies is becoming increasingly formidable . Awareness of this problem as global is an important resource for mobilizing the international community.

With the relative stability of the global strategic situation, a wave of diverse conflicts is growing at lower levels of international relations, as well as those of an internal nature. Containing and resolving such conflicts is becoming increasingly difficult.

Qualitatively new sources of threats are terrorism, drug trafficking, other types of criminal cross-border activities, political and religious extremism. .

The exit from the global confrontation and the reduction in the risk of a world nuclear war were paradoxically accompanied by a slowdown in the process of arms limitation and reduction. In this area, there was even a clear regression - when some important agreements ( CFE Treaty, ABM Treaty) ceased to operate, and the conclusion of others was in question.

Meanwhile, it is precisely the transitional nature of the international system that makes strengthening arms control particularly urgent. Its new state confronts states with new challenges and requires them to adapt their military-political tools to them - and in such a way as to avoid conflicts in their relationships with each other. The experience accumulated in this regard over several decades is unique and invaluable, and starting everything from scratch would be simply irrational. Another important thing is to demonstrate the participants’ readiness for cooperative actions in an area that is of key importance to them—the security sector. An alternative approach—actions based on purely national imperatives and without taking into account the concerns of other countries—would be an extremely “bad” political signal, indicating an unwillingness to focus on global interests.

The question of today's and future the role of nuclear weapons in the emerging international political system.

Each new expansion of the “nuclear club” turns into severe stress for her. Existential the incentive for such expansion is the very fact that the largest countries retain nuclear weapons as a means of ensuring their security . It is not clear whether any significant changes can be expected on their part in the foreseeable future. Their statements in support of “nuclear zero” are usually perceived with skepticism; proposals in this regard often seem formal, vague and not credible. In practice, nuclear potential is being modernized, improved and “reconfigured” to solve additional problems.

Meanwhile In the context of increasing military threats, the unspoken ban on the combat use of nuclear weapons may also lose significance . And then the international political system will face a fundamental a new challenge - the challenge of local use of nuclear weapons(devices). This could happen under almost any conceivable scenario—involving any of the recognized nuclear powers, unofficial members of the nuclear club, applicants to join it, or terrorists. Such a formally “local” situation could have extremely serious global consequences.

The nuclear powers require the highest sense of responsibility, truly innovative thinking and an unprecedented level of cooperation to minimize political impulses for such developments. Of particular importance in this regard should be agreements between the United States and Russia on deep reductions in their nuclear potentials, as well as giving the process of limiting and reducing nuclear weapons a multilateral character.

An important change, affecting not only the security sphere, but also the instruments used by states in international affairs in general, is reassessment of the factor of power in world and national politics.

In the complex of policy instruments of the most developed countries non-military means are becoming increasingly important — economic, financial, scientific and technical, information and many others, conventionally united by the concept of “soft power” . In certain situations, they make it possible to exert effective non-forceful pressure on other participants in international life. The skillful use of these means also works to create a positive image of the country, positioning it as a center of gravity for other countries.

However, the ideas that existed at the beginning of the transition period about the possibility of almost completely eliminating the factor of military force or significantly reducing its role turned out to be clearly overestimated. Many states see military force as an important means of ensuring their national security and increasing their international status .

Major powers, giving preference to non-forceful methods, politically and psychologically ready for selective direct use of military force or threats to use force in certain critical situations.

Regarding the series medium and small countries(especially in the developing world), many of them lack other resources view military force as of paramount importance .

This applies even more to countries with non-democratic political systems, in the case of a tendency of the leadership to oppose itself to the international community using adventuristic, aggressive, terrorist methods of achieving its goals.

In general, one has to speak quite cautiously about the relative decrease in the role of military force, bearing in mind developing global trends and the strategic perspective. However, at the same time, there is a qualitative improvement in the means of warfare, as well as a conceptual rethinking of its nature in modern conditions. The use of this toolkit in real practice is by no means a thing of the past. It is possible that its use may become even wider across the territorial area. The problem will rather be seen as ensuring that maximum results are achieved in the shortest possible time and while minimizing political costs (both internal and external).

Power tools are often in demand in connection with new security challenges (migration, ecology, epidemics, information technology vulnerability, emergency situations and so on.). But still, in this area, the search for joint answers occurs mainly outside the force field.

One of the global issues of modern international political development is the relationship between domestic politics, state sovereignty and the international context. The approach based on the inadmissibility of external involvement in the internal affairs of states is usually identified with the Peace of Westphalia (1648). The conventionally round (350th) anniversary of his imprisonment marked the peak of the debate about overcoming the “Westphalian tradition.” Then, at the end of the last century, ideas prevailed about almost radical changes brewing in the international system in this regard. Today, more balanced assessments seem appropriate, also due to the rather contradictory practice of the transition period.

It is clear that in modern conditions one can talk about absolute sovereignty either because of professional illiteracy, or because of deliberate manipulation of this topic. What happens inside a country cannot be separated by an impenetrable wall from its external relations; problematic situations arising within the state (ethno-confessional nature, associated with political contradictions, developing on the basis of separatism, generated by migration and demographic processes, resulting from the collapse of state structures, etc.), it becomes increasingly difficult to keep in a purely internal context . They influence relationships with other countries, affect their interests, and affect the state of the international system as a whole.

The strengthening of the relationship between internal problems and relationships with the outside world also occurs in the context of some more general trends in world development . Let us mention, for example, universalist premises and consequences of scientific and technological progress, unprecedented spread of information technology , growing (though not everywhere) attention to humanitarian and/or ethical issues, respect for human rights and so on.

Hence the two consequences.

Firstly, the state assumes certain obligations regarding the compliance of its internal development with certain international criteria. In essence, in the emerging system of international relations, this practice is gradually becoming more widespread.

Secondly, the question arises about the possibility of external influence on internal political situations in certain countries, its goals, means, limits, etc. This topic is already much more controversial.

In the maximalist interpretation, it is expressed in the concept of “regime change” as the most radical means of achieving the desired foreign policy result . Initiators of the operation against Iraq in 2003 pursued precisely this goal, although they refrained from formally proclaiming it. A in 2011 the organizers of international military actions against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya actually set such a task openly.

However, we are talking about an extremely sensitive subject that affects national sovereignty and requires very careful handling. Because otherwise, a dangerous erosion of the most important foundations of the existing world order and the reign of chaos may occur, in which only the rule of the strong will prevail. But still it is important to emphasize that both international law and foreign policy practice are evolving (however, very slowly and with big reservations) in the direction of abandoning the fundamental inadmissibility of external influence on the situation in a particular country .

The other side of the problem is the very often harsh opposition of the authorities to any external involvement. This line is usually explained by the need to protect against interference in the internal affairs of the country, but in fact it is often motivated by a reluctance to transparency, fear of criticism, and rejection of alternative approaches. There may also be a direct accusation of external “ill-wishers” in order to transfer the vector of public discontent to them and justify tough actions against the opposition. True, the experience of the “Arab Spring” of 2011 showed that this may not give additional chances to regimes that have exhausted their reserves of internal legitimacy—thereby, by the way, marking another rather remarkable innovation for the emerging international system.

But still on this basis, additional conflict may arise in international political development. It is impossible to exclude serious contradictions between the external counterparties of a country engulfed in unrest, when the events taking place in it are interpreted from directly opposite positions.

In general, in the formation of a new system of international relations, a parallel development of two is revealed, it would seem that, directly opposite trends .

On the one side, in societies with a prevailing political culture of the Western type, there is a certain increase in the willingness to tolerate involvement in “other people’s affairs” for humanitarian or solidarist reasons . However, these motives are often neutralized by concerns about the costs of such intervention for the country (financial and related to the threat of human losses).

On the other side, there is growing opposition to it from those who consider themselves to be its actual or eventual object . The first of these two trends appears to be forward-looking, but the second draws its strength from its appeal to traditional approaches and is likely to have wider support.

The objective task facing the international political system is to find adequate methods of responding to possible conflicts that arise on this basis. It is likely that here - taking into account, in particular, the events of 2011 in Libya and around it - it will be necessary to provide for situations with the possible use of force, but not through a voluntaristic denial of international law, but through its strengthening and development.

However, the question, if we keep in mind longer-term prospects, has a much broader character. The circumstances in which the imperatives of internal development of states and their international political relations collide are among the most difficult to bring to a common denominator. There is a range of conflict-generating topics around which the most serious points of tension arise (or may arise in the future) not on situational, but on fundamental grounds . For example:

— mutual responsibility of states in matters of use and transboundary movement of natural resources;

— efforts to ensure one’s own security and the perception of such efforts by other states;

— a conflict between the right of peoples to self-determination and the territorial integrity of states.

There are no simple solutions in sight for this kind of problem. The viability of the emerging system of international relations will depend, among other things, on the ability to respond to this challenge.

The collisions noted above lead both analysts and practitioners to the question of the role of the state in the new international political conditions. Some time ago, in conceptual assessments regarding the dynamics and direction of development of the international system, rather pessimistic assumptions were made about the fate of the state in connection with growing globalization and increasing interdependence. The institution of the state, according to such assessments, is undergoing increasing erosion, and the state itself is gradually losing its status as a main character on the world stage.

During the transition period, this hypothesis was tested - and was not confirmed. The processes of globalization, the development of global governance and international regulation do not “abolish” the state, do not push it into the background . It has not lost any of the significant functions that the state performs as a fundamental element of the international system .

At the same time, the functions and role of the state are undergoing a significant transformation. This happens first of all in the context of domestic development, but its influence on international political life is also significant . Moreover, as a general trend, one can note the increasing expectations towards the state, which is forced to respond to them, including by intensifying its participation in international life.

Along with expectations in the context of globalization and the information revolution, higher demands arise on the capacity and effectiveness of the state on the world stage, the quality of its interaction with the surrounding international political environment . Isolationism, xenophobia, causing hostility towards other countries can bring certain dividends for the moment, but become absolutely dysfunctional over any significant period of time.

Against, the demand for cooperative interaction with other participants in international life is increasing. And its absence may be the reason for the state acquiring a dubious reputation as an “outcast” - not as some kind of formal status, but as a kind of stigma that secretly marks “non-handshake” regimes. Although there are different views on how correct this classification is and whether it is used for manipulative purposes.

Another problem is the emergence of incompetent and ineffective states(failed states and failing states). This phenomenon cannot be called completely new, but the conditions of post-bipolarity to some extent facilitate its occurrence and at the same time make it more noticeable. Here, too, there are no clear and generally accepted criteria. The question of organizing the administration of territories where there is no effective government is one of the most difficult for the modern international system.

An extremely important novelty of modern world development is the growing role in international life, along with states, also of other actors. True, in the period from approximately the early 1970s to the early 2000s, there were clearly inflated expectations in this regard; even globalization has often been interpreted as a gradual but increasingly large-scale replacement of states by non-state structures, which will lead to a radical transformation of international relations. Today it is clear that this will not happen in the foreseeable future.

But myself the phenomenon of “non-state actors” as actors in the international political system has received significant development . Across the entire spectrum of the evolution of society (be it the sphere of material production or the organization of financial flows, ethnocultural or environmental movements, human rights or criminal activity, etc.), wherever there is a need for cross-border interaction, this occurs with the participation of an increasing number of non-state actors .

Some of them, speaking on the international stage, really challenge the state (such as terrorist networks), can be guided by behavior independent of it and even have more significant resources (business structures), show readiness to take on a number of its routine and especially newly emerging functions (traditional non-governmental organizations). As a result, the international political space becomes polyvalent, is structured according to more complex, multidimensional algorithms.

However, in none of the listed areas, as already noted, the state does not leave this space. . In some cases, it wages a tough fight against competitors - and this becomes a powerful incentive for interstate cooperation (for example, on issues of countering international terrorism and international crime). In others, it seeks to bring them under control, or at least to ensure that their activities are more open and contain a more significant social component (as is the case with transnational business structures).

The activities of some of the traditional non-governmental organizations operating in a cross-border context can irritate states and governments, especially in cases where power structures become the object of criticism and pressure. But states that are able to establish effective interaction with their competitors and opponents are more competitive in the international environment. Of significant importance is the fact that such interaction increases the stability of the international order and contributes to a more effective solution to emerging problems. And this brings us to consider the question of how the international system functions in modern conditions.

1. Functioning of the international system

The framework of the international system is formed by the practice of interaction between states as the main participants in international life. Such interaction—more or less regular, substantively focused, and often (though not always) carried out in established institutional forms—ensures the functioning of the international system.

A brief overview of this issue is useful in order to focus attention on specifics of the emerging international system. It seems appropriate to carry it out in several sections:

— Firstly , noting the role of states exercising the function of leadership in international affairs (or pretending to be such);

— Secondly , highlighting the permanent multilateral structures within which interstate interaction is carried out;

— Thirdly , especially highlighting situations where the effectiveness of such interaction is expressed in the formation of stable elements of the international system (integration complexes, political spaces, international regimes, etc.).

Although the main actors on the world stage are states (about two hundred in total), not all of them are actually involved in regulating international life. Active and purposeful participation in it is available to a relatively small circle leading states.

The phenomenon of international leadership has two forms . In one case it means the ability to express the aspirations, interests, goals of a certain group of states(in the theoretical limit - all countries of the world), in the other - readiness for proactive, often costly efforts to solve certain international political problems and mobilize for this purpose other participants in international life. It is possible for a state to exercise leadership functions in one of these two dimensions, or in both. Leadership can also have a different nature in terms of the range of tasks put forward, the number of states affected, spatial localization — from regional and even local to global .

Within the framework of the Yalta-Potsdam international system Only two states put forward claims to global leadership - USSR and USA. But there were also countries with ambitions or real leadership potential on a smaller scale - For example, Yugoslavia within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement, China in its attempts to challenge the international political establishment of the bipolar system, France the times of Gaullist opposition to the United States.

After the end of the Cold War the most obvious example of ambitious claims to global leadership was politics USA, which actually reduced it to the task of strengthening its exclusive position in the international system. This line reached its culmination during the period of neoconservatives in power (the first administration of George W. Bush) and then went into decline due to its obvious dysfunctionality. At the end of the US transition period are beginning to practice less straightforward methods, with a primary emphasis on “soft power”, non-force tools and with much greater attention to allies and partners .

Objective reasons for US leadership remain very significant. By and large, at the global level, no one can challenge them openly and fully. But the relative dominance of the United States is eroding, while the capabilities of other states are gradually beginning to expand .

As the international system becomes more polycentric, this trend is intensifying. There are more and more states with leadership potential - even if we are talking about leadership in limited territorial areas or in relation to individual functional spaces. However, this has happened before - for example, within the EU, where the tandem played an initiating role in promoting a number of integration projects France and Germany. Today it is appropriate to assume that the phenomenon of regional leadership will occur much more often.

Such development, in principle, works to structurize the international system and thereby maintain its stability. But this is only a general statement. On practice the qualitative characteristics of both leadership itself and its subject are important . For example, eventual Iran's claims to regional leadership are one of the reasons for a wary attitude towards Tehran - and this can, in an unfavorable scenario, become an additional source of tension in the Near and Middle East and even beyond.

For a state oriented towards exercising leadership functions, the perception of its course by the international community is of great importance. And here the vocabulary used turns out to be no less important than practical actions. In Russia discovered this already in the early phase of the transition period, when they considered it necessary to abandon the term “ Near Abroad» in relation to the countries of the post-Soviet area. And although the objective possibilities and demand for Russian leadership here are virtually undeniable , appears before Moscow extremely serious task — neutralize its interpretation through the prism of suspicions regarding Russia’s “neo-imperial ambitions”.

In a post-bipolar world the demand for leadership is increasing for organizing the collective efforts of participants in international life in solving the problems that arise before them. In the era of the Cold War and bipolarity, the division into “us” and “outsiders,” as well as the struggle for the support of those in between, were themselves factors in the mobilization of participants in international life. This circumstance could work both to promote certain initiatives, proposals, plans, programs, etc., and to counter them. Today, such “automatic” formation of a coalition for or against a certain international project does not occur.

In this case, a project means any problematic situation in relation to which participants in international life face a the question of actions with the goal of achieving a certain result . Such actions could be providing economic assistance, using political leverage, sending peacekeeping troops, carrying out humanitarian intervention, conducting a rescue mission, organizing an anti-terrorist operation and so on. Who will carry out such actions? Those of the possible participants who are directly affected by this project are concerned primarily with their immediate interests - and these may not only be different, but even opposite in different countries. Others may see no reason to get involved, especially if it comes with financial, resource or human costs.

Therefore, the promotion of the project becomes possible only in the case of a very powerful impulse . Its source should be a state capable in this particular case of fulfilling the function of an international leader . The conditions for him to fulfill this role are:

- the state itself has a sufficiently high motivation to implement the plan;

— significant domestic political support;

— understanding and solidarity on the part of the main international partners;

— agreement to incur financial costs (sometimes quite large);

- if necessary, the ability and willingness to use its civilian and military personnel (with the risk of loss of life and a corresponding reaction in its own country).

Details of this conditional diagram may vary depending on specific problem situations . Sometimes In order to resolve the latter, multilateral mechanisms of a more permanent nature are being created - as, for example, is the case in the EU and is being attempted in the CSTO . But practice shows that even created, tested and mobilized structures of coalition interaction do not always work in an automatic reaction mode. Moreover, “coalitions of the willing” do not arise on their own, i.e. countries ready to take part in the project. So the problem of leadership as a “trigger” of international political efforts, especially collective ones, acquires key importance.

It is clear that first of all the largest and most influential countries can lay claim to this role. But the nature of their claims also matters. Of the 10-15 states that form the core of the modern world system , those who can count on successful leadership are primarily those who show an interest in strengthening the international political order, as well as responsibility in terms of respect for international law and the interests of other states . However, it is appropriate to consider this problem from a different angle - the ability and readiness for “responsible leadership” may become one of the informal but important criteria by which a state will be considered part of the core of the modern international political system.

Of particular importance for structuring the international system is joint leadership of leading countries in the implementation of major political projects. During the Cold War, an example of this was initiated by three powers - USA, Soviet Union and Great Britain— establishment of a regime banning nuclear tests in three environments (1963 treaty). Shared leadership could play a similar role today Russia and USA in the field of nuclear weapons reduction and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons after the “reset” of their relations in the 2010s.

The infrastructure of the modern international system is formed by Also intergovernmental organizations and other formats of multilateral interaction between states. In general, the activities of these mechanisms are mainly derivative, secondary in nature regarding the functions, role, positioning of states in the international arena . But their significance for the organization of the modern international system is undoubtedly great. And some multilateral structures occupy a special place in the existing international order.

First of all, this applies to United Nations. She remains unique and irreplaceable in its role . This, Firstly, political role: The UN gives legitimacy to the actions of the international community, “sanctifies” certain approaches to problematic situations, is a source of international law, and is not comparable to any other structures in its representativeness (since it unites almost all the states of the world). A Secondly , functional role— activities in dozens of specific areas, many of which are “developed” only through the UN. In the new system of international relations, the UN's demand for both of these qualities is only increasing.

But, as in the previous state of the system of international relations, The UN is the object of sharp criticism - for low efficiency, bureaucratization, sluggishness and so on. The international system taking shape today is unlikely to add any fundamentally new incentives for implementing reforms in the UN. However, it strengthens the urgency of these transformations, especially since the possibility of their implementation in the new international political conditions, when the bipolar confrontation has become a thing of the past, becomes more realistic.

We are not talking about radical reform of the UN (“world government”, etc.) - it is doubtful that such a thing could be politically possible today. However, when less ambitious guidelines are set in the debate on this issue, two topics are considered as priorities. Firstly, This expansion of representation in the Security Council(without violating the fundamental algorithm of its functioning, i.e. with the preservation of special rights for the five permanent members of this Areopagus); Secondly, expansion of UN activities into some new areas(without radical “breakthroughs”, but with a gradual increase in the elements of global regulation).

If The Security Council represents the pinnacle of the international system, structured with the help of the UN, then five countries that are its permanent members (USA, Russia, China, France and UK), have an exclusive status even at this highest hierarchical level. Which, however, does not at all turn this group into some kind of “directory” that controls the world.

Each of the Big Five can block a decision in the Security Council that it considers unacceptable , - in this sense, they are united primarily by the fact of possessing “negative guarantees”. What about them? joint speech in support of one or another “positive project”, then such, of course, has significant political weight. But, Firstly , consensus within the “five” (especially on a difficult problem) is much more difficult to achieve than stopping an undesirable decision by using the veto. Secondly, We also need support from other countries (including according to the procedural rules of the Security Council). Third, the very fact of the exclusive rights of an extremely narrow group of countries is subject to growing criticism at the UN - especially in light of the strengthening of the world positions of a number of states not included in the circle of the chosen ones. And in general The very “selection” of the countries of permanent members of the UNSC stems from circumstances that were relevant during the formation of the UN .

Another format of the highest hierarchical leveluntil 2104 it was"Group of Eight"", or " Big Eight"(G8), consisting of USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia. It is noteworthy that its formation occurred precisely at the beginning of the transition period in international relations - when in the existing since 1970s years " Big seven“begin to gradually involve first the Soviet Union, and then, after its collapse, Russia.

Then the very fact of the emergence of such a structure testified to significant changes in the existing international order. Its political legitimacy was for this reason very high. Today, after it has become the G7 again, it has faded somewhat, but it still persists. The agenda still includes large, large-scale and problematic topics - which affects their coverage by the media, the development of policies of the participating countries in relevant areas, the achievement of international agreements, etc., i.e. The impact of the G7 on the international system undoubtedly takes place - although, admittedly, indirect and indirect.

As a more adequate response to the demands of the time, a new format of multilateral interaction is emerging - “ G20"(G20). It is noteworthy that it appears in the context of searching for a way out of the global financial and economic crisis 2008-2010, when the idea of ​​forming a more representative pool of states for this purpose gained widespread popularity. They were also supposed to ensure a more balanced impact on global economic development in post-crisis conditions in order to prevent further disruptions.

The G20 is a more representative format compared to the Security Council UN andG8 - G7 both quantitative and qualitative indicators. The G20 formula certainly meets the motives of political expediency, but to some extent it is redundant according to the criteria of functional capacity. G 20 is not even a structure yet, but just a forum, not for negotiations, but for the exchange of opinions, as well as making decisions of the most general nature (those that do not require careful coordination).

Even in this capacity, the G20 has more than limited experience in practical functioning. It is not yet clear whether its activities will lead to any practical results and whether they will be more significant than what other structures offer (for example, recommendations under the IMF line). The G20's attention is focused only on the financial and economic aspects of international development. Whether the participants will want and be able to go beyond these boundaries is an open question.

More traditional mechanisms that organize multilateral interaction between participants in international life on a regular basis include intergovernmental organizations. They are an essential structural component of the international system, however in general they are inferior in the scale of their influence to the largest states . But about a dozen of the most significant of them — interstate organizations of general (or very broad) purpose — play an important role in their regions, act as a regulator and coordinator of the actions of member countries, and are sometimes endowed with the authority to represent them in relations with the outside world .

Multilateral interaction, carried out within one framework or another on a permanent basis, on a significant scale and with a sufficiently deep penetration into the fabric of society, can lead to the emergence of a certain new quality in the relations of the participating states. In this case, there is reason to talk about the emergence of more advanced elements of the international infrastructure in comparison with what traditional intergovernmental organizations represent, although the line dividing them is sometimes ephemeral or even arbitrary.

The most significant in this regard is phenomenon of international integration. In the most general terms, he is expressed in the development of unification processes between several states, the vector of which is focused on the formation of a larger integrated complex .

The intensification of integration trends in international life is global in nature, but their most noticeable manifestation has become practice of the European Union. Although there is no reason to portray his experience as a series of continuous and unconditional victories, the successes achieved in this area are undeniable. Actually The EU remains the most ambitious international project inherited from the past century. Among others it is an example of the successful organization of space in that part of the world system, which for centuries was a field of conflicts and wars, and today has turned into a zone of stability and security.

Integration experience is also in demand in a number of other regions of the world, although with much less impressive results. The latter are interesting not only and not even primarily in economic terms. An important function of integration processes is the ability to neutralize instability at the regional level .

However, there is no obvious answer to the question about the consequences of regional integration for the formation of global integrity. Removing competition between states (or channeling it into a cooperative channel), regional integration may pave the way for mutual rivalry between larger territorial entities , consolidating each of them and increasing its capacity and offensiveness as a participant in the international system.

Here, therefore, A more general topic arises - the relationship between the global and regional levels in the international system.

The formation of an international infrastructure resulting from the readiness of states to assign some functions of transnational governance to interstate or non-governmental organizations of the relevant profile not limited by regional frameworks . Its configuration is often determined by other factors - for example, industry, problem, functional features and the regulatory tasks arising from them (as, for example, in the case of OPEC). A the result may be the emergence of specific spaces and regimes, which, according to certain parameters, stand out from the general array of norms, institutions and behavioral practices inherent in the international system.

Some regimes are practically global in nature (non-proliferation of nuclear weapons), others are not tied to any territorial areas (control over missile technology). But in practical terms, the formation of specific international regimes is easier to implement at the regional level. Sometimes this is a step that precedes closer and imperative global obligations and structures; in other cases, on the contrary, it is a means of collective defense against the manifestations of globalism.

1. Main actors of the international system: great and regional powers

Leadership in the international system is determined by the status of great and regional powers. First, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of what is meant by leadership in modern world politics.

According to the definition of a Russian researcher HELL. Bogaturova, leadership is characterized by “the ability of a country or several countries to influence the formation of the international order or its individual fragments,” while the circle of leaders may have its own hierarchy. You can select classical leaders, possessing a set of the best military, political, economic and other indicators that allow them to project their influence at the international level , And non-classical leaders, which compensated for the lack of significant military power with economic weight (such leaders are Japan and Germany).

Initially the hierarchy of leaders in the second half of the 20th century. was formed based on presence of armed force necessary to establish control over the behavior of other states, economic power, ideological influence promoting voluntary submission to the leader. In the 1980s and 1990s. these principles were also added scientific and technical potential, availability of organizational resources, ability to project “soft power” . Was allocated the following set of five traits necessary for leadership in world politics:

1) military force;

2) scientific and technical potential;

3) production and economic potential;

4) organizational resource;

5) total creative resource (the potential for the production of innovations that are in demand in life, both in a technological, and in a political, cultural-philosophical sense).

HELL. Voskresensky connects the processes of structuring regional and macroregional space, the types and intensity of transregional connections with the discussion about leadership in world politics. Geopolitical changes in the regional space, as a result of which growing regions begin to reformat the world order, in particular, with the help of new trans-regional connections, caused by the activities of powers at the global level . Pomi-mo USA as a dominant state(the influence of which has weakened somewhat compared to the previous hegemonic state status), one can also identify a whole group of states that do not have all the criteria for becoming a dominant state , nevertheless having greater or lesser potential to “direct or adjust global development, primarily in a specific geographic region . This idea, as many researchers note, largely determines the formation of a new model of world order based on the processes of regionalization and new trans-regional connections.

It should be noted uhvolutsiYu"great power" concept in the literature on international relations.

Great power concept (great power) was originally used to study the interaction of the main players in a historical context. To do this, as a rule, an analysis of the period from the 17th century is carried out. at the end of the Second World War, the post-bipolar system of international relations is included much less frequently in this analysis. This is done by researchers such as M. Wright, P. Kennedy, K. Waltz, A. F. Organski, J. Kugler, M. F. Levy, R. Gilpin and others. At the same time, as noted K. Waltz, in a specific historical period of time it is not difficult to identify great powers , and most researchers end up focusing on the same countries .

Without going into details of the historical interpretation of the actions of great powers, we will dwell on the term itself and the criteria necessary to be identified as a great power in the literature on the history of international relations. P. Kennedy characterizes a great power as “a state capable of withstanding a war against any other state.” R. Gilpin distinguishes great powers by their ability to form and impose the rules of the game, to which they themselves and all other states in the system must obey. Gilpin in his definition relies on the opinion of R. Aron: “The structure of the system of international relations always has an oligopolistic character. In any given period, key actors determined the system to a greater extent than were influenced by it.” K. Waltz identifies five criteria for a great power, noting that they are all necessary to achieve this status:

1) population and size of territory;

2) provision of resources;

3) economic power;

4) military force;

5) political stability and competence.

T.A. Shakleina believes that V a great power is a state that maintains a very high (or absolute) degree of independence in conducting domestic and foreign policy, not only ensuring national interests, but also having a significant impact (to varying degrees, up to decisive) influence on world and regional politics and the politics of individual countries (world-regulating activity), and possessing all or a significant part of the traditional parameters of a great power (territory, population, natural resources, military potential, economic potential, intellectual and cultural potential, scientific and technical, sometimes information potential is separately highlighted). Independence in pursuing a policy of a world-regulating nature presupposes the presence of the will to pursue such a policy. Presence of historical experience, tradition and culture of participation in world politics as a decisive and/or active player.

B. Buzan and O. UAndver claim that great power status includes several characteristics: material resources (according to the criteria of K. Waltz), formal recognition of this status by other participants in international relations , and global power actions . They define a great power as a country that is viewed by other powerful powers as having the clear economic, military and political potential to aspire to superpower status in the short to medium term. In their understanding of the hierarchy of influential powers, its top level is occupied by superpowers, lower — regional, A great powers find themselves in the middle .

Superpowers and Great Powers determine global level of international relations , having a greater (in the case of superpowers) or a lesser degree (in the case of great powers) ability to intervene in various security complexes to which they do not geographically belong.

Great powers Compared to superpowers, they may not have as many resources (military, political, economic, etc.) or may not have the same line of behavior (obligation to actively participate in security processes in all areas of the system of international relations). The status of a great power differs from the status of a regional power in that a great power is treated based on “system (global) level calculations regarding the current and future distribution of power " Exactly the focus on becoming a superpower in certain areas distinguishes a great power from a regional one, and in this sense, great importance is attached to the foreign policy process and discourse in other great powers.

The definition and criteria for identifying great powers by B. Buzan and O. Weaver seem optimal for identifying great powers. They include objective components (availability of resources in various areas), as well as behavioral (participation in maintaining global security) and subjective (motivation to increase one’s status to a superpower and the corresponding perception of this intention by other participants in international processes). These criteria make it possible not only to identify great powers at the global level, but also to trace the difference in the concepts of great and regional powers.

Unlike the great power concept regional power concept (regionalpower) arose simultaneously with the advent of research devoted to the structuring of regional sub-systems of international relations . One of the first publications on the concept of regional powers states the following: definition of regional power: this is a state that is part of a specific region, can resist any coalition of other states in the region, has significant influence in the region and, in addition to regional weight, is a great power at the global level .

Theorists of regional processes B. Buzan and O. UAndver think that a regional power is a power with significant capabilities and strong influence in the region . She determines the number of poles in it (unipolar structure in South Africa, bipolar in South Asia, multipolar in the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia), but its influence is mostly limited to a specific region . Great powers and superpowers are forced to take into account their influence in the region, but at the same time, regional powers are rarely taken into account when forming the global level of the system of international relations.

Of great interest in this regard are the principles comparisons of regional powers , proposed D. Nolte. In his work he is based on power transition theories (Power Transition Theory), developed A.F.K. Organski, which presents the system of international relations as a hierarchical system with a dominant power at the head and the presence of regional, great, middle and small powers that occupy their subordinate position in this system .

All subsystems of international relations function in accordance with the same logic as the global system of international relations , i.e. at the top of each subsystem there is its own dominant state or pyramid of power in a given region. According to the author, the presence of certain regional powers determines the structure of a given region.

Considering various criteria for identifying regional powers , D. Nolte identifies the following: regional power- This a state that is part of a given region, which has claims to leadership in it, has a significant influence on the geopolitics of the given region and its political construction, has material (military, economic, demographic), organizational (political) and ideological resources for projecting their influence, or closely associated with the region in economics, politics and culture, having a real influence on events occurring in the region, including through participation in regional institutions that determine the regional security agenda . He notes that the participation of a regional power in global institutions, one way or another, expresses the interests of the countries of the entire region. His work also highlights in detail the indicators of these categories. Based on this concept, it seems possible to identify regional powers based on clearly defined criteria proposed by D. Nolte in the space of any region.

To build a hierarchy of regional order, it is also necessary to understand what the concept “ mid-level power" For example, R. Kohane defines a mid-tier power as " a state whose leaders believe that it cannot act effectively alone, but can have systematic influence over a small group of countries or through some international institutions ". It appears that a mid-level power generally has fewer resources than a regional power, although most researchers do not identify specific criteria for differentiating models of mid-level and regional powers. Middle powers have some resources and some influence, but are not able to have a decisive influence on the structuring of the regional space and do not see themselves as a leader on a global scale .

Based on these methodological principles (criteria for identifying great and regional powers, as well as middle-level powers), it seems possible to build a model of regional order in any region of the world, determine the contours of interaction between powers within a particular region, and also make forecast for the future development of the regional subsystem of international relations.

Main literature

Bogaturov A.D. International relations and foreign policy of Russia: scientific publication. - M.: Publishing house "Aspect Press", 2017. P.30-37.

World comprehensive regional studies: textbook / ed. prof. HELL. Voskresensky. - M.: Master: INFRA-M, 2017. P.99-106.

Modern international relations: textbook / Ed. A.V. Torkunova, A.V. Malgina. - M.: Aspect Press, 2012. P.44-72.

additional literature

Modern world politics: Applied analysis / Rep. ed. A. D. Bogaturov. 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Aspect Press, 2010. - 592 p.

Modern global problems / Rep. ed. V. G. Baranovsky, A. D. Bogaturov. - M.: Aspect Press, 2010. - 350 p.

Etzioni A. From empire to community: a new approach to international relations / Transl. from English edited by V.L. Inozemtseva. - M.: Ladomir, 2004. - 384 p.

Buzan V. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Keohane R. O., Nye J. S., Jr. Power and Interdependence. 4th ed. Boston: Longman, 2011.

Rosenau J. N. The Study of World Politics. Vol. 2: Globalization and Governance. L. and N.Y.: Routledge, 2006.

The Oxford Handbook of International Relations / Ed. by C. Reus-Smit, D. Snidal. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Keohane O.R. Lilliputians" Dilemmas: Small States in International Politics // International Organization. Vol. 23. No. 2. P. 296.

Nolle D. How to Compare Regional Powers: Analytical Concepts and Research Topic. P. 10-12.

V.Yu. Peskov

Postgraduate student of the Department of International Relations, World Economy and International Law, PSLU

V.V. Degoev Doctor of Historical Sciences, MGIMO (U)

Main trends of modern international relations

Until now, we have considered politics within the boundaries of national states, where its subjects were individuals, social groups (classes, strata), parties, movements pursuing individual and group interests. However, independent states themselves do not develop in a vacuum; they interact with each other and act as subjects of a higher-level policy - international.

If at the beginning of the 20th century. There were only 52 independent states in the world, then by the middle of the century there were already 82, and today their number exceeds 200. All these states and the peoples inhabiting them interact in various spheres of human life. States are not isolated; they must establish relationships with their neighbors. The relations that develop between states are usually called international. International relations are a set of economic, political, ideological, legal, military, informational, diplomatic and other connections and relationships between states and systems of states, between the main social, economic and political forces, organizations and movements on the world stage.

International politics is the core of international relations. It represents the political activity of subjects of international law (states, etc.) related to resolving issues of war and peace, ensuring issues of general security, environmental protection, overcoming backwardness and poverty, hunger and disease.

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Thus, international politics is aimed at resolving issues of survival and progress of human society, developing mechanisms for coordinating the interests of subjects of world politics, preventing and resolving global and regional conflicts, and creating a fair world order. It is an important factor in stability and peace, the development of equality in international relations.

Political scientists distinguish 4 groups of subjects of international relations:

1. Nation states. These are the main subjects of foreign policy activities. They enter into various relationships with each other at the global and regional levels.

2. Interstate associations. These include coalitions of states, military-political blocs (for example, NATO), integrated organizations (for example, the European Union), political associations (for example, the League of Arab States, the Association of American States). These associations on an interstate basis play an extremely important role in modern politics.

3. Interstate governmental organizations. This is a special type of association, which includes representatives of most countries of the world with often divergent political interests. Such organizations are created to discuss problems of universal importance and to coordinate the activities of the world community (for example, the UN).

4. Non-state / non-governmental international organizations and movements. They are active subjects of world politics. These include international associations of political parties, professional associations (for example, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions), associations of youth, students, pacifist movements (for example, the Peace Movement).

Relations between states can take various forms: allied relations, when states are partners, actively

cooperate in various fields and enter into alliances; neutral relations, when business contacts are established between states, but they do not result in allied relations; conflict relations when states make territorial and/or other claims against each other and take active steps to satisfy them.

In the mid-1970s. XX century in Helsinki in the final act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Currently this international structure is called OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) the basic principles of modern international relations were formulated: sovereign equality of states; inviolability of established boundaries; non-use of force or threat of force in interstate relations; territorial integrity of states; peaceful settlement of disputes; non-interference in the internal affairs of other states; respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; equality and the right of peoples to control their own destinies; cooperation between states and the conscientious fulfillment by states of their obligations under international law.

Modern international relations are built on a bilateral or multilateral basis and are global or regional in nature.

Previously, in the theory of international relations, the concept of “foreign policy” was used to denote interaction between sovereign states. Foreign policy is the general course of a state in international affairs. The foreign policy activities of states represent a kind of means of their adaptation to specific external conditions. These conditions do not depend on the will, desires and intentions of an individual state and do not always correspond to its interests and motivations. Therefore, states, in the process of implementing their foreign policy functions, have to adjust their

needs, goals and interests determined by their internal development, with objective conditions in the system.

The main goals of foreign policy are: ensuring the security of a given state; the desire to increase the material, political, military, intellectual and other potential of the country; growth of its prestige in international relations.

In addition, the goal and result of interaction between members of the world community is to coordinate efforts to establish mutually beneficial ties between subjects of world politics.

There are many theories of foreign policy. Of the specific foreign policy theories, the most famous is the theory of the American political scientist G. Morgenthau. He defines foreign policy primarily as a policy of force, in which national interests rise above any international norms and principles, and therefore force (foreign, economic, financial) turns into the main means of achieving set goals. This is where his formula follows: “The goals of foreign policy must be determined in the spirit of national interests and supported by force.”

To the question “Is there a relationship between foreign and domestic policies?” You can find at least three points of view on this problem. The first point of view identifies domestic and foreign policy. University of Chicago professor G. Morgenthau believed that “the essence of international politics is identical to domestic politics. Both domestic and foreign policy are a struggle for power, which is modified only by various conditions developing in the domestic and international spheres.”

The second point of view is represented by the works of the Austrian sociologist L. Gumplowicz, who believed that foreign policy determines domestic policy. Based on the fact that the struggle for existence is the main factor in social life, L. Gumplowicz formulated a system of laws

international politics. Main law: neighboring states are constantly fighting with each other over the border line. Secondary laws follow from the primary law. One of them is this: any state must prevent the strengthening of the power of its neighbor and take care of political balance; in addition, any state strives for profitable acquisitions, for example, gaining access to the sea as a means of acquiring sea power. Finally, the third law: domestic policy must be subordinated to the goals of building up military force, with the help of which resources for the survival of the state are provided. These, according to L. Gumpilovich, are the basic laws of international politics.

The third point of view is represented by Marxism, which believes that foreign policy is determined by domestic policy and is a continuation of intra-society relations. The content of the latter is determined by the economic relations prevailing in society and the interests of the ruling classes.

Relations between states in the international arena have never been equal. The role of each state was determined by its economic, technological, military, and information capabilities. These possibilities determined the nature of relations between states and, consequently, the type of system of international relations. The typology of international relations is of practical importance because it allows us to identify those global factors that influenced the development of both the world community and a specific country.

In the world, integration processes are becoming increasingly important, which are manifested in the creation of international interstate organizations (such as the UN, NATO, ILO, WHO, FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF, SCO, etc.), confederations (the European Union, a union strengthening its position Russia and Belarus). The largest confederation of states in modern times is the European Union (EU). The purpose of this

confederation of states: 1) formation of a close union of the peoples of Europe, promoting economic growth by creating a space without internal borders, creating a single currency; 2) pursuing a joint foreign and security policy; 3) development of cooperation in the field of justice (creation and signing of the European Constitution, etc.) and internal affairs, etc. The EU bodies are: 1) the European Council; 2) European Parliament; 3) Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers); 4) European Commission; 5) European Court.

Today, the EU is no longer just a group of countries united in a customs union or a common market - it is incomparably more. Being the undisputed leader of not only European but also world integration, he lays down the main trends in the functioning of world politics. This, in turn, leads to closer political, economic, scientific and cultural ties between participating countries. In the modern international system, the Russian Federation and the EU act as independent and at the same time actively interacting agents of the global political process, the foundation of which is the basic principles of international law and the UN Charter. The partnership between Russia and the EU was legally formalized in 1994 by the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which came into force on December 1, 1997. Russia-EU summits are held periodically, at which current issues of international politics and economic cooperation are discussed.

The current situation in the world, associated with the crisis of the neoliberal scenario of globalization, which was based on the idea of ​​sole dominance in international politics by the United States, required the Russian Federation to develop new principles on which its foreign policy will be based. These principles-positions were once announced by D.A. Medvedev. Let's call them:

The first position is international law. Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law that determine relations between civilized peoples.

The second position is that the world must be multipolar. Medvedev considers unipolarity unacceptable. Russia “cannot accept a world order in which all decisions are made by one country, even one as serious as the United States,” the president said. He believes that “such a world is unstable and threatens conflicts.”

The third position is that Russia does not want confrontation with any country. “Russia is not going to isolate itself,” Medvedev said. “We will develop as much as possible our friendly relations with Europe and the United States and other countries of the world.”

The fourth position, which D. Medvedev called the absolute priority of the country’s foreign policy, is the protection of the life and dignity of Russian citizens, “no matter where they are.” “We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad,” the president emphasized. “And it should be clear to everyone that everyone who commits aggression will receive an answer.”

The fifth position is Russia's interests in regions friendly to it. “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions in which there are privileged interests,” Medvedev explained. “These regions contain countries with which we have friendly relations.” And Russia, according to the president, will “work very carefully in these regions.” Medvedev clarified that this is not only about border states.

American sociologist L. Kerbo argues that it is impossible to understand any modern society without finding out its place in the world system, which is influenced by economic growth, urbanization, and demography.

The world system can be viewed as a set of relations between states, similar to the relations between groups in society. E. Giddens defines the world system as a social system

global scale, connecting all societies into a single world social order.

One of the theories of the world system was developed by I. Wallerstein. The world system is based on economic relations. In the modern world, all states are interconnected. But the economic roles of each state are different in both specialization and degree of influence. In a sense, the world is an international system of stratification "from a class position" of each state according to the degree of wealth and power. The world struggle will be similar to the class struggle: some want to maintain positions, others want to change.

In this regard, the following types of states with their characteristic features can be distinguished:

Center: economically developed, with broad specialization. Complex professional structure with a qualified workforce. They influence others, but they themselves are independent.

Periphery: focus on the extraction and export of raw materials. International corporations use unskilled labor. Weaker state institutions, unable to control internal and external situations. Reliance on the army and secret police to maintain social order.

Semi-periphery: states develop industry broadly, but lag significantly behind the center. In other indicators they also occupy an intermediate position.

The central states, according to Western researchers, have the following advantages: wide access to raw materials; cheap labor; large income from direct investments; market for export; skilled labor through migration to the center.

If we talk about the connections of these three types of states, then the center has more connections compared to other states; periphery connected

only with the center; the semi-periphery is connected with the center and other semi-peripheral countries, but not with the peripheral ones.

According to Sh. Kumon, the 21st century will be marked by the information revolution. Possible conflicts will arise regarding control over communications. The world-system will be characterized by the following trends: simultaneously with the growing influence of local government, the global system will strengthen, requiring management of transport, communications, trade, etc.; the development of a common world economy will lead to a weakening of market mechanisms; the role of the general system of knowledge and culture will increase.

Peskov V.Yu., Degoev V.V. Main trends of modern international relations. The article examines the problem of vectors of development of the world political process.

Key words: international relations, world politics, foreign policy. Peskov V.U., Degoev M.M. The main trends of modern international relations. The problem of vectors of world politics.

Keywords: international relations, world politics, foreign policy.

Since ancient times, international relations have been one of the important aspects of the life of any country, society and even an individual. The formation and development of individual states, the emergence of borders, the formation of various spheres of human life have led to the emergence of numerous interactions that are implemented both between countries and with interstate unions and other organizations.

In modern conditions of globalization, when almost all states find themselves involved in a network of such interactions that affect not only the economy, production, consumption, but also culture, values ​​and ideals, the role of international relations is overestimated and becomes increasingly significant. There is a need to consider what these international relations are, how they develop, and what role the state plays in these processes.

Origins of the concept

The appearance of the term “international relations” is associated with the formation of the state as a sovereign entity. The formation of a system of independent powers in Europe at the end of the 18th century led to a decrease in the authority of reigning monarchies and dynasties. A new subject of relations appears on the world stage - the national state. The conceptual basis for the creation of the latter is the category of sovereignty, formed by Jean Bodin in the middle of the 16th century. The thinker saw the future of the state in its separation from the claims of the church and provided the monarch with full and indivisible power on the territory of the country, as well as its independence from other powers. In the middle of the 17th century, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, which consolidated the established doctrine of sovereign powers.

By the end of the 18th century, the western part of Europe represented an established system of nation-states. The interactions between them as between peoples-nations received the corresponding name - international relations. This category was first introduced into scientific circulation by the English scientist J. Bentham. His vision of the world order was far ahead of his time. Even then, the theory developed by the philosopher assumed the abandonment of colonies, the creation of international judicial bodies and an army.

The emergence and development of the theory

Researchers note that the theory of international relations is contradictory: on the one hand, it is very old, and on the other, young. This is explained by the fact that the origins of the emergence of studies of international relations are connected with the emergence of states and peoples. Already in ancient times, thinkers considered the problems of wars and ensuring order and peaceful relations between countries. At the same time, as a separate systematized branch of knowledge, the theory of international relations took shape relatively recently - in the middle of the last century. In the post-war years, a reassessment of the world legal order takes place, attempts are made to create conditions for peaceful interaction between countries, and international organizations and unions of states are formed.

The development of new types of interactions, the emergence of new subjects in the international arena has led to the need to separate the subject of science studying international relations, freed from the influence of such related disciplines as law and sociology. The sectoral variety of the latter is being formed to this day, studying certain aspects of international interactions.

Basic Paradigms

Speaking about the theory of international relations, it is necessary to turn to the works of researchers who devoted their work to considering relations between powers, trying to find the foundations of world order. Since the theory of international relations took shape as an independent discipline relatively recently, it should be noted that its theoretical provisions developed in line with philosophy, political science, sociology, law and other sciences.

Russian scientists identify three main paradigms in the classical theory of international relations.

1. Traditional, or classical, the ancestor of which is considered to be the ancient Greek thinker Thucydides. A historian, considering the causes of wars, comes to the conclusion that the main regulator of relations between countries is the factor of force. States, being independent, are not bound by any specific obligations and can use force to achieve their goals. This direction was developed in their works by other scientists, including N. Machiavelli, T. Hobbes, E. de Vattel and others.
2. Idealist, the provisions of which are presented in the works of I. Kant, G. Grotius, F. de Vittoria and others. The emergence of this trend was preceded by the development of Christianity and Stoicism in Europe. The idealistic vision of international relations is based on the idea of ​​the unity of the entire human race and inalienable individual rights. Human rights, according to thinkers, are a priority in relation to the state, and the unity of humanity leads to the secondary nature of the very idea of ​​a sovereign power, which in these conditions loses its original meaning.
3. The Marxist interpretation of relations between countries was based on the idea of ​​exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie and the struggle between these classes, which will lead to unification within each and the formation of a world society. Under these conditions, the concept of a sovereign state also becomes secondary, since national isolation will gradually disappear with the development of the world market, free trade and other factors.

In the modern theory of international relations, other concepts have appeared that develop the provisions of the presented paradigms.

History of international relations

Scientists associate its beginning with the appearance of the first signs of statehood. The first international relations are considered to be those that developed between ancient states and tribes. You can find many such examples in history: Byzantium and the Slavic tribes, the Roman Empire and German communities.

In the Middle Ages, a feature of international relations was that they did not develop between states, as is the case today. Their initiators, as a rule, were influential persons of the then powers: emperors, princes, representatives of various dynasties. They entered into agreements, assumed obligations, started military conflicts, replacing the interests of the country with their own, identifying themselves with the state as such.

As society developed, the characteristics of interactions also changed. The history of international relations considers the emergence of the concept of sovereignty and the development of the national state at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries to be a turning point. During this period, a qualitatively different type of relations between countries was formed, which has survived to this day.

Concept

The modern definition of what international relations are is complicated by the multitude of connections and spheres of interaction in which they are implemented. An additional obstacle is the instability of the division of relations into domestic and international. A fairly common approach is that the definition is based on the subjects that implement international interactions. Textbooks define international relations as a certain set of various connections and relationships both between states and between other entities operating on the world stage. Today, in addition to states, their number began to include organizations, associations, social movements, social groups, etc.

The most promising approach to definition seems to be the identification of criteria that make it possible to distinguish this type of relationship from any others.

Features of international relations

To understand what international relations are and to understand their nature will be possible by considering the characteristic features of these interactions.

1. The complexity of this type of relationship is determined by their spontaneous nature. The number of participants in these connections is constantly growing, new entities are being included, which makes it difficult to predict changes.
2. Recently, the position of the subjective factor has strengthened, which is reflected in the growing role of the political component.
3. Inclusion in relations of various spheres of life, as well as expanding the circle of political participants: from individual leaders to organizations and movements.
4. The absence of a single center of influence due to the many independent and equal participants in the relationship.

The whole variety of international relations is usually classified based on various criteria, including:

• spheres: economics, culture, politics, ideology, etc.;
• intensity level: high or low;
• from the standpoint of tension: stable/unstable;
• geopolitical criterion for their implementation: global, regional, subregional.

Based on the above criteria, the concept under consideration can be designated as a special type of social relations that goes beyond the framework of any territorial entity or the intra-societal interactions that have developed on it. This formulation of the question requires clarification of how international politics and international relations relate.

The relationship between politics and international relations

Before determining the relationship between these concepts, we note that the term “international politics” is also difficult to define and represents a kind of abstract category that allows us to highlight their political component in relations.

When talking about the interaction of countries in the international arena, people often use the concept of “world politics”. It represents an active component that allows one to influence international relations. If we compare world and international politics, then the first is much wider in scope and is characterized by the presence of participants at various levels: from the state to international organizations, unions and individual influential entities. While the interaction between states is more accurately revealed using categories such as international politics and international relations.

Formation of a system of international relations

At different stages of development of the world community, certain interactions develop between its participants. The main subjects of these relations are several leading powers and international organizations capable of influencing other participants. The organized form of such interactions is the system of international relations. Its goals include:

• ensuring stability in the world;
• cooperation in solving world problems in various fields of activity;
• creating conditions for the development of other participants in the relationship, ensuring their safety and maintaining integrity.

The first system of international relations emerged in the middle of the 17th century (Westphalian), its emergence was due to the development of the doctrine of sovereignty and the emergence of nation-states. It existed for three and a half centuries. Throughout this period, the main subject of relations in the international arena is the state.

In the era of the heyday of the Westphalian system, interactions between countries are based on rivalry, the struggle to expand spheres of influence and increase power. Regulation of international relations is implemented on the basis of international law.

A feature of the twentieth century was the rapid development of sovereign states and changes in the system of international relations, which underwent radical restructuring three times. It should be noted that none of the previous centuries can boast of such radical changes.

The last century brought two world wars. The first led to the creation of the Versailles system, which, having destroyed the balance in Europe, clearly identified two antagonistic camps: the Soviet Union and the capitalist world.

The second led to the formation of a new system, called the Yalta-Potsdam system. During this period, the split between imperialism and socialism intensified, opposing centers were identified: the USSR and the USA, which divided the world into two opposing camps. The period of existence of this system was also marked by the collapse of colonies and the emergence of the so-called “third world” states.

The role of the state in the new system of relations

The modern period of development of the world order is characterized by the formation of a new system, the predecessor of which collapsed at the end of the twentieth century as a result of the collapse of the USSR and a series of Eastern European velvet revolutions.

According to scientists, the formation of the third system and the development of international relations have not yet ended. This is evidenced not only by the fact that today the balance of power in the world is not determined, but also by the fact that new principles of interaction between countries have not been developed. The emergence of new political forces in the form of organizations and movements, unifications of powers, international conflicts and wars allow us to conclude that a complex and painful process of forming norms and principles is now taking place, according to which a new system of international relations will be built.

Particular attention of researchers is drawn to such an issue as the state in international relations. Scientists emphasize that today the doctrine of sovereignty is being seriously tested, since the state has largely lost its independence. These threats are intensified by the process of globalization, which makes borders more and more transparent, and the economy and production more and more dependent.

But at the same time, modern international relations put forward a number of demands on states that only this social institution can do. In such conditions, there is a shift from traditional functions to new ones that go beyond the usual.

The role of economics

International economic relations play a special role today, since it is this type of interaction that has become one of the driving forces of globalization. The emerging world economy today can be represented as a global economy that unites various branches of specialization of national economic systems. All of them are included in a single mechanism, the elements of which interact and are dependent on each other.

International economic relations existed before the advent of the world economy and connected industries within continents or regional associations. The main subjects of such relations are states. In addition to them, the group of participants includes giant corporations, international organizations and associations. The regulating institution of these interactions is the law of international relations.

International relationships- a set of political, economic, ideological, legal, diplomatic and other connections and relationships between states and systems of states, between the main classes, main social, economic, political forces, organizations and social movements operating on the world stage, that is, between peoples in the very in the broadest sense of the word.

Historically, international relations took shape and developed as, first of all, interstate relations; the emergence of the phenomenon of international relations is associated with the emergence of the institution of the state, and changes in their nature at different stages of historical development were largely determined by the evolution of the state.

Systematic approach to the study of international relations

Modern science is characterized by the study of international relations as an integral system functioning according to its own laws. The advantages of this approach are that it allows a deeper analysis of the motivation for the behavior of countries or military-political blocs, identifying the relative weight of certain factors that determine their actions, exploring the mechanism that determines the dynamics of the world community as a whole, and ideally predicting its development. Systematicity in relation to international relations means the nature of long-term relationships between states or groups of states, which are characterized by stability and interdependence; these relationships are based on the desire to achieve a certain, conscious set of sustainable goals; they, to one degree or another, contain elements of legal regulation of basic aspects international activities.

Formation of the system of international relations

Systematicity in international relations is a historical concept. It is formed in the early modern period, when international relations acquired qualitatively new features that determined their subsequent development. The conventional date for the formation of the system of international relations is considered to be 1648 - the time of the end of the Thirty Years' War and the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. The most important condition for the emergence of systematicity was the formation of national states with relatively stable interests and goals. The economic foundation of this process was the development of bourgeois relations; the ideological and political side was greatly influenced by the Reformation, which undermined the Catholic unity of the European world and contributed to the political and cultural isolation of states. Within states, there was a process of strengthening centralizing tendencies and overcoming feudal separatism, which resulted in the opportunity to develop and implement a consistent foreign policy. In parallel, based on the development of commodity-money relations and the growth of world trade, a system of world economic relations was born, into which increasingly vast territories were gradually drawn in and within which a certain hierarchy was built.

Periodization of the history of international relations in modern and contemporary times

In the course of the development of the system of international relations in modern and recent times, a number of major stages have been identified that differed significantly from each other in their internal content, structure, the nature of the relationships between the constituent elements, and the dominant set of values. Based on these criteria, it is customary to distinguish the Westphalian (1648-1789), Vienna (1815-1914), Versailles-Washington (1919-1939), Yalta-Potsdam (bipolar) (1945-1991) and post-bipolar models of international relations. Each of the successively replacing each other models passed through several phases in its development: from the phase of formation to the phase of decay. Up to and including the Second World War, the starting point of the next cycle in the evolution of the system of international relations were major military conflicts, during which a radical regrouping of forces was carried out, the nature of the state interests of the leading countries changed, and a serious redrawing of borders took place. Thus, old pre-war contradictions were eliminated and the road was cleared for a new round of development.

Characteristic features of international relations and foreign policy of states in modern times

From the point of view of the history of international relations, European states have been of decisive importance in modern times. In the “European era”, which lasted until the twentieth century, it was they who acted as the main dynamic force, increasingly influencing the appearance of the rest of the world through the expansion and spread of European civilization - a process that began with the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries at the end of the 15th century. V.

In the XVI - XVII centuries. The ideas about the medieval world order, when Europe was perceived as a kind of Christian unity under the spiritual leadership of the pope and with a universalist tendency towards political unification, which was to be headed by the Holy Roman Emperor, have finally become a thing of the past. The Reformation and religious wars put an end to spiritual unity, and the formation of a new statehood and the collapse of the empire of Charles V as the last universalist attempt - to political unity. From now on, Europe became not so much unity as plurality. During the Thirty Years' War 1618 - 1648. The secularization of international relations was finally established as one of their most important characteristics in modern times. If earlier foreign policy was largely determined by religious motives, then with the beginning of modern times, the main motive for the actions of an individual state became the principle of state interests, which is understood as such a set of long-term program and target objectives of the state (military, economic, propaganda, etc.), the implementation of which would guarantee the country's preservation of sovereignty and security. Along with secularization, another important feature of international relations in modern times was the process of monopolization of foreign policy by the state, while individual feudal lords, merchant corporations, and church organizations gradually left the European political scene. Conducting foreign policy required the creation of a regular army to protect the interests of the state externally and a bureaucracy designed to more effectively manage internally. There was a separation of foreign policy departments from other government bodies, and there was a process of complication and differentiation of their structure. The main role in making foreign policy decisions was played by the monarch, in whose figure the absolutist state of the 17th - 18th centuries was personified. It is he who is perceived as the source and bearer of sovereignty.

The state also takes control of one of the most common means of conducting foreign policy in modern times - war. In the Middle Ages, the concept of war was ambiguous and vague; it could be used to refer to various kinds of internal conflicts; various feudal groups had the “right to war.” In the XVII-XVIII centuries. all rights to use armed force pass into the hands of the state, and the very concept of “war” is used almost exclusively to refer to interstate conflicts. At the same time, war was recognized as a completely normal, natural means of conducting politics. The threshold separating peace from war was extremely low; statistics testify to the constant readiness to cross it - two years of peace in the 17th century, sixteen in the 18th century. The main type of war in the 17th - 18th centuries. - this is the so-called “cabinet war”, i.e. a war between sovereigns and their armies, aimed at the acquisition of specific territories with a conscious desire to preserve population and material values. The most common type of war for absolutist dynastic Europe was the war of succession - Spanish, Austrian, Polish. On the one hand, these wars were about the prestige of individual dynasties and their representatives, about issues of rank and hierarchy; on the other hand, dynastic problems often acted as a convenient legal justification for achieving economic, political, and strategic interests. The second important type of wars were trade and colonial wars, the emergence of which was associated with the rapid development of capitalism and intense trade competition between European powers. An example of such conflicts are the Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-French wars.

The absence of external restrictions on the activities of states and constant wars required the development of norms for interstate relations. One proposed option was an international organization or federation designed to regulate disputes diplomatically and apply collective sanctions to violators of the general will. The idea of ​​“eternal peace” took a strong position in social thought and went through a certain evolution from an appeal to the reason of sovereigns through the demand for a change in the political system of individual states to the proclamation of the inevitability of the onset of eternal peace in a separate future. Another common concept was the "balance of power" or "political equilibrium". In political practice, this concept became a reaction to the attempts of the Habsburgs and then the Bourbons to establish dominance in Europe. Balance was understood as a means to ensure peace and security for all participants in the system. The task of laying a legal basis for relations between states was met by the appearance of works by G. Grotius and S. Puffendorf on problems of international law. Researchers Thomas Hobbes, Niccollo Macchiavelli, David Hume, Karl Haushofer, Robert Schumann, Francis Fukuyama and others made significant contributions to works on the history of international relations.

Features of the development of international relations in the 19th century. stemmed mainly from the fact that at that time fundamental changes were taking place in the life of Western society and the state. The so-called “double revolution” of the late 18th century, i.e. The industrial revolution that began in England and the French Revolution became the starting point for the process of modernization that took place throughout the next century, during which the traditional class-divided agrarian society was replaced by a modern mass industrial civilization. The main subject of international relations is still the state, although it was in the 19th century. Non-state participants in international relations - national and pacifist movements, various kinds of political associations - are also beginning to play a certain role. If with the process of secularization the state lost its traditional support in the form of divine sanction, then in the era of democratization that began, it gradually lost its centuries-old dynastic background. In the sphere of international relations, this was most clearly manifested in the complete disappearance of the phenomenon of wars of succession, and at the diplomatic level in the gradual diminishment of issues of primacy and rank, so characteristic of the Old Order. Having lost the old supports, the state was in dire need of new ones. As a result, the crisis of legitimation of political domination was overcome by reference to a new authority - the nation. The French Revolution put forward the idea of ​​popular sovereignty and viewed the nation as its source and bearer. However, until the middle of the 19th century. - the state and the nation acted more like antipodes. Monarchs fought against the national idea as a legacy of the French Revolution, while liberal and democratic forces demanded their participation in political life precisely on the basis of the idea of ​​the nation as a politically self-governing people. The situation changed under the influence of dramatic changes in the economy and social structure of society: electoral reforms gradually allowed wider layers to political life, and the state began to draw its legitimacy from the nation. Moreover, if initially the national idea was used by political elites mainly instrumentally as a means of mobilizing support for their policies, dictated by rational interests, then gradually it turned into one of the leading forces that determined state policy.

Huge influence on the foreign policy of states and international relations in the 19th century. caused the industrial revolution. It manifested itself in the increased interdependence between economic and political power. The economy began to determine the goals of foreign policy to a much greater extent, provided new means to achieve these goals, and gave rise to new conflicts. The revolution in the field of communications led to overcoming the “centuries-old hostility of space” and became a condition for expanding the boundaries of the system, the “first globalization.” Coupled with rapid technological progress in the development of weapons of the great powers, it also gave a new quality to colonial expansion.

The 19th century has gone down in history as the most peaceful century of modern times. The architects of the Vienna system consciously sought to design mechanisms designed to prevent a major war. The theory and practice of the “Concert of Europe” that emerged during that period marked a step towards international relations that were consciously managed on the basis of agreed norms. However, the period 1815 - 1914 was not so homogeneous, different tendencies were hidden behind the outward peacefulness, peace and war went hand in hand with each other. As before, war was understood as a natural means for the state to pursue its foreign policy interests. At the same time, the processes of industrialization, democratization of society, and the development of nationalism gave it a new character. With the introduction almost everywhere in the 1860-70s. universal conscription began to blur the line between the army and society. Two circumstances followed from this - firstly, the impossibility of waging a war contrary to public opinion and, accordingly, the need for its propaganda preparation, and secondly, the tendency for the war to acquire a total character. The distinctive features of total war are the use of all types and means of struggle - armed, economic, ideological; unlimited goals, up to the complete moral and physical destruction of the enemy; erasing the boundaries between the military and civilian population, state and society, public and private, mobilizing all the country's resources to fight the enemy. The war of 1914 - 1918, which led to the collapse of the Vienna system, was not only the First World War, but also the first total war.

Features of the development of international relations and foreign policy of states in modern times

World War I became a reflection of the crisis of traditional bourgeois society, its accelerator and stimulator, and at the same time a form of transition from one model of organization of the world community to another. The international legal formalization of the results of the First World War and the new balance of power that emerged after its end was Versailles-Washington model international relations. It was formed as the first global system - the United States and Japan joined the club of great powers. However, the architects of the Versailles-Washington system failed to create a stable balance based on the balance of interests of the great powers. Not only did it not eliminate traditional contradictions, but it also contributed to the emergence of new international conflicts.

Fig.1. Global Peace index map.

The main thing was the confrontation between the victorious powers and the defeated states. The conflict between the Allied powers and Germany was the most important contradiction of the interwar period, which ultimately resulted in a struggle for a new redivision of the world. The contradictions between the victorious powers themselves did not contribute to their implementation of a coordinated policy and predetermined the ineffectiveness of the first international peacekeeping organization - League of Nations. An organic flaw of the Versailles system was its disregard for the interests of Soviet Russia. A fundamentally new one has arisen in international relations - an inter-formation, ideological-class conflict. The emergence of another group of contradictions - between small European countries - was associated with the solution of territorial and political issues, which took into account not so much their interests as the strategic considerations of the victorious powers. A purely conservative approach to solving colonial problems strained relations between the metropolitan powers and the colonies. The growing national liberation movement became one of the most important indicators of the instability and fragility of the Versailles-Washington system. Despite its instability, the Versailles-Washington model cannot be characterized only in a negative way. Along with conservative, imperialist tendencies, it contained democratic, fair principles. They were caused by fundamental changes in the post-war world: the rise of the revolutionary and national liberation movement, the widespread spread of pacifist sentiments, as well as the desire of a number of leaders of the victorious powers to give the new world order a more liberal appearance. Decisions such as the establishment of the League of Nations, the declaration of the independence and territorial integrity of China, and the limitation and reduction of armaments were based on these principles. However, they could not eliminate the destructive tendencies in the development of the system, which were especially clearly manifested in the wake of great economic crisis of 1929-1933. The coming to power in a number of states (primarily in Germany) of forces aimed at destroying the existing system became an important factor in its crisis. A theoretically possible alternative in the evolution of the Versailles-Washington system lasted until the mid-30s, after which destructive moments in the development of this model began to completely determine the overall dynamics of the functioning of the system mechanism, which caused the crisis phase to develop into a phase of collapse. The decisive event that determined the final fate of this system occurred in the fall of 1938. We are talking about Munich Agreement, after which it was no longer possible to save the system from collapse.

Fig.2. Political map of Europe

The Second World War, which began on September 1, 1939, became a unique form of transition from a multipolar model of international relations to a bipolar one. The main centers of power cementing the system moved from Europe to the expanses of Eurasia (USSR) and North America (USA). Among the elements of the system, a new category of superpowers appeared, the conflict interaction of which set the vector of development of the model. The interests of the superpowers acquired global coverage, which included almost all regions of the globe, and this automatically sharply increased the field of conflict interaction and, accordingly, the likelihood of local conflicts. The ideological factor played a huge role in the development of international relations after World War II. The bipolarity of the world community was largely determined by the dominance of the postulate that there were supposedly only two alternative models of social development in the world: Soviet and American. Another important factor that influenced the functioning of the bipolar model was the creation of nuclear missile weapons, which radically changed the entire system of foreign policy decision-making and radically revolutionized ideas about the nature of military strategy. In reality, the post-war world, with all its apparent simplicity - bipolarity - turned out to be no less, and, perhaps, more complex than the multipolar models of previous years. The tendency towards the pluralization of international relations, their going beyond the rigid framework of bipolarity, manifested itself in the intensification of the national liberation movement, claiming an independent role in world affairs, the process of Western European integration, and the slow erosion of military-political blocs.

The model of international relations that emerged as a result of the Second World War was, from the very beginning, more structured than its predecessors. In 1945, the UN was formed - a world peacekeeping organization, which included almost all states - constituent elements of the system of international relations. As it developed, its functions expanded and multiplied, the organizational structure was improved, and new subsidiary organizations appeared. Beginning in 1949, the United States began to form a network of military-political blocs designed to create a barrier to the possible expansion of the sphere of Soviet influence. The USSR, in turn, designed structures under its control. Integration processes gave rise to a whole series of supranational structures, the leading of which was the EEC. The structuring of the “Third World” took place, various regional organizations emerged - political, economic, military, cultural. The legal framework of international relations has been improved.

Features of the development of international relations at the present stage

With the sharp weakening and subsequent collapse of the USSR, the bipolar model ceased to exist. Accordingly, this also meant a crisis in the management of the system, previously based on bloc confrontation. The global conflict between the USSR and the USA ceased to be its organizing axis. Specifics of the situation in the 90s. XX century was that the processes of formation of a new model occurred simultaneously with the collapse of the structures of the old one. This led to significant uncertainty about the contours of the future world order. Therefore, it is not surprising that a large number of different forecasts and scenarios for the future development of the system of international relations that appeared in the literature of the 1990s. Thus, leading American political scientists K. Waltz, J. Marsheimer, K. Lane predicted a return to multipolarity - Germany, Japan, possibly China and Russia gaining the status of centers of power. Other theorists (J. Nye, Charles Krauthammer) called the main trend of strengthening US leadership. The implementation of this trend at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. gave rise to a discussion of the prospects for the establishment and stable functioning of unipolarity. It is obvious that the concept of “hegemonic stability”, popular in American literature at that time, defending the thesis of the stability of a system based on the dominance of a single superpower, was aimed at justifying US superiority in the world. Its proponents often equate US benefits with the “common good.” Therefore, it is not surprising that outside the United States the attitude towards such a concept is mostly skeptical. In the context of the dominance of power politics in international relations, hegemony is a potential threat to the state interests of all countries, with the exception of the hegemon himself. It creates a situation in which arbitrariness on the part of the only superpower on the world stage is possible. In contrast to the idea of ​​a “unipolar world,” a thesis is put forward about the need to develop and strengthen a multipolar structure.

In reality, multidirectional forces are at work in modern international relations: both those that contribute to consolidating the leading role of the United States, and those acting in the opposite direction. The first trend is supported by the asymmetry in power in favor of the United States, the created mechanisms and structures that support its leadership, primarily in the global economic system. Despite some disagreements, the leading countries of Western Europe and Japan remain allies of the United States. At the same time, the principle of hegemony is contradicted by the factor of increasing heterogeneity of the world, in which states with different socio-economic, political, cultural and value systems coexist. At present, the project of disseminating the Western model of liberal democracy, way of life, and system of values ​​as general norms accepted by all or at least the majority of states in the world also seems utopian. Its implementation is only one of the trends in modern international relations. It is opposed by equally powerful processes of strengthening self-identification along ethnic, national, and religious lines, which is expressed in the growing influence of nationalist, traditionalist and fundamentalist ideas in the world. Islamic fundamentalism is being put forward as the most influential systemic alternative to American capitalism and liberal democracy. In addition to sovereign states, transnational and supranational associations are increasingly acting as independent players on the world stage. A consequence of the process of transnationalization of production and the emergence of a global capital market is a slight weakening of the regulatory role of the state in general and the United States in particular. Finally, although a dominant power receives undoubted benefits from its position on the world stage, the global nature of its interests requires significant costs. Moreover, the increasing complexity of the modern system of international relations makes it practically impossible to manage it from a single center. Along with the superpower, there are states in the world with global and regional interests, without whose cooperation it is impossible to solve the most pressing problems of modern international relations, which include, first of all, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. The modern international system is characterized by a colossal increase in the number of interactions between its various participants at different levels. As a result of this, it becomes not only more interdependent, but also mutually vulnerable, which requires the creation of new ramified institutions and mechanisms for maintaining stability.

Recommended reading

Introduction to the theory of international relations: Textbook / Ed. editor A.S. Manykin. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2001 (Proceedings of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University: Issue 17. Series III. Instrumenta studiorum).

Conflicts and crises in international relations: problems of theory and history: Materials of the Association for the Study of the United States / Problems of American Studies Vol. 11 Rep. editor. A.S.Manykin. - M.: MAKS Press, 2001

Fundamentals of the general theory of international relations: Textbook / Ed. A.S. Manykina. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2009. - 592 p.

Models of regional integration: past and present. Edited by A.S. Manykina. Tutorial. M., Ol Bee Print. 2010. 628 p.

Gorokhov V.N. History of international relations. 1918-1939: Course of lectures. - M.: Publishing house Moscow. University, 2004. - 288 p.

Medyakov A. S. History of international relations in modern times. - M. Education, 2007. - 463 p.

Bartenev V.I. "Libyan problem" in international relations. 1969-2008. M., URSS, 2009. - 448 p.

Pilko A.V. "Crisis of confidence" in NATO: an alliance on the verge of change (1956-1966). - M.: Publishing house Moscow. University, 2007. - 240 p.

Romanova E.V. The Path to War: The Development of the Anglo-German Conflict, 1898-1914. - M.: MAKS Press, 2008. -328 p.