Articles

The article is devoted to the analysis of the semantic structure of narratives about the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of ideological splits. The material of the analysis is Telegram as an information platform that manages media memory in modern Russia. 62 influential political Telegram channels have been identified, reflecting the main ideological positions and splits of public consciousness. Based on a combination of narrative analysis and content analysis, a conclusion is made about the competition of two large narratives about the collapse of the Soviet Union — patriotic and liberal-Westernist, each of which corresponds to a block of Telegram channels. The peculiarity of the liberal-Westernist narrative is the deconstruction of the cultural trauma of the of the Soviet Union. The patriotic narrative uniting the right and left is based on the perception of the collapse of the Soviet Union as a national trauma and a negative assessment of Gorbachev’s role. It is concluded that the tragic memory of the collapse of the Soviet Union through the mechanism of cultural trauma becomes part of the collective identity of Russian society, significantly changing it.

The purpose of this article was a comparative analysis of the images of the collapse of the Soviet Union in television journalism and the comments of Internet users within the framework of commemorations of the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Based on the content analysis, as well as comparison with television projects of the late 1990s-2000s, not only a decrease in the total number of television projects dedicated to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also the unequivocal dominance of television projects focused on the reproduction of traumatic discourse was revealed. It was concluded that the appeal to the events of the collapse of the Soviet Union on contemporary Russian television is not so much focused on the reconstruction of the events of 1991 as it turns out to be a historical illustration of the socio-economic and political transformations of the current government in the last twenty years. This can be clearly seen in the transformation of the images of the victim, enemies, as well as the strengthening of the rhetoric of reassessment of the events of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The analysis of the peculiarities of the viewer’s interest on the Internet also showed the dominance in terms of the number of views of television projects that reproduce traumatic discourse. The use of machine learning (ML) methods and sentiment analysis revealed the relative dominance of neutral comments and a rather high percentage of those who negatively assessed the collapse of the Soviet Union, where romanticization of Soviet everyday life, family experience and the influence of media figures of the Russian Internet turned out to be nostalgia factors.

The article defines the specifics of the actor approach in the context of the study of memory policy, and also analyzes the specifics of political parties as mnemonic actors. The collapse of the Soviet Union is used as a historical event demonstrating the difference between the symbolic trajectories of political parties. Based on an analysis of party election programs, the dynamics of ideas about the collapse of the Soviet Union among the parliamentary parties of the VIII convocation was analyzed. The LDPR and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation turned out to be the most active in terms of the implementation of the memory policy, while the rest of the parties showed a weak interest in updating and interpreting the collapse of the Soviet Union as an element of the party’s memory policy. Such differences may be related to the desire of parties to increase their political status by including their own history in a more significant political context, so those parties that arose in the 2000s are not interested in the symbolic use and appropriation of images of the Soviet past. In addition, it is worth considering generational changes in party elites, due to which the traumaticity of perception of the collapse of the Soviet Union gradually decreases as changes in the composition of governing bodies.

The article substantiates the incompatibility of the Western institution of political parties with the Russian civilization, its own democratic traditions of public administration and self-organization of people’s life. This is manifested in the current negative attitude of the population towards the institution of political parties, as well as in the critical attitude towards it from the most diverse ideological trends in Russian socio-political and scientific thought. Its criticism can be found in the works of V.O. Klyuchevsky and D.M. Mendeleev, V.I. Lenin and N.A. Berdyaev. Such a critical attitude is quite understandable. In the traditions of Russia, as a Eurasian state, there were its own democratic forms of state self-organization, dating back to the nomadic Kurultai, then Zemstvo councils and, finally, to the Soviet government, which were based on the territorial-corporate principle of the representation of the people in the Authorities. The absolute advantages of the Soviet system of democracy in comparison with the current party system are shown, especially in times of crisis in the life of society, requiring the mobilization of human and material resources. It is concluded that the old slogan “all power to the Soviets” is again becoming very relevant in connection with the prospects for the end of the conflict in Ukraine.

The USSR, created after the Civil War, existed for almost 70 years and collapsed, repeating partially the fate of the Russian Empire. Researchers saw in the “chain” of events of the 20th–21st centuries. The “return” of circumstances similar to the Versailles order. Building power imbalances by ousting individual great powers from the circle of joint strategic decision-makers is again fraught with historical challenges. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the possibility of a “return” on a new “round” of historical challenges in the context of a change in the international order and the cost of overcoming these challenges in the process of geopolitical self-determination of Russia as a great power. The objectives of the article: to identify from the standpoint of historical politics the meanings of “returning” challenges as lessons for explaining the past and present, identifying the contours of the future, to conduct a comparative analysis of the consequences of Versailles and trends in the formation of the modern international order. The comparison revealed the “return” of the Versailles challenge in the form of such a variable as the condition of mass consciousness, capable of fragmenting the national identity of the state, destroying it. What happened to national identity in Russia in 1917 was “returning” at the end of the Cold War in the late USSR. There is a threat of such a “return” in modern Russia.

This article analyses the objectives of the US Indo-Pacific strategy, the logic of its construction, and the impact on the East Asian region from Chinese perspectives. Under the administration of D. Trump relations between the United States and China are characterized by the growth of confrontational moods. The Biden administration inherited the political thinking of the Trump administration and continued to implement the Indo-Pacific strategy. From a theoretical point of view, this strategy is based on realpolitik principles. It was influenced by both the geopolitical theory of sea power and the geographical concept of the Indo-Pacific region by K. Haushofer. At the present time a multi-level theoretical and ideological framework has been developed to justify the implementation of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Analyzing the practice of its implementation, the author characterizes the role of traditional US allies in the Asia-Pacific region (Japan and South Korea), and also considers the importance of the Taiwan issue. The implementation of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy has led to changes in the situation in East Asia in terms of politics and security.

The article attempts to identify the main directions of the implementation of the new US Indo-Pacific Strategy and consider this strategy from the point of view of three main theories of international relations. The author highlights the key elements and directions for the implementation of the new Indo-Pacific Strategy and reveals its essence from the point of view of the theory of realism, liberalism and constructivism. According to realist theory, the Indo-Pacific Strategy is mainly understood as a “balancing” strategy that offers other states a strategic justification for forming a political-military alliance in order to counter the rising power of China, especially in the field of security. From the point of view of liberalism, the Indo-Pacific Strategy can be viewed as a plan for organizing a new inter-institutional environment that should promote cooperation between the states of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. For constructivism, the concept of the Indo-Pacific is a new “ideographic construct” based on shared values and a shared identity. By the Indo-Pacific Strategy, the United States promotes democratic values, which, if not excludes, then complicates dialogue with most non-democratic countries in the region.

This article is devoted to modern forms and methods of waging trade wars (on the example of the confrontation between the USA and China). Focusing on the trade war as a phenomenon and an important component of modern hybrid wars, the authors of the article reveal the comprehensive deterrents of US to China, including in the scientific, technological, military, political and diplomatic fields, confirming that the trade war unleashed by the Trump administration since 2018 is part of the US hybrid wars against China. The article also analyzes the reasons for the U.S. anti-China policy from macro, meso, and micro perspectives, and concludes by summarizing the phased outcomes and consequences of this trade war, which is still ongoing.

The activity of private military companies is a distinctive feature of military conflicts of the 21st century. These structures, whose services are used by the US and other actors in international relations, are becoming an effective tool for implementing foreign policy, as well as an integral part of the latest set of measures used during the implementation of police operations.
The relevance of the study of the problem is connected with the need to develop tools and methods to counter the activities of private military companies to prevent the emergence of new challenges and threats to the national security of states. The paper analyzes the activities of private military companies as one of the constituent forms of conducting police operations, reveals the models and specifics of the participation of these organizations in international police operations, which makes it possible to expand approaches to the consideration of existing issues.

The article is devoted to implementation of the USA such as the instrument of foreign policy as sanctions against Venezuela during current political and economic crisis in Venezuela. The Author analyzes in details objectives of sanctions and their types’ classification. The issue about legitimacy of sanctions is a serious problem in international relations. Complex US sanctions program against Venezuela in the period from 2014 to 2021 is examined in the article. Restrictive measures implemented by the USA are divided on individual and sectoral. Real limitations include: the prohibition of the entry into the USA of certain individuals associated with the regime of the President N. Maduro regime; freezing financial assets and property of individuals and entities associated with Venezuelan Government; the prohibition to purchase national debts and securities of Venezuela, transactions related to any dealings in digital currency of Venezuela by American citizens; termination of business relationship with Venezuelan entities of oil and gas sector and gold-mining sector. The author concludes that US large-scale sanction policy led to aggravate political and economic situation within Latin American State, exacerbate already difficult humanitarian situation in Venezuela. However US establishment couldn’t reach its primary goal — overthrow N. Maduro’s regime and coming to power pro-American government.