New Delhi. Offering a Russian perspective on the emerging international order and Russia place in it, Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry (MGIMO University) Director Dr Alexander Lukin said that the global transition towards a multipolar world is intertwined with Russia quest for its new international identity.
Dr Lukin was speaking at the International Conference on Russia in Global Affairs: Indian and Russian Perspectives organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi on November 4.
Describing the post-bipolar world as interim and transitional – from the global dominance of the West after the end of the Cold War to a multi-polar world – Dr Lukin pointed out that in this present world the influence of the Western centres of power will diminish while that of the other centres (China, India, Brazil, etc.) will grow.
The conference was organised in conjunction with the launch of the special edition of IDSA journal, Strategic Analysis, entitled ‘Russia in Global Affairs’. A dozen leading Russian policy experts have contributed to the special edition, offering a comprehensive view on the structure of the new international order, major international tendencies and problems, and Russia place in this system. Six of the Russian contributors, all eminent professors and practitioners, participated in the conference.
The articles discuss Russia’s approaches to international security, new factors of influence in the modern world, Russia and the system of global governance, Russia and the new economic order, Russia’s role in Eurasian integration, and its policy of pivot to Asia within the context of similar policies by other major international players.
The articles by the Russian authors are broadly divided into three clusters. The first addresses the general framework of the post-Soviet Russian foreign policy, its main achievements and problems. The second set of articles analyse the domestic and external factors that shape Russia’s foreign and security policies. Finally some contributors discuss the evolution of Moscow’s approaches to the main regional and international players.
The collection of articles, writes Dr Lukin, as the guest editor of the journal, is an important reflection of the main ideas, analyses, and policy proposals of Russian foreign policy thinking.
Earlier in his welcome address, IDSA Director General Jayant Prasad observed that Russia’s size, geopolitical location, Its natural endowment in energy and minerals, its great power tradition, and aspirations of Russia’s post cold war generation will make Russia a key Eurasian and global power and one of the centres of the emerging, polycentric world.
