The relevance of this topic is determined by the Baltic region playing a special role in the current confrontation between Russia and the West, which is most accurately defined by the term ‘cool war’. Russia borders on the EU and NATO in that region. In this study, I aim to demonstrate the impact of the ‘cool war’ on international relations in the region and explain why the preservation of the status quo is the most likely scenario. I conclude that, in recent years, a certain regrouping has occurred in the region: there has been a stepping-up on the activities of the US and NATO, whereas the influence of EU institutions has decreased. A deep rift has developed between Russia and all other states in the region. There are five possible mid-term scenarios, ranging from outright confrontation to effective cooperation: an armed conflict, a dramatic aggravation of the current tensions without an armed conflict, the continuation of the ‘cool war’, the normalisation of relations, and a transition to large-scale cooperation. I argue that the ‘cool war’ scenario is the most likely, and the other four belong to the realm of the politically possible. Although the improvement of relations with the other states in the region is not very probable, Russia will benefit from taking every possible step towards it.

No abstract

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has commissioned this assessment of the effects of possible NATO membership, in connection with the preparation of the Government's Report on Finnish Foreign and Security Policy. This is the first assessment of its kind conducted at the request of the Finnish government since 2007: during the intervening decade, major strategic changes have occurred at the global, European and regional levels. We were not entrusted with voicing a preference for or against NATO membership. Nor were we requested to provide a pro-and-con balance-sheet type approach. Our task has been to provide an evaluation of the potential effects of membership, in the most clinical manner possible. This does not mean that all effects of membership would be equally straightforward: some, such as the treaty commitments integral to Atlantic Alliance membership, or the direct impact of belonging to NATO's command structure are comparatively easy to describe. Others, such as the possible reactions of Russia to Finland's entry into NATO or the consequences of possible Finnish membership for the corresponding debate in Sweden are necessarily more probabilistic in nature. The text of the assessment reflects these differences in the degrees of certainty. We have adhered to a strict interpretation of our mandate, with one substantive exception. In our work it became immediately apparent that the choices made by Finland and Sweden (or vice versa) to join or not to join NATO, separately or together, could lead to different effects for the security and defence of Finland. Thus, we have decided on our own initiative to extend our analysis to include a hypothesis whereby Sweden would join NATO but Finland would not, since this would change the regional strategic and military status quo for Finland.

Over the two decades of post-Soviet history of modern Russia, its foreign policy has gone through several distinct periods and long-term trends. The periodization of the new Russia’s foreign policy includes a “romantic” or “Kozyrev’s” period, during which the leaders of a democratic Russia tried to integrate the country into a system of institutions and partnerships with the leading Western states. Kozyrev’s departure from his post as foreign minister in January 1996 and the arrival of a new foreign minister, who would later become the Prime Minister, a “political heavyweight” of modern Russia Yevgeny Primakov, marked a change in the strategic direction of the country’s foreign policy. The key definition of this period was “multipolarity.” The arrival of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin in early 2000, marked a new stage in the development of Russia’s diplomacy. At first it was characterized by attempts to build relations of partnership on an equal footing with Washington and NATO countries in the anti-terrorist coalition, and then, from about 2003, by a gradual build up of contradictions between Russia and the United States. During this period (2000-2008) a special feature of Russia’s foreign policy was its increased assertiveness in relation to the neighboring CIS countries. After the election of Dmitry Medvedev as president in March 2008 Russia has been busy searching for a new strategy for its foreign policy, which would retain some of the achievements of previous periods, but would also be more cooperative toward the leading nations of the world. Such policy should create a favorable external climate for the modernization of Russia’s political system and its national economy.

Идея мировой революции почти всегда доминировала в политике Советского Союза. Первоначально это был призыв к немедленному свержению капитализма в глобальном масштабе. Однако с середины 20-х годов XX в. ее сердцевиной стал лозунг «социализм в одной стране», а с середины 30-х годов она стала отождествляться со сталинской теорией государства. На практике идея мировой революции была частично реализована лишь в СССР, где большевики смогли удержать власть, ликвидировать частную собственность и свести к минимуму рыночные отношения. Попытки Коминтерна организовать восстания в других странах потерпели полный провал. В этих условиях в середине 30-х годов лозунг мировой революции был удален из открытой пропаганды, но сохранился в Красной армии, которая стала рассматриваться как главное орудие свержения капитализма. Внешняя политика СССР была направлена на создание благоприятных условий для мировой революции и расшатывание Версальской системы. Лишь во второй половине 30-х годов в ней появились элементы учета государственных интересов, которые вышли на первый план в рамках антигитлеровской коалиции 1941-1945 гг. Библиогр. 54 назв.