ABSTRACT. "The Belt and Road" is a long-term comprehensive strategic program for the development of Eurasia and the world, which has been promoted by China beginning in 2013. Its multi-dimensional features (in-country, regional, and global) are inclusive (multi-vector, the participation of all sectors of the economy) and have a strong non-economic component ("soft power"). The strategy is aimed at solving the problems of the Chinese economy with the help of foreign-policy methods and consolidation of China as an engine for the global economy. By virtue of its scale, the consistent implementation of the strategic provisions put forward in China would result in significant industrial and geographical transformations of the existing international division of labor. Active and proactive participation of Russia in the new course of China allows realization of the export and transit potential of Russia's economy and helps mitigate imbalances in development between its parts. The authors discuss the concerns and risks associated with the implementation of initiatives.KEY WORDS: the Belt and Road, initiative, geographical perspective, industrial and geographical transformations, the global economics engine.

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This article attempts to advance the neoclassical realist framework by elaborating on the interaction between system-level and unit-level factors in the formation of states' behavior. With an empirical focus on post-Cold War China-Russia relations, which represent the ambivalent combination of a consistently growing strategic entente and a simultaneous reluctance to form a full-fledged political-military alliance, this study establishes two major unit-level factors-differing economic models and negative historical memories-that create hurdles for alliance formation between the two countries. However, under greater systemic pressure from the US-led unipolarity, China's and Russia's state leaders have not only increased bilateral military-to-military cooperation but have begun to actively implement policies to deliberately transform, if not remove, the existing non-systemic hurdles. Therefore, the neoclassical realist framework can be understood and further tested as a dynamic interaction model in which the unit-level circumstances, while moderating the causal impact of the system, are themselves being transformed by the system via state policies, as is their impact on states' foreign policy.

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