This article reviews the regional peculiarities of political processes associated with the struggle for regional leadership that is a mainstream in the modern post-bipolar international relations. The authors give particular attention to the historical and theoretical principles of studying the concept of leadership in international relations, namely: provide various approaches towards determination of the status of a regional power, criteria for regional leadership, and specificities of interaction between the regional and global powers. Emphasis is placed on examination of the aforementioned phenomena and processes in the context of comprehensive impact of such global trends, as globalization and glocalization, decentralization of the system of international relations, and formation of the multipolar world order. The novelty of this work lies in the comparative analysis of regional peculiarities of the struggle for leadership in the European and Middle Eastern regions. The relevance of selecting Europe and Middle East is defined by their fundamentally different nature of the regional international relations. The authors reveal the common features and regional specificity of the struggle for leadership in these regions. The common features include: the significance of non-state actors (of different types), ethnic and cultural diversity, complexity of delineation of political boundaries. The regional specificities include: different tools, nature and goals of the struggle for leadership, unequal presence of global powers in the regions, etc. The conclusion is drawn on the need for further examination of the matter to improve the international political forecasting.

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This article explores the questions related to the current relations between Azerbaijan and Iran, namely vectors of development and milestones over the period from 2000 to 2020. Analysis is conducted on the contradictory positions and most favorable spheres for cooperation. An attempt is made to answer the question, why the promising relations between Baku and Teheran transitioned into a moderately tense state, and what factors influenced this process. Special attention is given to the process of harmonization of relations between the countries at the time of coming to power of the President of Azerbaijan I. G. Aliyev. Based on the acquired results, the authors came to the conclusion that the relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have high potential, first and foremost due to cultural and historical commonality of the nations. At the same time, the conducted research demonstrates profound systemic contradictions that impede achieving potential in development of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Iran. Such contradictions may constitute a threat to the regional international relations and often involve other countries (USA, Israel, Turkey, Russia, and Armenia). The novelty this work consists in comprehensive analysis of key events in the history of modern Azerbaijan-Iran bilateral relations, as well as transformation of foreign policy vectors of the countries, namely in the conditions of coming to power of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

This article discusses a number of questions associated with security systems of the European Union and Europe. Special attention is given to the problem of identification of boundaries of functionality of these systems under the influence of various regional and global processes. The author examines the peculiarities and prospects of transformation of the EU security system and its elements, as well as the potential impact of these transformations upon the relations with other interested actors of international relations (United States and Russia). The article describes the key defense initiatives of the European Union that can contribute to intensification of integration processes in the union and propel the European Union to the whole new level of integration. The novelty of this work consists in the analysis of integration processes in the area of defense and security within the framework of postnationalism and postnational identity of the European Union, and this, based on the EU citizenship. The author reveals the factors promoting the creation of a new type of defense institution, as well as the factors impeding this process. Based on the studied materials, the author anticipates the possibility of establishment of the autonomous EU defense agency. This research is conducted in the period of political instability caused by a number of regional and global challenges for the European Union, namely the major challenge of 2019 – 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

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