Abstract: There is a tradition in Russian and foreign African studies to interpret genocide in Rwanda in 1994 as an irrational “interethnic conflict” between Tutsi and Hutu. But if we omit the ethnic connotations of the reasons of the massacre, it becomes clear that the powerful political actors stood behind its immediate participants and executors. Tutsis’ attack from Uganda on Rwanda’s territory, inspired by the US special services, was considered in Paris as American invasion in France’s sphere of interests. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, comparative-historical, comparative-political, geopolitical and cultural-civilizational approaches, and the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling, and observation. The documents show that the strengthening of Tutsis’ positions, in the opinion of the Elysee Palace, threatened with the weakening of France’s positions on the Black continent in general. And the USA considered Rwanda as a bridge-head for invasion into Tropical Africa: the Americans were aimed at rich Zaire (the DRC). Here we should look for the reasons of a humanitarian crisis both in Rwanda and in the whole region.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, Rwanda, France, genocide, Françafrique, conflict, interests, values, security.

Abstract: Western Europe is phasing the outcomes of the development of two different trajectories. On one side, the immigrant presence from the former colonies, growing since the 1960’s, has turned Western Europe into a multicultural and, by extension, multi-faith mosaic. On the other, the permanent decline of religious performance has brought up a wider consensus concerning the privatization of religion as well as its status of invisibility in the public sphere. These two trajectories can be perceived as oppositional if one bears in mind the significant numbers of non- white immigrants residing in Western European states and the paramount importance most of them place on religion for identification, organization and political representation. Several prominent academics refer to the emergence of the aforementioned phenomenon as a ‘crisis of secularism’. However, I would like to argue that such clear-cut judgments present several problems. To begin with, ‘secularism’ is a complex term with multiple meanings. Western Europe currently sports two forms of secularism; the radical model of French laicité and the moderate form followed by the rest of the states. Within the latter framework, several kinds of state-religion connections have been developed throughout the years. Even in the radical French model some state-religion connections exist, although they are concealed under cultural terms. As becomes apparent, if we take absolute state-religious separation as a crude definition of secularism, it turns out that ‘a crisis’ occurred well before the advent of multicultural presence. Indeed, this essay will attempt to clarify that although multiculturalism supports and promotes the recognition of minority religious identities, the statement that it puts secularism under crisis is a bit exaggerated, if not purposefully misleading. Multiculturalism does not opt for a complete disestablishment of secularism. On the contrary, multiculturalism supports moderate secularism as it is believed that the various types of religion-state connections within it can be extended so as to accommodate minority religions, as well. All in all, multiculturalism strives for a rethinking of secularism, a renegotiation of the term, for it to become less restrictive for minorities that feel marginalized because of their religious identity.

Keywords: the international relations, the international safety, political conflicts, conflicts management technologies, multikulturalism, geopolitics, information war, politica, interests, UN.

Abstract: The modern economic crisis of the Eurozone has become one of the hardest challenges for the EU, threatening the EU existence and dividing the European countries into Euro-optimists and Euro-pessimists. The article considers the Germany’s role in the EU’s positions of a key actor on the international arena strengthening, analyzes two projects initiated in Germany in order to support the United Europe project, and evaluates the perspectives of image projects in the EU member-states aimed at restoration of the EU reputation in crisis conditions. The author uses the system analysis of image campaigns, realized in Germany for the support of the EU. The author uses interdisciplinary approach to the study of the problem (international relations, imageology, and marketing communications). The originality of the research is based on interpretation of the following aspects: the evaluation of Germany’s role in the strengthening of the EU’s positions as a key actor on the international arena; the system analysis of anti-crisis image campaigns realized in Germany; the evaluation of efficiency of the campaigns “I Want Europe”, “Europe is Us”; the evaluation of the perspectives of image projects in the EU member-states, aimed at the restoration of the EU reputation in the crisis conditions.

Keywords: the European Union, the Eurozone crisis, economic crisis, state image, image campaign, the EU image, Germany, the FRG, I Want Europe, Europe is Us.

Abstract: The cooperation potential of the relations between two great powers (especially having a common border) is significantly smaller than the potential of rivalry because of the existing objective conflicts between them. The immanent feature of the great powers’ foreign policy is an aspiration for strengthening of their influence in the world; therefore, they pay special attention to the regions which are important for their strategic interests realization. The author of this research attempts to describe the problem of cooperation and rivalry between Moscow and Beijing, which is of a big importance both for the alignment of forces in the region, and for the Russian-Chinese relations. Nowadays the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China demonstrate “strategic partnership” in their relations, but the potential and real elements of tension have not disappeared, and the probability of conflicts between them is directly proportional to the process of Russia’s role weakening in the region and the permanently strengthening position of China in Central Asia. The Russian-Chinese cooperation and rivalry exist in several spheres – security, economics, politics, and the social-cultural sphere. In all these spheres Moscow and Beijing are united by strong connections with the region both in bilateral and multilateral dimensions. Russia and China pay special attention to the security and economic and energy cooperation. The article analyzes the model of cooperation and rivalry in the Russian-Chinese relations in the region in these two dimensions.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, China, Russia, Central Asia, cooperation, rivalry, national security, interests, energy cooperation.

Abstract: System destabilization of states is a phenomenon of contemporary domestic and world politics, which consists of the destruction of the former political systems of national level through the social and cultural, the information, economic, financial, organizational and administrative, the diplomatic, military and other means, and the following radical changes of these states. The article considers the origins and the development of the concepts which characterize the technologies of system destabilization of modern national states, both federative and unitary ones: guided chaos, network war, effect attainment operations, preemptive war, geopolitical operation. Taking into account the content of these concepts and the peculiarities of the world political practice, the author formulates the algorithm of system destabilization, which includes several stages: the latent stage, the stage of tension escalation inside the country and on the international level, and the destruction of the state-object of chaotization. The author defines the main factors of the stability of the state suffering from system destabilization. Taking into consideration the content and the peculiarities of the system destabilization dynamics, the author formulates the algorithm of measures and activities aimed at non-admission of modern states chaotization.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, state, destabilization, guided chaos, network war, preemptive war, interests, security, geopolitical operation

Abstract: : In respect to the contemporary Russian reality it is reasonable to consider regional policy in the light of formation and development of federative relations. The federal centre and relatively independent (within the frameworks of their powers) subjects of the federation, which are in a permanent correlation and serve as systems of political institutions and political interests, are the main actors of federative relations. Therefore, the relations within a system “center-regions” are contentious by their nature: a region almost always strives for the extension of political autonomy, while the federal center prefers the strategy of suppression. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, and comparative approaches, the methods of Russian studies, analysis, synthesis, modeling, observation, and expert evaluations. In the conditions of the federal model of administrative-territorial system the possibility of carrying out of a complex and systematized regional policy is determined by a consistency and balance of relations between the federal centre and the subjects of the federation. At the same time, the domination of either centralization or decentralization forces to choose a definite strategy of regional development: either a selective model in the conditions of a centralized federal model, or a general-system model in the conditions of decentralization and a high level of financial and political autonomy of the regions.

Keywords: international relations, regional policy, Russia, federalism, political regime, political system, security, political culture, political traditions, regionalism

Abstract: The ALBA member-states’ public diplomacy in the Middle East is one of the top-priority foreign policy guidelines of the ALBA member-states in their asymmetric informational confrontation with the USA. During the period of 2006 – 2013 the ALBA member-states had been influencing the international Mass Media in order to form a negative reputation of the USA. The strengthening foreign-policy dialogue between the ALBA member-states and Syria, which unites two regions on the base of resistance to the unipolar influence of the USA, opens the perspectives for the formation of new centers of power, which will be opposed to the existing unipolarity. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, comparative-historical, and comparative-political approaches, and on the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling, inclusive observation, and dialectics. In 2004 nine countries of Latin America and the Caribbean – Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – created the international organization and the sub-regional integration association the ALBA – the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra America). Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro initiated its creation.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, the ALBA, public diplomacy, Syria, new Mass Media, the USA, information confrontation, strategic cooperation, security

Abstract: The article considers some urgent aspects of France’s cultural diplomacy as an attribute of “soft power”; it outlines the traditionally special place of cultural policy in the strategy of preservation and strengthening of France’s global influence in the conditions of a hidden resistance to the lingua-cultural influence of the USA and their claims on the intellectual leadership in the modern world. Soft power has always played an important role in France’s foreign policy. As globalization is expanding, the problem of preservation and strengthening of their cultural identity and civilizational diversity is becoming more important for the countries with developed culture. In this regard France, a country with a great cultural influence, is an example of a country which, due to the committed and well-thought state policy, has been successfully defending its “cultural uniqueness” for centuries.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, France, Soft power, diplomacy, cooperation, state, interests, values, security.

Abstract: The research is devoted to the issues of the transformation of understanding of the UN peacekeeping activities which are characterized by the appearance of “humanitarian interventions” as a new form of peacekeeping operations. As many other processes and phenomena, caused by globalization, they have both positive moments and a negative feature of “privatization” of such actions by the USA and NATO, which are trying to establish a detached legal base for such operations execution, which not only contradicts the universally recognized legislation, but also sometimes ignores it. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, comparative-historical, comparative-political, geopolitical and cultural-civilizational approaches, and the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling, and observation. The global transformation of international relations in the late twentieth – the early twenty-first century had led to the change of the conceptual approaches towards the problems of international security. The end of the “cold war” stirred the contradictions, which had been deterred by two super powers. The world community overcame the threat of a global conflict between two opposing political and military blocks: the NATO and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, and faced the danger of extension of unpredictable in their consequences and hardly controlled armed interethnic and interconfessional conflicts in different parts of the planet.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, peacemaking, humanitarian interventions, diplomacy, peace enforcement, the UN, the USA, interests, security

Abstract: The article considers the influence of space distribution of information, informational resources and processes of informational exchange on geopolitical processes. It provides the characteristic of the system of geopolitical relations transformation under the influence of the increasing importance of information in different spheres of geopolitics subjects’ activities. The article describes the key models of geopolitical interactions with the consideration of informational component and their development due to the increasing importance of the informational component of the general sphere of human life. The article shows the role and place of informational space as a space of geopolitical relations in the course of a competitive struggle between geopolitical subjects. The character of the modern geopolitical relations is determined by the transformation of a traditional geopolitics realized by geopolitical subjects (subjects of geopolitical relations). As geopolitical subjects this article considers any structured communities of people who are the subjects of geopolitical relations, i.e. have common interests in the preservation and winning of control of particular areas (territories, spheres) and the resources (energy) allocated in these areas, and who create different institutions for this purpose (including states) and possess a potential for it

Keywords: management, politics, Russia, information, informational management, informational geopolitics, social medium, informational exchange, informational security, cooperation.

Abstract: The research is aimed at theoretical characterizing of information-psychological influence as a new phenomenon in a political sphere. The main tasks of the study are: the description of history of information wars and cyber wars development; the study of the methods and technologies, used in these conflicts; the study of an experience of foreign countries in these spheres. The author reveals the differences between information wars and classical political campaigns of various nature and analyzes the phenomenon of cyber wars from the viewpoint of the theory of politics and the theory of international relations. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, comparative-historical, comparative-political, geopolitical and cultural-civilizational approaches, and the methods of political communicativistics, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling and observation. After a swift development of social sciences in the twentieth century, including the sphere of international relations, political psychology and political communicativistics, and the development of political technologies given actual impossibility of total wars due to the development of weapons of mass destruction, the necessity had appeared to create new methods of struggle on the international arena which led to the emergence of a theory of information wars. The additional impetus to the development of methods of psychological resistance was given by the situation after the Second World War within the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, when the world was divided into two camps contesting with each other, among other things, in the sphere of ideology. The complex of the abovementioned factors and the swift development of Mass Media had led to the appearance of a new area of international politics – a cyberspace.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, information-psychological operation, information war, the USA, soft power, information contest, political communication, conflict, information security

Abstract: The article presents the analysis of fighting on the Caucasus Front during World War I. The author analyzes the most significant operations held by the Caucasian Army under the command of Yudenich, the conditions and factors which determined their success. The article defines the reasons of the Caucasian front disintegration and Russia’s withdrawal from the war. The European theatre is considered to be the main theatre of the First World War due to the bitterest strife, but it was far from being the only one. The methodology of the research is based on the system, structural-functional, comparative-historical, comparative-political, geopolitical and cultural-civilizational approaches, and the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction. The First World War fighting had gone far beyond the borders of the European continent and defined other theatres of war. One of those theatres was the Middle East theatre and the Russian Caucasus Front where it fought against the Ottoman Empire.

Keywords: international relations, foreign policy, the World War I, Caucasus Front, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Entente, conflict, Yudenich, the straits.