| Summary/Abstract |
IN RECENT YEARS, the global situation has experienced powerful shocks that have aggravated existing contradictions, fanned tensions and given rise to various threats. On the one hand, processes of mutual integration of countries remain in place and are, moreover, being speeded up by globalization, and there is a search for an optimum model of international relations based on principles of polycentrism. On the other, effects of the global financial and economic crisis are not subsiding, and in various regions - in Europe (Ukraine), in the Middle East, in Northeast Asia - there exist serious challenges to regional and global security. Time and again, unresolved old-time territorial disputes or consequences of the hegemonic policy of the United States or its allies spark conflicts.
|