| Summary/Abstract |
Over the past fifteen years, the "Eastern vector" has taken an important place in Russia's foreign and domestic policy discourse. Integration with the Asia-Pacific region, the so-called "turn to the East," and socioeconomic development of the Russian Far East and the Trans-Baikal Territory are invariably mentioned, albeit in various forms, among Russia's top priorities. In the meantime, the political and economic pundits in the West and the East have been working hard to devise acceptable models of regional integration and security in Northeast and East Asia and the whole of the Asia-Pacific region. However, these efforts have so far produced meager or no results: elegant virtual constructs refuse to work; integration processes get stuck; and there are more bumpy roads to a bright future than there are smooth highways.
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