Extract
[...] In fact, this applied in the 1980s when the UN, or any other potential international policeman, was quite unable to regulate relations between the United States and the USSR; it seems that now that Russia has resolved its post-USSR collapse structural problems, the global balance is once again subject to the initiative of the most powerful states rather than to any international arbitration; 'anarchy' is therefore said to have returned, and with it the return of a regulation of the international order by states. The question of why Moscow, Washington, or Brussels behave in a certain way also arises. [...]
[...] How to interpret this renewed use of force in Russia? For the West, it is all the more shocking that the end of the Cold War and the completion of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia had convinced Europeans that wars or annexations on the continent belonged to the past and that diplomacy had become the norm. On the other hand, it is clear that Russia considers that within a space that exceeds its national territory, the maintenance of order remains necessary to ensure its own security, feeling threatened by the rise of pro-Western sentiment even in neighboring countries with strong pro-Russian minorities. [...]
[...] However, we can question the sustainability of this situation, and not only in light of the Russian position but also of the nationalist regains (which are otherwise pro-Russian in Western Europe and anti-Russian in Central Europe) that are shaking the West and fracturing the Western bloc (perhaps because it had expanded too much): contestations of NATO's power, risks of the EU's implosion could result. The apparent face-to-face confrontation between East and West could thus become more complex in the coming years to the detriment of the West. [...]
[...] Answering this question would allow us to identify the deep causes of this decisive change in international relations, and better understand what can explain a breakdown of trust, a sense of insecurity between powers, and therefore threaten the balance of forces as it should initially protect us. Our research in this direction has led us to develop a thesis based on the following idea. In our opinion, this cooling can be explained mainly by the fact that the integration of NATO and the EU in Eastern Europe on the one hand, and the repositioning of Russia under Vladimir Putin as a regional power on the other hand, have put their areas of influence in a situation of confrontation, particularly in their peripheries (Ukraine, Georgia . [...]
[...] The problem is, however, that these means do not limit themselves to diplomacy, but also increasingly often to the use of force, reinforcing the distrust of the West and the risk of escalation. II- The reconstitution of a Russian sphere of influence by undiplomatic means The dislocation of the USSR, which, according to the Russian analysis grid, is still considered a catastrophe, has separated Moscow from the peoples whose link with Russia dates back to the tsarist period. Although Russia, stuck in the 1990s in an economic slump and a painful conversion to a new system, was unable to immediately focus on this issue, the issue of restoring a Russian sphere of influence, always in the perspective of both power - Moscow having dominated half the world for half a century - and security, has remained at the heart of Russian concerns and strategy. [...]
