Alikber Alikberov: "The strategic turn to the East is a wise, correct, deeply thought-out and absolutely objective movement in the right direction" PART 1
The conversation with Alikber Alikberov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, turned out to be incredibly interesting, rich and thorough. We touched on a wide range of topics, talking about current issues and reflecting on eternal ones. Why does today’s society need objective knowledge about the East? Why is it said that a good Orientalist, like an old cognac, starts to age after 50?
The Ghost of Civil War in America
This week, a new action movie titled Civil War was released in the USA. The film, made by the English director Alex Garland, tells the story of a government at war with breakaway states, a president delegitimized in the eyes of part of the country. Some critics argue that releasing the movie in an election year is extremely dangerous. In their view, even simply talking about a future national project can make it real, and so the movie risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy…
National Kurultai - 2024: in search of a canon of political history
One way or another, there comes a moment in the history of every nation that experiences the rise of self-consciousness and political “self-fulfilment” when it is necessary to unite all its historical heritage into a single concept, to minimise all historical contradictions and to establish the most direct line of succession. Many states, due to the complexity and intertwined historical destinies of the peoples that inhabit them, are not able to do this easily. The same can be said of Kazakhstan…
The collapse of the concept of a rules-based international order
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States believed that a unipolar world would last forever: year after year, day after day, it became increasingly blatant in its disregard for the interests of others and the opinions of the rest of the world. Then the concept of an international “rules-based order” was born: a group of American scholars, former and future officials, presented a paper at Princeton in 2006 entitled “A World of Freedom Under Law”…
Iraq-Turkey: points of convergence and disagreement
Most politicians and experts would agree that over the past 15-20 years relations between Turkey and Iraq, even leaving aside the historic Mosul issue, have had their ups and downs, mainly as a result of three different problems. The first of these is Turkey’s military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan, the second is the sharing of water resources in trans-boundary rivers, and finally there is the issue of Kurdish…
Chinese Foreign Minister visits New Zealand and Australia
Between 17 and 21 March, Wang Yi, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and China’s Foreign Minister, visited New Zealand and Australia (for the first time since 2017) at the invitation of his counterparts, Winston Peters and Penny Wong. And while the motivation for Wang Yi’s visit to the first of these countries contained its own intrigue, the main component of the entire tour was undoubtedly related to the second half…
India-Africa: the evolution of co-operation - from independence to the present day
The trend in recent years and even months to talk more and more frequently and actively about the Global South as such, and about Africa in particular, may in some cases be seen as a fashionable, superficial fad, but it is not without a significant practical component. Even a cursory analysis of the dynamics of bilateral meetings and summits with an “African focus” is the most vivid illustration of the “turn to Africa”…
The factor of mountain peoples of the Caucasus in Turkey's anti-Russian games...
From the end of the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire and later the Republic of Turkey began to use the Islamic-identity factor in the North Caucasus to neutralize the natural course of Russian historical expansion southwards and to restrict the Russian Empire’s access to the southern (Black and Caspian) seas and the Caucasus. After the brilliant victories of the Russian army over Persia in the first quarter of the 19th century, the Turks realized that Russia’s liberation mission towards Christian Armenians and Georgians would lead to a new Caucasian war with the Sublime Porte…
Macron is NOT Charles de Gaulle BUT Suffers from the Napoleon Inferiority Complex!
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of pronouncements from Macron, the President of France, whereby he seems to be channeling the “inner Napoleon” that abides hidden in the hearts of French leaders, the same way Hitler seems to be in those of their German allies. Macron went on record as saying that NATO countries should not exclude sending troops to support Ukraine on a “bilateral basis” saying…
Is Turkey an enemy or a friend, a partner or a rival for Russia?
There can be no permanence in relations between states (even more true for those with imperial pasts) due to the nature of conflicting interests and “changeable weather” in geographical latitudes (simply put, geopolitical conjuncture). In this respect, Turkey and Russia are an example of both convergence and divergence of approaches. Naturally, such a shift is predominantly determined by the objective state of the Russian state’s power. If Russia demonstrates strength, Turkey tries to maneuver and gain benefits. If the Kremlin loses its power, Ak Saray tries to finish it off in alliance with our main adversaries in the West…
Britain and the United States—modern echoes of the colonial era
Recently, the countries of the Global South have been actively expanding their ties, finding new areas of cooperation, creating their own integration associations. In general, they are trying in every possible way to restore justice, to become full-fledged members of the world community, as it is now accepted to say, “independent poles of power”. This is causing serious discontent and even irritation in the West, especially in the US and Britain—the Anglo-Saxons, used to parasitising the rest of the world…
Israel - talks with a possible future Prime Minister
The recently completed visit by senior Israeli politician Benny Gantz to Washington and London, and especially its positive outcome, not only attracted world media attention, but may also provide an indication about who may be Israel’s next Prime Minister. This raises the question of just who Benny Gantz is, and why he was honored with an invitation to the two capitals, given that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never paid an official visit to Washington, at least…