🤝🌏 How important and necessary are Russia’s allies in conditions where, like the United States, it cannot exercise authoritarian control over their foreign and defence policy?

The phenomenon of permanent allied relations is a relatively recent invention in international politics — it appeared after the Second World War and it is completely unknown if it will survive the next round of global upheavals of a similar magnitude.

Even if in the coming years we all do not shatter into molecules as a result of a global nuclear catastrophe, the impressive drama of what is happening makes us treat with great uncertainty the prospects for all the phenomena, without exception, that have shaped the fabric of international life in recent decades.

Now the standard example of a permanent union of sovereign states is European integration. Another similar example is the NATO bloc, participation in which is sealed by the unconditional authority of a power that is far superior in strength to its allies and does not seek to ignore this.

It is no coincidence that the emergence of the conflict around Ukraine, the first serious war of a new era in international politics, is connected with the development of these two associations. A strong union of states inevitably creates conflicts around itself — this becomes a consequence of the fact that it protects the interests of its participants, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

#Asia_and_Eurasia #allies #CSTO #EAEU

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