Vedomosti

Geopolitics as a theory has been almost an outcast for nearly half a century. In Soviet Union it was blacklisted as bourgeois, while in the West it was dismissed as politically incorrect and remained a hobby of provincial university professors, who had no chances of entering the official establishment.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a thaw in many issues that had been frozen during the Cold War. The two countries dictated terms to states and societies, the Soviet Union generally taking a more heavy-handed approach, while the U.S. typically acted with more finesse.

The collapse of communism in the 1990s was followed by what is commonly referred to as the “unfreezing” of numerous conflicts that had been “frozen” by structural confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, which at that time represented the East and the West.

The article is largely based on the conclusions stated in the Valdai Club report “Russia Should Not Miss Its Chance.” The author is grateful to Valdai Club members for the ideas used by the author herein.