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Novyi balans sil. Rossiya v poiskakh vneshnepoliticheskogo ravnovesiya, Dmitrii Trenin, Moscow: Alpina Books, 2021, 472pp., h/b.
DMITRI TRENIN’S LATEST BOOK IS A NOTEWORTHY ANALYSIS OF RUSSIAN foreign policy over the past three decades. The issues discussed are based on a comprehensive overview of historical episodes in Russian statehood since Kievan Rus’, focusing in detail on the contemporary period. The author provides a detailed overview of Russia’s current strategy and expresses his reasoned opinion about the effectiveness or failure of Moscow’s foreign policy. The monograph consists of three parts, each devoted to specific periods and problems. Part 1 analyses the unchanging foundations of Russia’s foreign policy throughout all periods of its history. In Part 2, the author provides a brief analysis of foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yel’tsin and Vladimir 500 REVIEWS Putin. Part 3 is a detailed map of Russia’s foreign policy in 2020, discussing Russia’s relations with different regions and countries. The author argues that the current political and economic model has exhausted itself. He describes the current situation of Russia, a state with no values or allies that is suffering from ‘sovereign loneliness’ (p. 41), and claims that Russia will undergo fundamental changes (p. 8). This interesting thesis relates primarily to Russia itself rather than to world order (p. 247). The Russian leadership is motivated not to achieve domination over other states but rather equality in relations with the strongest ones, so that Russia is not subject to the will of an external party (p. 63). Trenin clearly had in mind the rulers of the Russian Empire, based on my observations as someone who has obtained a history education. For example, during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762–1796), an ethnic German, the Russian aristocracy declared that no cannon in Europe may be fired without the approval of Russia (p. 73). Trenin’s hypothesis concerns the hierarchy of institutions that make decisions in Russian foreign policy as represented by the following Moscow place names: the Kremlin, Staraya Square, Smolenskaya Square, Arbatskaya Square, Lubyanskaya Square and the district of Yasenevo (p. 11). These are the locations of important institutions: the Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, the General Staff of Armed Forces, the FSB (Federal Security Service) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service). In his discussion of the hierarchy of states in international relations, it is noteworthy that Trenin does not assign the role of a great power to Russia. His division is as follows: superpowers (the United States and China), great powers (Russia, India), medium powers (Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia) and small powers (North Korea, Qatar) (p. 11). The author describes Russia as a ‘post-imperial’ and ‘postsuperpower’ state (p. 306); meanwhile, along with China and the United States, it is still a ‘great military power’ (p. 291).