Abstract Using a rich set of multilingual sources, this article traces the underexplored history of China’s involvement in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) from 1949 to 1966. It details the WFTU’s role in providing an institutional infrastructure for China’s international activism and documents the All-China Federation of Trade Unions’ engagements with socialist internationalism and people’s diplomacy. After 1960, against the backdrop of the Sino–Soviet split, the WFTU became a platform for Chinese dissent against pro-Soviet positions. After a decade of mutual collaboration, China’s position changed dramatically and relations with the WFTU were eventually halted in 1966 due to developments in the international communist movement and the radicalization of China’s internal and external politics. By focusing on the WFTU, the article highlights the possibilities (and constraints) presented by Soviet-backed international organisations for China’s foreign relations, illuminating broader issues related to China’s socialist internationalism, labour diplomacy, and transnational networks during the early Cold War.

After 2003, Iraq underwent a profound political and economic transformation, accompanied by various challenges, including the burden of accumulated external debt. The post-regime government restructured Iraq’s debt within the framework of the ‘Paris Club’ and through bilateral negotiations with creditor countries. The debt rescheduling aimed to alleviate the financial burden and reintegrate Iraq into the global financial system, but this process was conditional upon implementing economic and political reforms. External political factors played a crucial role in debt rescheduling. Decisions regarding rescheduling were influenced by the political motives of major powers seeking to achieve strategic gains in Iraq. Additionally, the United States and its partners imposed conditions related to reconstruction, regional stability and the safeguarding of their strategic interests in the post-war era. These political interventions affected the course of the economic process and sparked discussions about national sovereignty and the influence of external powers in shaping Iraq’s economic policies. The study, conducted through a descriptive–analytical method, concluded that the rescheduling of Iraq’s debt was more than just an economic process; it reflected the deep interconnection between international politics and economics in the context of rebuilding a post-conflict state.

The interaction of artificial intelligence (AI), global economic interdependence, and foreign policy is turning into one of the issues of modern international politics. AI has ceased to be just a technological innovation in the context of a multipolar world where the United States, China, the European Union, Russia, and the emergent regional powers engage in strategic competition. It is becoming a geopolitical tool that defines trade, finance, supply chains, surveillance abilities, and diplomatic bargaining power. The thesis of this paper is that AI enhances the weaponization of economic interdependence through states being able to monitor, predict, manipulate, and disrupt transnational network with unprecedented accuracy. The paper examines how AI is reshaping economic relationships between countries based on international political economy and foreign policy theory, which are previously sources of mutually beneficial relations, into instruments of coercion. It also studies how states can adjust their foreign policies to this fact by focusing on resilience, technological sovereignty, strategic decoupling and coordination through alliances. The paper finds that AI is redefining foreign policy in a multipolar world by making the line between economic cooperation and strategic vulnerability indistinct, and driving the states to reconsider interdependence not as the source of peace, but as a battlefield of power.

ABSTRACT The 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has proven remarkably resilient across its long history, reflecting broad agreement among states that the further spread of nuclear weapons will increase the risks of nuclear war and global instability. Today, pressures on the treaty are rising due to rapid changes in the global security environment, reversals on nuclear arms control, ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and successive failures of the two prior review conferences to reach consensus on a final document. Adding to these pressures, the NPT’s indefinite extension in 1995 created unrealistic expectations for progress towards disarmament and a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, issues that roil the treaty’s internal political process. Given the circumstances, prospects for a consensus outcome at the 2026 review conference are poor. As in prior reviews, it can be expected that the parties will make best efforts to consolidate areas of agreement and manage substantive differences across a range of disarmament, nonproliferation, and peace uses issues. Poor prospects notwithstanding, with the intervention of treaty leaders, the parties may yet find it possible to ensure the 2026 conference at a minimum serves to stabilize the treaty and reaffirm international norms of nuclear restraint amidst today’s global turbulence.

The Israel–Palestine conflict remains one of the most complex and contested issues in contemporary international politics. A central question in this debate concerns whether Israel’s actions in Palestinian territories and neighbouring regions are primarily motivated by legitimate security concerns or reflect broader patterns of territorial expansion. This article examines the historical development of the conflict, focusing on the emergence of competing nationalist movements and the impact of colonial and postcolonial dynamics. It analyses how security has been constructed as a guiding principle in Israeli policy, while also exploring critiques that interpret these actions as forms of occupation and territorial consolidation. The study further considers the role of settlement expansion, military strategies, and administrative control in shaping the political and geographic landscape of the region. In addition to political analysis, the article incorporates the human dimension of the conflict, emphasizing how lived experiences influence perceptions of security, identity, and belonging among both Israelis and Palestinians. By bringing together these perspectives, the article highlights the complexity of the issue and the limitations of binary interpretations. The findings suggest that the distinction between security and expansion is not always clear-cut, as policies often reflect overlapping motivations and consequences. The article concludes that a nuanced and multidimensional approach is essential for understanding the conflict and for informing more balanced academic and policy discussions.

The present contribution examines artificial intelligence as a central contemporary instrument of soft power in international politics, emphasizing its increasing capacity to shape global preferences through advanced digital technologies and algorithmic governance. It analyzes the legal frameworks regulating artificial intelligence with a specific emphasis on safeguarding core rights and civil liberties, alongside persistent ethical concerns relating to privacy, biases inherent in algorithmic systems, alongside transparency concerns in automated decision-making. Methodologically, the research relies on a descriptive–analytical framework rooted in the examination of national and international legal texts, relevant scholarly literature, and reports issued by international organizations, supplemented by comparative analysis where appropriate. The findings demonstrate that artificial intelligence has emerged as a strategic soft power resource capable of exerting indirect influence on global public opinion and enhancing states’ international image. Nevertheless, the study identifies significant legal and ethical deficiencies, bringing to light the requirement for a carefully articulated regulatory architecture capable of guiding accountable use, while safeguarding rights and freedoms.

The article investigates the key determinants that have intensified the economic dimension of Ukraine’s economic diplomacy in the context of the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation. The study aims to identify the main factors that have increased the strategic importance of economic diplomacy as an instrument for safeguarding national economic interests and ensuring the resilience of Ukraine’s economy during wartime. The research identifies the major destructive consequences of the Russian–Ukrainian war for the national economy, including large-scale damage to industrial and agricultural capacities, the destruction of transport and energy infrastructure, disruption of established production and logistics chains, and destabilization of the national energy supply system. These challenges have significantly increased the need for effective diplomatic mechanisms aimed at mobilizing external economic resources and strengthening international economic cooperation. Particular attention is devoted to the analysis of the transformation of Ukraine’s diplomatic activities in recent years, emphasizing their role in attracting international financial assistance, consolidating macro-financial support programs, stabilizing public finances, and facilitating access to foreign markets. The study argues that the Russian–Ukrainian war has fundamentally reshaped the format of Ukraine’s economic diplomacy, leading to a systemic reorientation of its strategic priorities and the modernization of diplomatic instruments used to promote national economic interests in the international arena. The article also examines Ukraine’s diplomatic practices in mobilizing external financial resources for post-war economic recovery, developing alternative logistics routes for exports, strengthening the country’s international economic image, and promoting mechanisms for war-risk insurance for foreign investors. The findings demonstrate that under wartime conditions Ukraine’s economic diplomacy has significantly expanded its functional scope and proven its capacity to adapt to rapid changes in the international political and economic environment.

ABSTRACT As gauged by the factors usually believed to determine legislative success with Congress—party control, seat share, and presidential approval—President Trump was situated similarly during the first years of each of his terms. Yet, he achieved substantially greater legislative success in 2025 than in 2017. This contrast indicates that the conventional explanatory factors no longer fully capture what drives presidential success in an era of intense party polarization. Instead, intraparty dynamics and legislative strategy have an important role in shaping outcomes under unified government today. Understanding contemporary presidential effectiveness requires looking beyond seat shares and public opinion to the internal politics of the governing coalition.

In this paper, I revisit the concept of “neoliberal populism” as it was employed to describe the peculiarities of Peru’s market reforms under Alberto Fujimori’s government in the 1990s. Political scientists have argued that Fujimori’s reforms challenged the conventional opposition between profligate populist politics and austere neoliberal reforms. While I agree that populism was central to Peru’s path to neoliberalism, I contend that this interpretation remains incomplete. By locating the populist element solely in Fujimori’s political style, scholars assumed that the neoliberal content constituted a predefined policy package imported from abroad that merely found a receptive host in domestic populism. Through careful examination of neoliberal intellectual history and Peru’s political processes in the 1980s, I offer an alternative reading that foregrounds internal political and intellectual dynamics on the emergence of an economic populist argument crucial to Peruvian neoliberalism. I analyze the intellectual articulation around Hernando de Soto’s ideas on a capitalist revolution predicated in the entrepreneurial energies of the informal economy. While De Soto has been studied primarily as an enabler of Washington Consensus reforms, I argue that his arguments—in terms of both substance and rhetoric—emerged from Peru’s specific political and ideological conditions in the 1980s, particularly the significant though brief ascendancy of left-wing populism. Through a historical reconstruction based on extensive archival research, I demonstrate that De Soto’s arguments were shaped by the interaction between international neoliberal influences, previous local neoliberal traditions, and a large repertoire of participatory, cooperative, bottom-up economic utopias that the Peruvian Left had developed since the 1970s. De Soto successfully rechanneled these elements toward a reimagined neoliberalism, one that eschewed fiscal and monetary “macroeconomic populism” but embraced “microeconomic populism” based on promises around property ownership and financialized futures.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict constituted a long-lasting dispute that dated back to the mid-twentieth century and had been widely recognised as one of the most persistent and complex processes in contemporary international politics. This article examined the European Union’s (EU) actions in relation to that conflict, with the aim of analysing the coherence of its foreign policies and its alignment with the standards of the applicable international law. It also addressed the concepts of double standards in international practice, diplomatic coherence, and the notions of resistance and self-defence, based on the analysis of official statements by international actors, reports from multilateral bodies, and relevant historical precedents.

This paper examines how sacred sites can become ontic spaces—material extensions of the collective Self that stabilise identity and ontological security. It introduces the concept of ontic indivisibility to explain why spaces that are simultaneously sacred and ontic become existentially non-negotiable. Drawing on a discourse analysis of the Temple Mount across multiple historical crises, the study demonstrates how recurring phrases, such as ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger’ and ‘United Jerusalem,’ function as mythic signifiers that reproduce collective anxiety. The analysis links myth, narratives, and materiality to demonstrate that the Temple Mount’s indivisibility sustains an ontological zero-sum dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians, rendering the conflict structurally and persistently resistant to resolution. The authors would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs for their constructive and insightful feedback, which significantly improved this manuscript. We are also grateful to Prof. Filip Ejdus for reading an early draft and offering valuable suggestions that strengthened the theoretical framing.

This article examines the Baltic gold dispute as a lens through which to reassess Britain’s long-standing policy of non-recognition of the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In 1967–1968, the United Kingdom incorporated Baltic gold reserves into a broader Anglo-Soviet claims settlement while formally maintaining de jure non-recognition of the annexation. For two decades, this apparent contradiction generated little political cost, as Baltic independence was widely regarded as implausible within the stable territorial order of the Cold War. Drawing on archival material from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Treasury, parliamentary debates, and diplomatic correspondence, the article reconstructs how British policymakers reconciled legal doctrine with détente-era pragmatism. It argues that non-recognition functioned less as a rigid constraint than as a flexible diplomatic instrument whose coherence depended on geopolitical context. The restoration of Baltic independence between 1988 and 1992 reactivated the latent tension embedded in the 1968 settlement, transforming a managed compromise into a question of policy consistency and reputational credibility. By situating the Anglo-Soviet Claims Agreement within both the history of recognition policy and the political economy of détente, the article illuminates the conditional character of legal principle and reputation in international politics.

In the shaded corners of Indian villages, the katte-a humble cement platform under a tree or beside a veranda-serves as an informal parliament of the people. “Katte” is the Kannada term used to refer to such platforms in rural north Karnataka. Here, conversations drift effortlessly from neighbourhood gossip to international politics, stitched together by paan-stained wisdom, misremembered facts, and heartfelt opinions. This essay reflects on the quiet magic of such spaces, where ordinary people make sense of a complicated world through talk, ritual, and shared presence. It explores how the katte becomes a cultural archive, not always factually right but always emotionally sincere—a site where even false intellectuals speak with genuine conviction

The article discusses the legitimacy of military interventions where communicated motives are humanitarian, which is a controversial topic within international politics. The discussion focuses broadly on questions related to state sovereignty, the non-intervention principle, and both national and international responsibilities to protect populations, but also narrower, on insufficient information, mixed motives and selective responses. The chosen analytical tool is the English School theoretical perspective on international relations (IR), with concepts like international society, international order and international justice. This perspective offers a useful framework for informing a discussion about humanitarian-based interventions, since it incorporates both the hostile and the friendly aspects of the international sphere.

ABSTRACT How do anthropologists study epics? This forum intervention considers how large-scale events such as the Cold War can become subjects of ethnographic enquiry. Usually considered the domain of International Relations, History, and Politics, we argue that Cold War legacies are manifested in kinship relations, consumption practices, and embodied silences. Anthropologists can contribute to a much-needed scalar understanding of the Cold War across temporal and spatial geographies that connects grand narratives with the intricacies of social life.

In the course of advancing globalization a common communicative language is required for the smooth functioning of all kind of human affairs across the world. All the countries have their own mother language/first language and many of them are linguistically great; but they don’t fulfill the global need of communication. In the world of today every country, big or small, depends for something on other countries for several reasons. If they don’t share a common communicative language, it is almost impossible for them to execute their dealings with one another. In such a situation, a communicative language is essentially required. A proper examination of the issue brings the fact to our cognizance that due to some historical reasons and modern education development, the English language is used as a communicative or associate language in most of the countries. Today, the international trade, civil aviation, transfer of technology, the pursuit of modern knowledge, every kind of discourse and other such modern life affairs find expression through English language. Actually, during the mid of the twentieth century almost all colonies of British Empire became free. Along with political freedom, the people of these countries started boycotting the English language considering it to be the language of their exploiters. But very soon, within a decade or so, they realized the use of English language and readopted this language either as a second or an associate language. Till recent years countries like China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and some others used to use their first language in all human affairs; however, they had to face inconvenience in dealings particularly in the international affairs. Consequently, they also started introducing English learning courses in their education curricula. Now, British Council and many other organizations are working globally for the expansion of English language. It is believed that the English language will remain the common communicative language across the globe for a long time to come. Key words: globalization, common communicative language, global, cognizance, historical reasons, trade, technology, civil aviation, diplomacy, international affairs, modern education, industries, socio-economic condition etc.

The level of development of machine tool industry is highly dependent on the external factors including changes in international politics, improvements in technology and innovation growth as well as the pace of economic development, and has a direct impact on the competitiveness of any country. The existing global level of development of the machine tool industry is characterized by convergence of technologies and significant digital trans- formation, which requires taking a fresh look at understanding the term “machine” gining it a status of “cyberphysical systems”, which acquires the qualities of hybrid equipment capable of performing a wide range of technological operations. During the research the authors identified the technological and institutional problems of the machine tool industry. The specificity of the domestic industry lies in the high degree of import dependence. One of the reasons is the low level of competitiveness of domestic products on the world market, which is due to the low level of technological equipment of the production process of machine tools. At the same time, there is a lack of effectiveness in the formation and practical application of long-term planning documents. Based on the identified problems, a set of economic and managerial measures related to the sustainable functioning of the machine tool industry in the Russian Federation is proposed. The purposes of the study are to theoretically justificate the term of the machine as a cyberphysical system, which involves a complex of technological and economic components of production activity, and to reveal the key problems of the machine tool industry in Russia and determine the directions of its development. The authors of the article suggest a complex approach to define the concept of “a smart cyber-physically controlled machine tool” taking into account its both technological and economic aspects. It allowed to formulate an expanded definition of a new generation machine tool, which can be useful in the development of the relevant Russian standard and streamlining the use of the necessary terminology.

Abstract This article intervenes in International Relations (IR) debates on infrastructural politics by centering the role infrastructures play in sustaining species domination, as a key foundation of international political relations. It argues that infrastructures materialize a distribution of killability, where some lives, particularly those of certain humans, are deemed non-killable, while others, like wolves, are subjected to exclusion, marginalization, and even death. By focusing on the Netherlands and Belgium, the article examines the rise of wolf-exclusionary infrastructures that create artificial boundaries, sustaining promises of human security shielded from the dangers posed by other species. These infrastructures obscure the violent histories of successive human wars against wolves and embed ongoing violence within technical vocabularies and international standards that make it seem neutral and inevitable. The article challenges IR to recognize infrastructure as a key tool of violence and urges a rethinking of how risks and vulnerabilities are materially distributed within multispecies relations. In so doing, it reveals the politics of infrastructure as central to the ongoing struggle of living with other species in a world shaped by entrenched human interests. Finally, the article calls for a reconsideration of security and explores a redistribution of the risks of earthly living across species lines.

This article explores the current realities and prospects for cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in public health. The topic’s relevance stems from the convergence of legal cultures amid globalization, international political and economic instability, and increasing cross-border challenges to healthcare, including epidemics and child mortality. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated international cooperation and revealed shortcomings in the legal regulation of global challenges, highlighting the need for legislative harmonization. The results demonstrate the multi-layered nature of cooperation: legal regulation in healthcare encompasses the organizational and institutional level (coordination of efforts), the information level (data exchange), and the professional level. Based on an extensive legislative framework, the article identifies issues of uncertainty in law enforcement, insufficient mechanisms for cross-border data exchange, and gaps in legal regulation to counter global threats. Promising areas include harmonization of legislation on infectious disease monitoring, development of digital standards, export of medical services, cooperation in medical tourism, and the use of artificial intelligence. Overall, the importance of cooperation in addressing contemporary challenges is emphasized, with recommendations proposed for modernizing public relations in public health.

In 2021, the instrumentalization of migration became a significant security challenge for three European Union (EU) member states, namely Lithuania, Poland, and Latvia. This phenomenon gained particular importance when it was recognized as a hybrid threat aimed at destabilizing the eastern border of NATO and the EU. Instrumentalization of population movements, understood as the de facto direction of migrants toward the territories of selected states, became a form of political pressure. It com-pels member states to take urgent measures to protect their borders and coordinate their humanitarian and security responses. The aim of this article is to present the issue of migration instrumentalization as a tool of political pressure and to examine its impact on the security of the EU’s external borders, with particular emphasis on the case of Lithuania. This analysis highlights the use of migration in an interna-tional context and its consequences for EU member states. The paper examines the Lithuanian-Belarus-ian border and analyses the measures implemented by Lithuania to safeguard the border and ensure the security of its citizens. It also assesses the effectiveness of Lithuania’s actions in the context of compli-ance with international law and humanitarian standards. The research process employed a descriptive-explanatory approach, allowing for both the description and explanation of the phenomenon. To enhance the credibility and reliability of the study’s results, the research employed methodological triangulation, combining the dogmatic-legal method, the comparative method, and desk research. The data used in the analysis came from numerous analytical canters specializing in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), the Institute of Central Europe (IEŚW), and the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM). The analysis resulted in a current diagnosis of the situation related to the actions of EU member states, using the example of Lithuania, in combating the instrumentalization of migration, as well as supplementing existing research findings.