Geopolitical series

China’s and Russia’s shared antagonism against the West fuels cooperation at bilateral and multilateral levels. In its normative dimension, this cooperation is driven by the overarching aim of defining and re-interpreting existing international norms in a way that reflects the...

This Brief analyses the current dynamics underpinning the Belarusian-Russian relationship and its possible future trajectory in the light of new factors which limit Belarus’s room for foreign policy manoeuvre. It highlights how, under increasing pressure from Russia and faced...

Beijing’s new activism in the Middle East reflects the evolution of Chinese foreign policy thinking, in line with the country’s rise as an economic superpower. Economic goals rather than ideological considerations have become key criteria in China’s selection of partners in the...

In recent years Japan has sought to rekindle diplomatic, political and economic ties with Eastern Europe. This Brief examines how Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 may have motivated this charm offensive, prompted by Tokyo’s fears that such aggression could potentially be...

In the three decades after the Cold War, the perception of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’, the sense that the Arctic region is immune from broader geopolitical tensions, prevailed. However, this notion is currently being challenged: climate change is accelerating the opening of new...

Russia is mounting a remarkable political comeback in sub-Saharan Africa through a ‘low costs, high returns and visibility’ approach. Can a coherent strategy be discerned behind this push? And how is sub-Saharan Africa reacting to Russia’s overtures and what does it mean for the...

Russia's grand aspirational objective is to bring back what is deemed in Moscow to be a more natural state of play for the Balkans: multipolarity. But what is the Russian modus operandi in the region? Is it confined only to coercion, as the headlines suggest, or is there a softer...