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In the study of contemporary politics few interstate relationships have proven more instrumental, controversial, and perplexing to global policy makers than that which has persisted between Moscow and Tehran since the collapse of the USSR. Despite the great importance of Russian-Iranian relations to questions of global and regional politics there has, to date, been very little in the way of critical scholarship performed on the subject. While a wide-array of accounts from subject analysts provide a wealth of data on contemporary and historical events which have presumably defined and conditioned bilateral relations, there has been relatively little effort to isolate, examine, test, and evaluate those conditions or variables that are deemed salient to cooperation. In light of these circumstances, this study seeks to initiate a tradition of scholarship on Russian-Iranian relations that appeals broadly to the use of a scientific methodology. The first step of any scientific inquiry requires attention devoted expressly to the development of a dependent variable of bilateral political affinity. While it remains outside the scope of this present investigation to analyze the host of factors/conditions capable of influencing bilateral relations, the formalization of a variable which records changing political affinity is a necessary first step and one that will fill-in a significant gap within the existing literary tradition. Rather than simply dismissing the extant tradition of literature on Russian-Iranian relations, this study seeks to aggregate and transform the subject's many diverse narratives into a user-friendly, quantitative, political metric which can form the basis for future empirical inquiry. Thus this study introduces a new approach to monitoring and measuring changes in Russian-Iranian cooperation known as General Political Affinity (GPA). Represented on the basis of a 21-point scaled indicator of bilateral affinity, GPA succinctly defines cooperation between Moscow and Tehran as the summation of three underlying, persistent issue dimensions: the trade in conventional weapons; cooperation in Iranian nuclear development; and level of agreement on matters of Caspian Sea delimitation. In more generic terms, these three criteria seek to evaluate interstate cooperation, generically, as a product of: defense cooperation; state-sponsored development assistance; and territorial agreement. The unique approach to operationalizing political affinity presented in this study not only functionally improves our ability to explain and predict the course of Russian-Iranian relations, but also provides a new schematic for evaluating bilateral relations among all political dyads.

Russia has always been a primary factor in the development of the Baltic States. It is impossible to analyse Baltic security without looking into the processes inside Russia and the prevailing trends vis-a-vis the Baltic States. However, the changes in the Baltic security landscape in the 21st century lack a comprehensive analysis. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap. Two key aims are being pursued in this thesis. The first is to present an analysis of Russia's European agenda under President Vladimir Putin and to examine the place of the Baltic States in this agenda. The second aim is to define Russia-related threats and challengers to the Baltic States, as well as prospects in Russo-Baltic relations. To attain these aims, inter-active approach to international relations, comprising three levels of analysis - the international system, the nation state (domestic level) and the individual (personality) level - has been applied. The neo-realist paradigm of international relations theory, comparative analysis and the Knudsen model, which addresses the peculiarities of relations between great powers and small states, are the methodological framework of the thesis. When analysing the development of Russo-Baltic relations in 1990-2006, this thesis focuses on the evolution of the Baltic States from factors to actors and their chance of shaping Russo-Baltic relations from within the enlarged EU and NATO. It also examines possibilities for more active engagement of Russia in the Baltic region. The thesis concludes with an analysis of perspectives for the Baltic States in countering Russia-related threats and building cooperativer elations with Russia. The author maintains that 'high politics' in Russo-Baltic relations has ended, yet, the tensions do remain in 'low politics'. Russia seeks to retain her political and economic influence in the Baltics by exploiting various tools, primarily economic levers and Baltic dependence upon Russian energy.

The official reaction of the Russian Federation and of the People's Republic of China to the announcement made by the United States in December 2001 to abrogate the almost thirty years old Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty has been remarkably weak, given their sustained and coordinated opposition to the deployment of strategic defences against ballistic missiles (BMD). Because the existing literature, particularly balance of power theory, under-explored this puzzle and fails to provide a satisfactory explanation to it, a neoclassical realist model building on structural and unit-level variables is proposed to supplement this caveat. It is argued that Russia, as a stagnant great power experiencing trouble at the domestic level, bandwagons with the United States because it discounts the medium- and long-term threat posed by BMD. China, a rising developmental state, is soft balancing because it resents the project and the threat it poses to its security. It has not hard balanced so far because there is an acknowledgement that this could jeopardize its power base, as the telling example of the USSR collapse illustrated.

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La diplomatie énergétique russe qui est au cœur de ce travail diffère des politiques industrielles classiques adoptées régulièrement par les États afin de développer leur pays, relancer son économie ou certains secteurs industriels. Elle entend en effet utiliser les ressources naturelles de la Russie, et singulièrement son potentiel énergétique (sachant que la Russie est à la fois producteur, consommateur, pays de transit) afin de retrouver son statut de grande puissance. Ce retour de puissance devant permettre à la Russie de sortir de la période de transition pour redevenir un acteur de premier rang dans un monde global redessiné par la fin de la guerre froide. Il s’agit pour elle de faire entendre sa voix, de participer en qualité de partenaire égal aux décisions et à l’élaboration des nouvelles normes rendues nécessaires par le bouleversement engendré par la fin de la guerre froide.<p><p>La diplomatie énergétique russe s’affirme pendant les années 2003-2004, comme une démarche pragmatique, un moyen opportuniste de rencontrer un projet politique en utilisant un des rares leviers dont dispose ce pays appauvri et affaibli – sa puissance énergétique qu’il s’agit de transformer un outil de puissance politique, raison pour laquelle la politique étrangère russe va être mise au service de ce projet. Le travail fait donc référence aux spécificités internes de la Russie et au contexte international afin d’identifier les faiblesses et les forces de cette diplomatie spécifique.<p><p><p>Russian energy diplomacy, with which this work is uniquely concerned, differs from the classic industrial policies adopted by states in order to re-launch their economies or certain industrial sectors. It has consisted of putting Russia’s natural resources and particularly its energy potential (as a producer, a consumer, and a transit country) to the practical purpose of restoring its status as a great power. For Russia, the return to power would permit the country to emerge from its period of transition and become a leading actor in the world reshaped by the ending of the cold war. It is a matter of making its voice heard, as an equal partner in international decisions and the formulation of the new political norms necessitated by post-cold war upheaval. <p><p>In 2002-2004 Russia developed this energy diplomacy as a pragmatic and opportunistic means of attaining a political objective with one of the few levers at the disposal of an impoverished and enfeebled country – that is to say, its energy potential, which it turned into a political tool. To this effect, Russian foreign policy has been made to serve the same project. Consequently this work deals with internal specificities and the international energy context, in order to probe both the weakness and the strength of this particular form of diplomacy. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished