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Russia has re-emerged as an important global actor after the advent of the post-Soviet era. Kremlin's repositioning in the global affairs under President Vladimir Putin has led to a geopolitical and geostrategic transformation of its foreign policy. It follows multilateralism with active outreach in different parts of the world. In contemporary Russian foreign policy, there are tangible determinants that call for multipolar world order including realignment of foreign relations and consolidation of great power status. This paper, therefore, examines Russian foreign policy in the post-Crimean annexation era, where Moscow launched various campaigns through active engagements with the world's larger economies and strategically important countries, such as China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The paper also highlights Russia's evolving bilateral relations with these countries, especially in economic, political, and military spheres. Following the current global geopolitical realities, it also attempts to mark clear adjustments in Moscow's foreign policy with respect to its power, responsibility, and ambitions for international peace and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After becoming the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi made many efforts to consolidate his dominance in South Asia and expand India's influence in the Indian Ocean. The "neighborhood first policy" was highlighted in India's foreign policy. Based on historical and logical research methods and studies in international relations, the paper aims to examine the implementation of "neighborhood first policy" through bilateral relations between India and its neighboring countries. These relationships have been facing challenges from the more profound influence and interference of China as well as frequent terrorist incidents due to border disputes, which threatened regional security. Although this policy connected India with its neighboring South Asian countries, there were still challenges. It can be seen that the "neighborhood first policy" was Prime Minister Modi's effort to nurture bilateral relationships, enhance regional connectivity, and strengthen and elevate India's position in the region. The progress of the "Neighborhood First" policy is expected to continue more successfully in the next phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asia is becoming one of the most fiercely competitive battlegrounds between India and China. Located at the center of South Asia and with its large geographical area, population, and economic size, superior military strength compared to other countries in the region, India has always been the most influential power in the region. But in the past decade, China's intensified partnership with small countries in South Asia has threatened India's number one position in the region. It is the challenges posed by China in South Asia, inter alia, that have forced India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make various important foreign policy adjustments. To interpret India–China competition in South Asia in aspects of diplomacy, economy, security and defense, the paper uses international relations theories including constructivism, neo-realism (particularly offensive realism) and the balance of threat theory. Although the paper analyzes India–China competition in all three areas of diplomacy, economy and military security, the authors are of the view that, the most fundamental motivation of China and India in this competition is to achieve power and security and not economic objectives. While China's strategic calculation leans towards its ambitions to gain greater power in the geopolitical order, India's strategic calculation leans towards ensuring its security. By using qualitative methods and utilizing secondary data including books, treatises, articles and policy briefs ... , this paper analyzes the strategic calculations of India and China in South Asia. The paper argues that China's intention is to emulate and then overtake India in the very region of India's traditional influence, while India's strategy is to maintain and strengthen its number one position in the region. Though China's influence in the region seems to have overwhelmed over India, India with all its internal forces is also hindering China's penetrating steps into South Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, China has rapidly increased its influence throughout the South Asian region, using both its hard and soft power tactics. China has succeeded in eclipsing India's influence and emerged as an important player in the region. China is making inroads in South Asia by making huge investments and constructing roads, highways, railways, sea ports, bridges, power grids, dams, and public buildings. China is pursuing a foreign policy that aims to advance its strategic and economic interests while trying to imbalance India's predominant position and contain India within the boundaries of South Asia. This is to prevent the rise of a peer competitor that can challenge or hinder the rise of China as a sole Asian power. This paper argues that the geostrategic situation of South Asian countries is such that they pose threats to India's security by aligning with the extra-regional powers. Hence, China's expanding strategic and security ties with South Asian countries have wider implications for India's security due to the complex and sensitive nature of its relationship with China. The theoretical approach of Power Transition Theory has been utilized to analyze the Sino-India power rivalry and China's growing threat to India's security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International efforts aimed at developing a specific region's or country's media sector commonly involve both onsite actors (usually from the Global South) and external actors (usually from the Global North). Dependency theory suggests that onsite actors are (stuck) in a relationship with development agencies and donors in which "Western" notions of journalistic ethics, communication and democracy are imposed on them -- and not necessarily to their advantage. Bureaucratic imperatives and institutional dynamics especially within funding agencies have been identified as strong determinants of media development practice. Yet, recent empirical insights point to local actors' ability to assert their own strategies in the face of donor power which can be interpreted as agency. Therefore, this paper suggests making use of structuration theory to get a clearer picture of how onsite actors enact international media development practice. Structuration theory acts on the assumption that social practice is produced and reproduced as part of a dynamic interplay between agency and structure. Applied to media development practice, it allows for the analysis of the intentions and motivations of the agents involved, the conscious or subconscious rules they act upon and also the allocative and authoritative resources at their disposal. Against this background, this contribution presents the methodological design and preliminary results of a qualitative interview study on how onsite actors in the target countries of international media development perceive and negotiate their scope of action. Online interviews were conducted with participants from various world regions such as Middle East, South Asia as well as South-East Asia. The results suggest that the cultivation of long-term relationships and a diversification of international partners allow onsite actors to strengthen their agency within international media development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of a significant global challenge the international organizations are faced within the 21st century - climate change. Climate change has detrimental effects on international security and stability. In the past decades, humanity has faced emerging natural occurrences such as the increase in the World Ocean level, higher frequency of monsoon rainfalls, impaired conditions of the ecosystems in the rain forests. The massive population increase in Africa and South Asia also points to the fact that natural resources are not infinite, and their spare use becomes a priority of worldwide importance. Managing climate change is a global problem, the solution of which mandates the unified efforts of the entire international community. And this is where climate diplomacy comes at play. The efforts of climate diplomacy need to be focused on two primary directions. The first priority is limiting global warming under 2°C compared to the pre-industrial levels and taking actions to reduce the harmful emissions of greenhouse gases. The second priority is about taking adequate measures to handle climate change consequences, amongst which the so-called climate migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India was the first country in South Asia to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community (EEC). Once, the country was one of the top beneficiaries of the EEC development assistance. However, this article traces the evolution of development policy with India and how the relationship has evolved between the two partners over time. Particularly, the discussion focuses on the development cooperation between the European Union (EU) and India from 1957 to 2020. A major shift took place in 2004 when the EU and India became strategic partners, and India is the only country from South Asia that has established a strategic partnership with the EU. The study also explores the founding principles of the relationship between both partners. The qualitative research method is applied here in the empirical setting to explain the crux of diplomatic relations and development cooperation. Likewise, we found here, through the latest results, that EU–India relations were established and strengthened in the past decade. The EU also concluded some trade negotiations, but the complete free-trade agreements (FTAs) are still in the dialogue phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan faces many internal and external challenges and remains a major point of reference in contemporary international security analysis. This article examines selected issues relating to Pakistan's foreign policy contextualized within the transformations in the security dynamics of South Asia. The specificity of the security environment in South Asia, the least politically and economically integrated region of the world, engaged in the protracted Kashmir conflict, serves as the starting point for the multi-dimensional study of the key objectives of Pakistan's foreign strategy towards its neighbouring states, such as India, China and Afghanistan. Methodological approach for this research is based on offensive realism, which seems to present the appropriate explanatory tool for studying the South Asian securityrelated specificity. The naya (new) Pakistan narrative, promoted by the Prime Minister Imran Khan seems hardly a game-changing chapter in the history of the state. Analysis of Pakistan's current policies, persistent domination of the army over the state's bureaucracy, increasing dependency on external loans and bailouts provokes rather opposite conclusions. Pakistan's strategic goals vis-à-vis Afghanistan and India exploit its own resources and strongly affect the regional security system whilst the country has no adequate means to achieve them. Consequently, there is a vital need of a paradigm shift in Pakistan's regional security calculus from ideologically motivated, unfeasible claims to a more cooperative posture, supplemented by campaigns for de-radicalization. This research study was conducted during seven trips to Pakistan during the last decade; the results and conclusions of this study were discussed and debated with academics and other South Asia experts both in Asia and in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposefulness of the Indian foreign policy is already questionable due to its lack of clarity and direction, which afflicts the neighbouring countries through its affirmative and hegemonic regional policies. Smaller nations of the South Asia region feel threatened and bigger countries remain wary of India's dubious demeanour. Even with such designs, the Indian foreign policy goals remain unfulfilled. This is due to two important reasons. Firstly, the principles underlining the Indian foreign policy have been left ambiguous and idealistic ever since its inception. Secondly, the execution of the Indian foreign policy is most definitely not along the lines of its stated objectives. This disparate nature of policy execution has led to the perpetration of chaos in the region, which India has quite swiftly 'managed' through perception management. This is where the utilisation of Chaos Theory and perception management comes into play, which is analysed in this research paper. If India wishes to achieve its des red position in the region, as desired, then it is imperative that it revisits both the principles and implementation of its foreign policy to match the changing regional and global atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's re-emergence as a great power, and the ensuing competition with the United States over the norms, rules and values underpinning the international order, has signalled the return of great power rivalry in global politics. Asia is at the very heart of these dynamics, as testified by the competing Belt and Road Initiative and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategies, with significant implications for Asian states that are learning how to navigate the US-China rivalry. Situating the analysis in the literature on hedging, this article focuses on Pakistan's «hedging dilemma», centred around the country's bilateral relations with the US and China. Drawing on a range of archival material and interviews, the analysis shows that Pakistan's hedging options are limited, as a result of two intertwined trends, namely the implementation of the Beijing-backed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the «flagship project » of the BRI, combined with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Washington's recalibration towards competition with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his second and last presidency, US President Barack Obama, conscious of his lasting legacy, has taken some bold and unprecedented foreign policy decisions. However, like President Richard Nixon, he also faces the daunting dilemma of rescuing the neo-liberal democratic ideals from the overwhelming influence of traditional geopolitical and security considerations, driving the US foreign policy for many decades. Since the end of World War II, the US pursuit of balance of power politics in Europe and East Asia helped stabilise these regions, but neglecting the same in South Asia and Middle East has made these regions unstable and prone to violent conflicts. Moreover, President Obama's neo-liberal goals of Nuclear Zero and the Nuclear Security Summit process, disproportionately focus on merely managing the technological and geo-strategic consequences, instead of addressing the geopolitical causes of conflicts, rooted in the territory, resources and identity of various value systems, exacerbated by globalisation. This paper evaluates the multiple policy dilemmas, which will characterise President Obama's lasting legacy, marked by the enduring conflict between neo-liberal ideals and neo-realist security imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political, economic and cultural connections between Afghanistan and South Asia have been long‑lasting and strong throughout the centuries, not only because of the geographical closeness of the regions, but also due to the genetic relationship of their peoples. In the 21st century, due to rapid geopolitical changes and globalization the mutual relations of these two regions are becoming more and more important, not only on bilateral level, but also from the point of view of the regional and international interests. The aim of this article is to concisely show how the relations between Afghanistan and South Asia developed over the history, with special attention given to the current state of affair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to argue that identity is an important variable in determining the motivational disposition of the Indian state’s external security behavior. It offers a constructivist explanation to India’s increasing engagement with the Asia-Pacific region and argues that India’s deepening engagement with the region is a reflection of its desire to craft a new external identity for itself – the identity of an “Asia-Pacific player.” The desire for an “Asia-Pacific identity” is in part precipitated by Indian political elite’s perception of a crisis in India’s external identity immediately after the end of the Cold War, along with its intuitive desire for recognition within the international system. This ongoing identity shift offers to explain many visible changes in India’s post-Cold War foreign security behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]