SPIS TREŚCI / CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ

The evolution of Russia’s National Security Strategy in 2015–2021. A normative approach

Adopted every 6 years, the national security strategies of Russia are the basic documents that fix the main challenges and threats to this country. The current strategy was adopted in June 2021 and replaced the previous document of December 2015. The following paper sheds a light on the most important aspects of the current strategy from a normative perspective and compares it with the previous version. Taking into account that for more than 10 years Russia has been undermining the western-centered international order, the paper stresses that the current strategy aims to consolidate the state, confirms the priority of the state over the society and individuals and the selfisolation from the foreign influences as a source of destabilization. It discusses the new tendencies in the evolution of strategies: the growing role of traditional Russian ethics, the need for the restrain a westernization of the society and the revival of patriotism.

Close allies? Prospects for deepening Russian-Belarusian integration after 2018

The aim of the article is to analyze Russian-Belarusian relations after 2018 and to determine the degree of advancement of the unification process of both countries within the formally existing since 1999 Union State of Russia and Belarus. In 2018, Russia took steps to accelerate the integration process. At that time, the Russian Federation presented two models for its future integration with Belarus. In order to force Belarus to tighten its cooperation, Russia used a whole spectrum of political and economic tools. The article diagnoses the main problems of the integration process to date and sets out the main goals of Russian policy towards Belarus. The subsequent stages of negotiations on deepening Russian-Belarusian integration were also characterized. The prospects for further integration of Russia and Belarus were also presented.

A number of international sanctions have been placed on Russia since it launched an attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in order to persuade the country to de-escalate the conflict. The sanctions imposed on Russia, while designed to harm the Russian economy, had unintended consequences on the world economy, primarily through the disruption of global supply chains. Energy supply shocks, commodities and trade supply shocks were all caused by the conflict. In many nations, this resulted in an increase in worldwide inflation. Despite the fact that Israel and Turkey were instrumental in mediating a peaceful end of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the economic fallout from the crisis continued to reverberate throughout Europe and beyond.

America’s unipolar balance of power created after the end of the Cold War is inevitably coming to an end. The dynamic economic growth of the People’s Republic of China, lasting uninterruptedly since the 1980s, the reconstruction of spheres of influence by the Russian Federation, the world war on terrorism with the accompanying costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, economic crises systematically weakening the economies of Western countries in 2001, 2007 and 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic – these are just some of the many causes of geopolitical changes. Parallel to the weakening position of the United States, countries such as the Russian Federation are increasingly boldly challenging the current balance of power, provoking armed conflicts and destabilizing countries located in Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this article is to present the American Multi-Domain Operation concept as a response to the Russian concept of new generation warfare by which the country successfully led to the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas, and the political destabilization of Ukraine. The main research problem resulting from the assumed goal was to answer the following question: what is a Multi-Domain Operation and how do the United States intend to compete and win in the armed conflict taking place in Central and Eastern Europe with the Russian Federation? The following research methods were used to solve the research problems: the method of cause-effect and institutional-legal analysis, method of examining documents, and the method of analysis and criticism of literature. The monographic and comparative methods were also used. However, the main role was played by deductive reasoning which enables the identification of facts based on an in-depth analysis of source data. Taking into account the preliminary research, the author proposed the following research hypothesis: a Multi-Domain Operation is another American operational concept describing the security environment, and the Russian and American way of war. The USA will achieve victory in a possible armed conflict by locating and neutralizing the enemy’s anti-access – area denial capabilities, and then destroying its forces in the disputed area.

Extremist movements and radicalism in Australia against the background of tensions between the policy of multiculturalism and the domination of Anglo-Saxon culture

In multicultural Australia everyone, regardless of language, nationality or culture, has the right to express themselves openly. However, despite its official commitment to diversity, contemporary Australian society continues to experience tensions between multicultural politics and the domination of Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage. Right-wing politicians have described multiculturalism as a harbinger of a social conflict that would lead to an ethnically divided Australia. Following the events of September 11, 2001, some regulations were introduced to expand the catalog of tools used by the police and law enforcement agencies to effectively prevent acts of violent extremism. These restrictions on civil liberties are being used by Australian extreme-right movements as an argument to undermine confidence in the government’s “oppressive” policies. The Covid-19 pandemic and its effects has also revealed negative shifts in the landscape of brutal Australian extremism. This raises the question of how serious danger to the national security could an Australian nationalism be left unchecked, capable of transforming into racially and religiously excluding ideas of belonging to society. The paper shows that failure to react decisively to the continued undermining of trust in democratic institutions and exploiting the cracks in social cohesion may lead to Australia no longer being perceived as a defender of the principles of liberal democracy. Instead, it will come to be regarded as a „colonial bastion of white settlers,” and such a poor racial reputation of the country will undoubtedly make it difficult for Australia to navigate in an increasingly tense regional geopolitical environment in the future.

Metropolis of Upper Silesia and Zagłębie as a pioneer in shaping the metropolitan policy in Poland

The phenomenon of incompatibility of the basic structure of territorial administration to dynamically progressing urbanisation is one of the problems of contemporary states. The public (and academic) discussion on how the state should support the development of metropolitan areas is quite vivid in Poland. However, Polish politics noticed the problem of territorial fragmentation in urbanised areas quite late compared to other European countries. Nevertheless in recent years successive Polish governments have taken up the issue. This has resulted in strategic documents and normative acts which task was to introduce new legal, financial and planning instruments for the development of cities and their functional areas, including metropolitan areas.

Formation and deployment of the movement of the Sixtiers and the Soviet policy of ideologizing, russification of the cultural and educational space of Ukrainians: the late 1950s–1960s

This article examines the Soviet policy of ideologization and, russification of the cultural and educational space of the Ukrainian nation in the late 1950s – 1960s and characterizes the formation and development of the movement of the Sixtiers. Despite the comprehensive control of the Soviet totalitarian state over human thinking, the young creative Ukrainian activist continued to be a living intellectual force that was able to adequately analyze socio-political processes in Ukraine and sought radical change in society at that time. This period was marked by the emergence of the Sixtiers – a new generation of Ukrainian national intelligentsia, who defended the national language, education and culture, freedom of artistic creativity. Despite the difficult socio-political circumstances of the time, a significant cultural progress took place in the creative life of the Ukrainian SSR, saturated with a diverse range of views, ideas and aspirations. In Ukraine, there was an irreversible process of national self-determination of Ukrainians through the cultural and educational space. Nonconformist sentiments in Ukrainian environment began a gradual transition to new democratic norms and standards in the life of the Ukrainian nation.

The story of vanishing hitchhiker “made in China”. Urban legend plot analysis in the perspective of comparative studies

This article provides an urban legend plot analysis in the perspective of comparative studies on the example of a popular story of vanishing hitchhiker. A comparative analysis was conducted using the original versions of this legend in the United States and the variants appearing in mainland China. Research on the variability of this story was first carried out in the 1940s by American folklorists, Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, which constitute the foundation for further analysis of Eastern themes of this legend. The Chinese versions of the story analyzed in this article were collected on the basis of author’s own field research, including ethnographic interviews and netnographic research. The field work was conducted in 2016–2018 in mainland China, with particular emphasis on Beijing, excluding special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China (Hong Kong and Macau) and Tibet.

Report from a seminar on “Migration movements in the world in 21st century: prospects and challenges”, Toruń, May 18, 2022

Отчет с семинара «Миграционные движения в мире в XXI веке: прогнозы и вызовы», Торунь, 18 мая 2022 г.

Формирование социальных представлений о соотношении языковой и политической сфер в России

[рецензия книги „Marząc wielki, śniąc potężny…” Aspekty narracyjne współczesnej rosyjskiej polityki językowej]

Imperfect Imbalance

[book review Perfect Imbalance: Russia and China]

Несовершенный дисбаланс

[рецензия книги Perfect Imbalance: Russia and China]

China’s development model from a Chinese perspective

[book review Zaufanie do systemu. Sukces chińskiego „alternatywnego” modelu rozwoju]

Китайская модель развития с точки зрения Китая

[рецензия книги Zaufanie do systemu. Sukces chińskiego „alternatywnego” modelu rozwoju]