The article points out that:

1) The Polish-Mongolian and Mongolian-Polish contacts devloped rapidly after the World War II as a consequence of the international cooperation of the socialist states.

2) Science and education were particularly important factors.

3) Poles significantly contributed to the cultural and civilization transformation of Mongolia, including the spheres of construction, industry, and agriculture.

4) Memories of the Polish-Tatar contacts still remain in the collective consciousness of Poles; the negative image of a community which destroys the cultural achievements of conquered peoples has formed.

5) The contemporary knowledge about Mongolia and Polish-Mongolian relations is largely shrouded with a mist of myths and stereotypes.

The paper reports the 9th Polish Conference on International Relations: 2017 – a Year of a Change organized by the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń on June 2, 2017. It presents not only the scope and process of this years’ conference but also briefly describes the idea of annual meetings of young Polish scholars interested in widely understood international relations. The conference report presents accompanying events of the conference, which gave its ninth edition unique atmosphere. It also points out the way this years’ conference contributed to the unification of the community of students and PhD students in Poland who are researching a variety of subjects related to international relations.

For the purposes of this article it has been assumed that the army should not become an autonomous constituent of the state’s structure, since this would pose a threat of taking over a dominant position by this specific formation. The aim of the article is to analyze the modification of the reasons for the outbreak of war, and the means of conducting it. The ongoing changes in the security environment, both in national and worldwide scale, as well as the proceeding national interests of our country imply increasingly advanced tasks for the army and considerably extend their range. The process of transformation in the Polish army is being continued. Further changes are targeted at increasing operational capability in order to enable efficient accomplishment of domestic tasks and performing missions outside its borders. In the contemporary international reality there is a prevailing conviction, that the threat of the outbreak of a global-scale war is rather unlikely. However, other jeopardies and risks have recently come to the fore.

For the purposes of this article it has been assumed that public opinion is a rapidly changing state of consciousness of large social groups, made up of more or less stable ideas and beliefs, relating to debatable issues, which has a direct or indirect impact on the current or future interests of society by its properties. This article aims to analyze the impact of public opinion on Polish foreign policy after 1989. The article assumes that: the public opinion has an impact on decisions affecting foreign policy, although the extent of this impact is very different and often is purely indirect; impact of public opinion in Poland on foreign policy increases, but still shall be defined only as incidental impact; public opinion in Poland does not determine foreign policy.

The author shows the basic elements and tools for implementing security and defense policy of the European Union. She poses questions about the dependence of the Union’s policy and its impact on the conflict in Ukraine. The analysis of subsequent events enables to make conclusions and show irregularities. Two years after the bloody protests the analysis goes from hybrid war to creeping conflict.

The transformations of the North Atlantic Alliance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and its mission in Afghanistan have proceeded hand in hand with the redefining of security interests in individual member states. Poland and Germany have also been affected by a polarization of views, particularly on the nature, place and role of NATO in today’s world. The countries’ geopolitics and their varying visions of European security have significantly affected their positions.

This article examines the role of Karimov regime and his opponents in influencing Turkish-Uzbekistani relations in the 1990s and its consequences for later developments. Following the description of the characteristics of Turkish-Uzbekistani relations, it will be discussed how far had the opposition leaders such as Abdürrahim Polat and Muhammad Salih an impact on the worsening of the bilateral ties between Turkey and Uzbekistan. This article then stresses Turkey’s attitude towards Uzbek opposition leaders which finally addresses the reasons for worsening of Turkish-Uzbekistani relations such as the bombings of Tashkent, Uzbek students in Turkey, Gülen Movement as well as the ideology of Pan-Turkism.

The Sino-Indonesian relationship is an important research topic in Cold War studies. Since the 1960s, a number of scholarly works have been published on the subject. The declassification of diplomatic documents in various countries, and particularly the opening of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives following the end of the Cold War, has led to new developments in the studies on Sino-Indonesian relations. Much of this research, however, has been focused on the period from 1949 to 1965, because soon after the Indonesian military coup of September 1965, Sino-Indonesian diplomatic relations was suspended and was not restored until 1990. This article is a historiographical overview of the more controversial topics in Sino-Indonesian relations between 1949 through 1965 in scholarly publications that have came out over the past half decade. These topics include, among others, the establishment and evolution of Sino-Indonesian diplomatic relations; the standpoint of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia –PKI) toward the Sino-Soviet split; China’s reactions to the anti-Chinese movements that occurred in Indonesia between 1959 through 1961; and the cultural relations between Indonesia and China. The discussion here is limited to publications in the English and Chinese languages; this paper does not make any attempt to include relevant scholarly works that may have been published in Bahasa Indonesia or other languages.

The actions indicated above and taken by the United Nations and the European Union (in spite of their different international law status) argue that objectives attributed to international organisations are not only postulates, but a basis for actions taken specifically, both in the legal and actual dimension. Therefore, the main research objective adopted for this study was to bring them closer, with particular emphasis on the UN and the EU joint actions for international security. Due to the complexity and multifaceted nature of the discussed subject matter of these considerations, they will be confined to the T-306/01 Ahmed Ali Yusuf and Al Barakaat International Foundation case recognized by the EU Court of First Instance. In there, as in a lens, interrelationships between the international organisations in questions are concentrated; and not only in terms of international cooperation, but, more importantly, in terms of the principle of the primacy of the United Nations law over other legal regimes.

Russian authorities have for years been proclaiming that in order to ensure energy security and to increase their economic presence in North-East Asia their priority is to diversify gas export and to increase cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region. Despite frequent meetings at interstate and business levels, and numerous formal – but no binding – agreements, no tangible progress in this regard has yet been made. This paper argues, from a game-theoretic perspective, that peril for Russian geopolitical and economic interests ensuing from both inception of EU energy policy and evolution of the European gas market has been one of the factors hindering Russian plans of eastbound gas export diversification.

The prospect of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism poses a danger for contemporary societies. However, the incidents related to an application of weapons of mass destruction (that is, nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons) by non-state actors are relatively rare. The aim of the paper is to present recent incidents and to estimate the threat from particular types of WMD. The author focuses both on the question of motivation to undertake these operations and on the problem of technological capabilities. To sum up, the risk of a massive WMD terrorist attack should be perceived as quite moderate due to the technological barrier, but selective attacks carry a greater potential risk because of their higher probability and significant psychological effect.

On 3rd-5th June, 2013 the 27th Asian-Pacifi c Roundtable was organized in Kuala Lumpur. Th e conference held traditionally in the Malaysian capital provided invited speakers with an occasion for presentations of their views on current problem countries situated in Asia and around the Pacifi c Ocean, as well as the future of relations between them.Th is time, the theme of the Asian-Pacifi c Roundtable was Strategising Change in Asia. USA Ambassador Hill said that reports about the decline of the West seemed to be premature. He proposed not to overestimate successes of Asian countries scored mainly in the fi eld of economy and reminded once again that Europe as well as North America possessed experience in overcoming problems of diff erent nature. Minister Morgulov from Russia tried to convince that Russian politicians are aware that their state possessed too little potential to compete successfully with the United States or China for the regional or global leadership. It seems that Russia has begun to implement some kind of containment strategy aimed at the containment of Russia’s diminishing signifi cance in the world.

The tragic years of World War II, followed by the unfriendly communist policy in Poland towards the Jewish community, changed the country from a multicultural into the most homogeneous state in the European Union nowadays. At the same time, Israel, as a meeting place for various cultures, enjoys the influence of inhabitants from nearly all over the world. The dissimilar experiences and problems faced by the governing bodies should influence different approaches to dual citizenship in Poland and Israel. In view of the above, in the presented work the author would like to analyze the issue of the legal approach to dual citizenship both in Poland and in Israel. The main goal of the paper, beyond comparison of the effectiveness of the legislation, is finding the answer to the question: what is the state’s attitude towards the issue of the dual citizenship of their citizens? The hypothesis that the article will verify states, that due to the small number of people with dual citizenship in Poland, Polish legislation devoted to this topic is not extensive and has dissimilarities to the law in Israel, which, in contrast, is more complex and better response to the needs of society. The reason for comparing Poland and Israel is the fact that Polish citizenship has been very popular among the citizens of the Jewish state, especially since 2004 when Poland became a member of the European Union. This issue, in the long run, may be one of the key determinants of Polish-Israeli and Polish-Jewish relations.

The paper reports from the proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on Israeli Studies Israeli Identities: Past, Present and Future which took place at the University of Wrocław on September 10–12, 2017. The report reflects on the discussions which took place during plenary sessions of the conference and on the contents of the conference panels. Furthermore, it assesses the importance of this international event for the field of Israeli studies.

Foreign policy priorities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea

In this article, author want to analyze the priorities of foreign policies of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea. In order to achieve the above aim of research, author of this work put a few basic research questions: what are the priorities of North Korean foreign policy and what are the priorities of South Korean foreign policy? The author used the analysis method to demonstrate the originality of this paper. The article allows to pay attention to the extent to which national interests and foreign policies of both Korea differ from each other. The subject of this article has not been studied in polish scientific articles. The author has attempted to fill this gap. North Korea’s foreign policy is focused on surviving regime in the international arena. The priority of foreign policy of the Republic of Korea is primarily the pursuit of deepening economic cooperation with China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

China’s soft power

The notion of soft power introduced by American political scientist J. S. Nye is becoming increasingly popular not only in science but also in journalism. In short, this term should be understood as the use of ideology, culture and diplomacy to build the international position of a given state. The masters in the application of soft power are generally considered Western states. However, it is forgotten that for many centuries before the West soft power to build its power was successfully used by China. Also today, rebuilding its international power, China is using soft power in its mastery of the world.

Artykuł przedstawia genezę i rozwój koncepcji systemu-świata i omawia jej wizję procesów globalizacji. Z tego punktu widzenia od połowy XVI w. mamy do czynienia z procesem powstawania światowego systemu ekonomicznego opartego na międzynarodowym podziale pracy. W efekcie tworzy się globalna cywilizacja, działająca według reguł kapitalizmu, którą na potrzeby tekstu nazwiemy cywilizacją kapitalistyczną. W artykule zostanie przeanalizowana siatka pojęć tego podejścia i rozwój jego teorii. Zarysowane zostaną współczesne wyzwania dla koncepcji cywilizacji kapitalistycznej – o charakterze polityczno-ekonomicznym i naukowym.

Constructivist approach of analyzing international relations brought many new elements to the thought on the nature of international reality, which made it possible to explain it and understand it better. One of these elements in the process of analyzing this reality is the concept of identity of participants of international relations. Its analytical phenomenon consists of the fact that it allows us to undertake attempts to understand interests and character of norms and values of participants of international relations. The most important statement brought to scientific thought on international reality by Alexander Wendt’s notion of constructivism relates to the fact that states’ interests in international relations are not given a priori, but they are shaped during interactions with others. Not only is the role of inter-state actors who influence states’ interests in international relations underlined, but it also indicates the important role of other participants of international affairs in articulating national interests. From this perspective, the category of identity in international relations taken up by Constructivism takes account of the social, interactive nature of international reality making it possible to analyze its intangible part.

Peculiarities of the soft power policy in Europe

The aim of this paper is to describe peculiarities of the soft power as a political phenomenon and to provide an overview of its application by European countries. The specific focus of this paper concerns the role of culture as a powerful means of the country’s image promotion throughout the world. Moreover the paper reviews the activities of the European cultural institutions as an crucial element of the soft power policy.

Stowarzyszenie Narodów Azji Południowo- -Wschodniej (ASEAN) jest organizacją polityczno - gospodarczą, stawiającą sobie za cel konsekwentne pogłębianie współpracy pomiędzy swymi członkami. Co więcej, nieustannie wzmacnia swoją rolę jako czołowej organizacji międzynarodowej w regionie Azji Południowo- -Wschodniej, stając się istotnym partnerem dla wielu aktorów. Podstawowym celem artykułu jest zbadanie, w jaki sposób ASEAN definiuje sam siebie, przy wykorzystaniu strategicznych narracji. Na samym początku wyjaśniono, na czym polega analiza strategicznych narracji. Następnie przy wykorzystaniu owej analizy, sprawdzono, w jaki sposób ASEAN formułuje swą strategiczną narrację. Zrozumienie sposobu kształtowania i budowania narracji jest bowiem niezbędne, aby zrozumieć, jakie są również strategiczne cele organizacji. Artykuł kończy podsumowanie.