Crisis of the International System and International Politics

Despite the Cold War and numerous hot wars, there is an essential continuity in the post-war period based on the Charter International System created in 1945. The United Nations and the associated declarations, organizations and normative orientations remain the framework for the conduct of international relations. At the level of international politics, orders are created in which states contend and hegemonic formations take shape. The Soviet-led bloc disintegrated in 1989-1991, leaving the field clear for the U.S.-led political West to claim universality, and on that basis seek to expand globally. However, the distinction between the system and conjunctural political sub-order is crucial to explain the dynamics in international affairs today. Russia has long resisted the expansive dynamic of the political West, an order created and sustained by Cold War logic, although drawing on U.N. Charter norms and principles. Russia's relationship with the civilizational West is more ambivalent, while the country insists RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS