№ 6 - 2001
Solovyov E.G.
Geopolitical Analysis of the International Problems of Modernity: Pro et Contra

The author makes an attempt to verify judgments, rather widely spread in modern Russia, as to unconditional significance, both in theory and as being practically applied, of geopolitical ideas and methods. The causes of geopolitics’ especial attractiveness for politicians and theoreticians of right-radical and left orientations are analyzed. The qualitative changes that took place in Western geopolitics after the cold war ended, are then described. Problematics of bipolarity, unipolarity, multipolarity and of a uni-multipolar system are discussed in detail. Finally, processes of expansion of the research field of geopolitics, first of all owing to geoeconomics, are characterized. Absolutely state-centered character of geopolitical analysis is qualified as its most vulnerable point. As for the most promising spheres of geopolitical theorizing, E.G.Solovyov numbers among them analytical study of regional expanses.