The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a harsh spotlight on the state of global governance. Faced with the greatest emergency since the Second World War, nations have regressed into narrow self-interest. The concept of a rules-based international order has been stripped of meaning, while liberalism faces its greatest crisis in decades.

Russian strategic culture is evolving fast, despite the consolidation of the ruling regime, which is maturing into a more rigid autocracy, whereby its ideological outlook becomes increasingly conservative.

Northeast Asia has emerged as a critical theater of Russian foreign policy in recent years.

Moscow’s historical Westerncentrism is giving way to a new awareness about the vital importance of the region. The “turn to the East” now has genuine substance and impetus. Yet Russian policy is a work in progress, more opportunistic than strategic. The security landscape is complex and fluid, and Moscow has struggled to manage its contradictions.

As Emmanuel Macron hosts Angela Merkel, Vladimir Zelenskiy, and Vladimir Putin for a summit aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict, it is worth taking stock of the French leader’s Russia policy to try to discern what Paris’s policy toward Moscow can and cannot achieve.

The near imminent breakdown of the INF Treaty (1987) has strongly intensified political and public concerns about the failure of traditional arms control and the escalation of a new nuclear arms race.