Rangsimaporn argues that Russia aspires to become a great power and tries to achieve this through utilizing its position as a Eurasian country, with vast territories in East Asia, its economic assets, primarily arms and energy, and careful management of its role in a multipolar East Asia with a complex balance of power.

An illuminating account of Russia’s attempts—and failures—to achieve great power status in Asia. Since Peter the Great, Russian leaders have been lured by opportunity to the East. Under the tsars, Russians colonized Alaska, California, and Hawaii. The Trans-Siberian Railway linked Moscow to Vladivostok. And Stalin looked to Asia as a sphere of influence, hospitable to the spread of Soviet Communism. In Asia and the Pacific lay territory, markets, security, and glory. But all these expansionist dreams amounted to little. In We Shall Be Masters, Chris Miller explores why, arguing that Russia’s ambitions have repeatedly outstripped its capacity. With the core of the nation concentrated thousands of miles away in the European borderlands, Russia’s would-be pioneers have always struggled to project power into Asia and to maintain public and elite interest in their far-flung pursuits. Even when the wider population professed faith in Asia’s promise, few Russians were willing to pay the steep price. Among leaders, too, dreams of empire have always been tempered by fears of cost. Most of Russia’s pivots to Asia have therefore been halfhearted and fleeting. Today the Kremlin talks up the importance of “strategic partnership” with Xi Jinping’s China, and Vladimir Putin’s government is at pains to emphasize Russian activities across Eurasia. But while distance is covered with relative ease in the age of air travel and digital communication, the East remains far off in the ways that matter most. Miller finds that Russia’s Asian dreams are still restrained by the country’s firm rooting in Europe.

Investigates the intimate relationship between regional governance processes and global crises. Analysing the current turmoil in the European Union, it also looks at regional cooperation and integration in the Arab world, Africa, Asia and Latin America through topical case studies.

In this global era, Central Asia must be understood in both geo-economic and geopolitical terms. The region's natural resources compel the attention of rivalrous great powers and ambitious internal factions. The local regimes are caught between the need for international collaborations to valorize these riches and the need to maintain control over them in the interest of state sovereignty. Russia and China dominate the horizon, with other global players close behind; meanwhile, neighboring countries are fractious and unstable with real potential for contagion. This pathbreaking introduction to Central Asia in contemporary international economic and political context answers the needs of both academic and professional audiences and is suitable for course adoption.

This book examines how Putin's Russia emerged as one of the great powers, demanding recognition of its status in international politics.

With its unstable and intermittent nuclear weapon project, and the recent leadership succession issue, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been a source of insecurity for the past decade in this region, in addition to the delicate international relations among the powerful China, United States, Japan, and Russia. The essence of DPRK issue lies in the instability and uncertainty of nuclear development that even the slightest miscalculation by any one power could disturb the sensitive balance of relationships, creating a butterfly effect with a catastrophic result. Drawing on various perspectives on the interaction over DPRK and other regional powers, this volume seeks to explore the role of DPRK in Northeast Asia, and its implication to regional security as a whole. The volume does not confirm a particular position over DPRK’s nuclear showdown; rather it invites scholars to provide assessments from the viewpoints of neighbouring powers in order to present a more complete understanding of the leading issue in Northeast Asia. The volume will serve as an invaluable resource for policymakers, students and scholars of North Korean politics and international relations. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Asian Development.

This book examines the dynamics of Russian foreign policy between 2000-2019 by specifically focusing on the civilian aspect of nuclear energy and how it shapes Russia’s relations with Turkey. It aims to clarify the role and the importance of nuclear energy as a foreign policy tool, specifically in the case of Turkey. To this end, Russian nuclear energy policy is scrutinized in detail. This book reveals that the marketing and trading of nuclear power plants (NPPs) for civilian purposes not only provides surpluses for Russian economy but also increases the influence and power of Russia over those places where nuclear reactors are sold or other nuclear goods and services are supplied. Specifically, it examines the extent of the influence of the exportation of NPPs on the Russian foreign policy dynamics in Turkey. In this context, first a brief historical background information on Russian nuclear power status as well as the utilization of nuclear energy as a foreign policy tool during Putin’s presidency is given. This is followed by the Russia’s nuclear energy policies towards Turkey and the effects of this policy on the Russian foreign policy dynamics in Turkey. The book concludes that the Akkuyu NPP project will result in Moscow’s domination in the foreign policy dynamics between Turkey and Russia. As a result of such dominance Turkey will become much less sovereign in its foreign policy options and will feel the pressure coming from Moscow about the possible consequences of its actions which will not please Russia. The primary methodological tool of the work was qualitative analysis utilizing primary and secondary sources in Russian, English and Turkish on the topic, including academic books, articles, newspapers, magazines and relevant official websites.