The main link between revolutions in a polemogenic wave is participation of correspondent states in a common war (Πόλεμος – war, Γέννηση – birth). The polemogenic wave caused by the First World War includes successful revolutions (with the change of power) in Russia, Germany, Hungary, the success of some national liberation movements of Irish people, Czechs, Slovaks, South Slavs, Poles, Finns, the defeat of such movements of Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, peoples of Turkestan, the establishment of regimes of various types and with different stability. The article presents an approach to identify causes of different types of dynamics and the consequences of revolutionary events in within the wave. The approach includes comparisons using methods of similarity and difference, as well as the application of binarization and Boolean algebra according to Ch. Ragin’s method. The application of this approach makes it possible to put forward hypotheses about causes and patterns of revolutionary dynamics and consequences in the polemogenic wave: what determines inclusion of a society into the wave, the level of loyalty of ethnic provinces in relation to their empire, success and failure of revolutions, existence and absence of civil war, relationship between revolution and religion, nature and fate of the cultural avant-garde.

The concept of the hegemonic order in international relations is, on the one hand, related to the state-centric understanding of the international system, and on the other hand, to the challenging of the thesis of its polyarchism. While historic hegemonies never had a monopoly on exclusivity, the U.S. has achieved a clear and significant advantage over other powers. This was due to numerous reasons. The multidimensionality of the U.S. power means that no one else is able to match the U.S.in military, economic, technological, political, or culturalcivilizational and ideological terms. The United States has become the only power that can effectively stabilize or destabilize the existing global order. The biggest source of current concern is, on the one hand, a contestation of U.S. hegemony in the world, and, on the other, its actual decline.

The author regards in this article the questions, which are connected with the ontological and epistemological foundations of the theoretical international studies. IR as science refl ects the main features of the dominating at the epoch scientifi c world pictures as the way of cognition. As the term “scientifi c world picture” was formulated by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger as well as by the most prominent scholars of the fi rst part of the 20th century – by M. Planck, A. Einstein, N. Bohr, E. Schrödinger etc. Even if some contribution in the development of sciences was done already in the period of Antiquity and Middle Ages, the scientifi c world picture was formulated only with the transition to Modernity, with the exude of the human being from nature. Being based on the typology, done be the Russian academician philosopher V.S. Stepin . the author regards the specifi cs the main scientifi c world pictures, and their consequences in the classical, non classical and post non classical science. By the way, the IR science with great diffi culties accepts the new worldview, at its main part still functioning in a sense of the Newtonian mechanistic world picture. Even if the attempts have been made to be fi tted into the new scientifi c world pictures, the gap between the natural and social sciences is still diffi cult to overcome, and the usage of the newest world view ideas is still fragmented and even marginal. Because of that the latest attempt to fi nd soma balance between the traditions and innovations, by the most famous constructivist Alexander Wendt with his newest book “quantum Mind and Social Science” deserves through attention and analysis.

According to the neoinstitutionalism theory, institutions are divided into two groups: formal and informal. Formal institutions are the enshrined legal provisions, laws by which government are guided and institutionalized norms. Informal institutions include rules of conduct, system of values, ideology and traditions which are the defi ning factor of social behavior of a person. The article deals with the problem of fi ghting against international terrorism in the context of Islam as an informal institution and activity of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as formal an institution. In Islam terrorism in all its forms is rejected. In Islamic tradition acts of violence are classifi ed under different names – a muhariba, fataq, ightiyal, ghadar, baghiy and irhab and are absolutely rejected. The present terrorist activities which terrorists carry out by justifying them with distorted provisions and interpretations of Islamic doctrines has nothing to do with laws of Sharia. Terrorism as goal pursuing method also rejected by the Organization of Islamic cooperation – the largest formal Islamic institution. The offi cial position of the OIC member-states on this matter is enshrined in conventions, resolutions and different declarations, and also in the constant stance of the secretary general of the Organization that demonstrates the serious concern and commitment of this institute to fi ght against international terrorism.

The US has prolonged its stay in Afghanistan with the security situation remaining far from improving. The indefatigable demand for resources to maintain counter-insurgency operations was a major debate in 2016 US Presidential elections with a demand for an earlier withdrawal from America’s trillion dollars plus war effort. Russians having sensed the weakening of the US infl uence warmed upto the idea of new Afghan situation involving Taliban and their masters, the Pakistan army. Russia had experienced vulnerabilities of Islamisation in Central Asia and Caucasus, and the ISIS brand radicalisation added to the fear of political destabilisation of Central Asian states. The Islamic State showed up in Afghanistan and Pakistan as ISIS-Khorasan branch. Russia needed Pakistan as an ally to fi ght Daesh’s presence on its southern periphery. However, there remained many intertwined security challenges that complicate the South Asian geopolitics, especially, the Af-Pak region. Russia’s Taliban policy might be the hitherto unused leverage that it might be using in order to strike balance all along the shatter belt.

Afghanistan is a long-suffering country in which there is no peace and stability for several decades now. At present, the situation in Afghanistan is uncertain and unpredictable. In this country, there is a danger of escalation of terrorism, religious extremism and the spread of drugs. The article is devoted to the analysis of political, social, economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. It also provides an analysis of the prevention of new threats that have arisen in this country.

The concept of the hegemonic order in international relations is, on the one hand, related to the state-centric understanding of the international system, and on the other hand, to the challenging of the thesis of its polyarchism. While historic hegemonies never had a monopoly on exclusivity, theU.S.has achieved a clear and significant advantage over other powers. This was due to numerous reasons. The multidimensionality of theU.S.power means that no one else is able to match theU.S.in military, economic, technological, political, or cultural-civilizational and ideological terms. TheUnited Stateshas become the only power that can effectively stabilize or destabilize the existing global order. The biggest source of current concern is, on the one hand, a contestation ofU.S.hegemony in the world, and, on the other, its actual decline

The US has prolonged its stay in Afghanistan with the security situation remaining far from improving. The indefatigable demand for resources to maintain counter-insurgency operations was a major debate in 2016 US Presidential elections with a demand for an earlier withdrawal from America’s Trillion dollars plus war effort. Russians having sensed the weakening of the US influence warmed upto the idea of new Afghan situation involving Taliban and their masters, the Pakistan army. Russia had experienced vulnerabilities of Islamisation in Central Asia and Caucasus, and the ISIS brand radicalisation added to the fear of political destabilisation of Central Asian states. The Islamic State showed up in Afghanistan and Pakistan as ISIS-Khorasan branch. Russia needed Pakistan as an ally to fight Daesh’s presence on its southern periphery. However, there remained many intertwined security challenges that complicate the South Asian geopolitics, especially, the Af-Pak region. Russia’s Taliban policy might be the hitherto unused leverage that it might be using in order to strike balance all along the shatterbelt.

The concept of the hegemonic order in international relations is, on the one hand, related to the state-centric understanding of the international system, and on the other hand, to the challenging of the thesis of its polyarchism. While historic hegemonies never had a monopoly on exclusivity, theU.S.has achieved a clear and significant advantage over other powers. This was due to numerous reasons. The multidimensionality of theU.S.power means that no one else is able to match theU.S.in military, economic, technological, political, or cultural-civilizational and ideological terms. TheUnited Stateshas become the only power that can effectively stabilize or destabilize the existing global order. The biggest source of current concern is, on the one hand, a contestation ofU.S.hegemony in the world, and, on the other, its actual decline

Abstract. The main link between revolutions in a polemogenic wave is participation of correspondent states in a common war (Πόλεμος — war,  Γέννηση — birth). The polemogenic wave caused by the First World War includes successful revolutions (with the change of power) in Russia, Germany, Hungary, the success of some national liberation movements of Irish people, Czechs, Slovaks, South Slavs, Poles, Finns, the defeat of such movements of Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, peoples of Turkestan, the establishment of regimes of various types and with different stability. The article presents an approach to identify causes of different types of dynamics and the consequences of revolutionary events in within the wave. The approach includes comparisons using methods of similarity and difference, as well as the application of binarization and Boolean algebra according to Ch. Ragin's method. The application of this approach makes it possible to put forward hypotheses about causes and patterns of revolutionary dynamics and consequences in the polemogenic wave: what determines inclusion of a society into the wave, the level of loyalty of ethnic provinces in relation to their empire, success and failure of revolutions, existence and absence of civil war, relationship between revolution and religion, nature and fate of the cultural avant-garde.

The issue is devoted to the Crimea and Sevastopol city accession to the Russian Federation. The economic effects of the Crimean territorial policy of the Russian government are considered. The assumption is made that the occurrence of the Crimea in the economic and legal space of the Russian Federation has included signifi cant investment. Meanwhile, it is worth far less than the prospect of Crimea to share the fate of modern Ukraine. The article considers the political consequences of Crimea's integration into Russia. From the authors’ point of view this integration was an important event in world politics that signifi cantly changed the fi eld of international relations and «rules of the game». It has been revealed how events in Crimea have changed the vector of development of Russian policy in the context of domestic life and in the international community. It is shown that the integration of the Crimea becomes an important fi gure in Russian political discourse, linking the foreign and domestic policies of modern Russia. This underlines the seriousness of the Crimean agenda in the public consciousness. The accession of Crimea and Sevastopol City into the Russian Federation has allowed the ruling elite of modern Russia make the best use of opportunities for their own legitimization.

The article provides an analysis of the dependencies between the individual indexes destabilization of the collected CNTS, and types of regimes (“Freedom House”) from 1973 to 2012. Review and analysis is conducted through the prism of four stages of time: 1) 1973-2012; 2) 1973-1991: 2.1) 1973- 1989; 2.2) 1973-1991; 3) 1992-2010; 4) 2011- 2012.

It is shown that the Arab Spring acted as a trigger for a global wave of socio-political destabilization, which signifi cantly exceeded the scale of the Arab Spring itself and affected absolutely all world-system zones. Only in 2011 the growth of the global number of largescale anti-government demonstrations, riots and political strikes was to a high degree (although not entirely) due to their growth in the Arab world. In the ensuing years, the Arab countries rather made a negative contribution to a very noticeable further increase in the global number of large-scale anti-government demonstrations, riots and general strikes (the global intensity of all these three important types of socio-political destabilization continued to grow despite the decline in the Arab world). Thus, for all these three important indicators of sociopolitical destabilization, the scale of the global echo of the Arab Spring has overshadowed the scale of the Arab Spring itself. Only as regards the fourth considered indicator (major terrorist attacks / guerrilla warfare) the scale of the global echo for the entire period considered did not overshadow the scale of the Arab Spring (and, incidentally, «Winter») - and in 2014-2015 Arab countries continued to make a disproportionate contribution to the historically record global values of this sad indicator – global number of major terrorist attacks/ guerilla warfare. To conclude, triggered by the Arab Spring, the global wave of socio-political destabilization led after 2010 to a very signifi cant growth of socio-political instability in absolutely all World System zones. However, this global destabilization wave manifested itself in different World System zones in different ways and not completely synchronously.

The papers analyses new integration initiative of the middle powers namely MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Australia) against the background of evolution of trans-regional integration processes in Asia and Europe. The phenomenon of MIKTA is analyzed in comparison with other most successful trans-regional integration projects like G20, BRICS and IBSA (Dialogue forum of India, Brazil and South Africa). MIKTA represents a very interesting pattern of middle powers’ aspiration to create multilateral international institutions which they can use to produce much stronger infl uence on the global politics in comparison with a simple sum of these countries’ individual efforts outside the framework of such trans-regional institutions. The key question is how trans-regional integration initiatives similar to MIKTA could infl uence political and economic processes on the regional and macro-regional levels and whether it is possible to speak about new format of trans-regional integration models. Unlike other integration projects of middle powers MIKTA is not a formal association of different countries according to some common features (like N-11 or the Next Eleven Group or MIST/MIKT). On the contrary MIKTA represents a joint voluntary initiative for creation of multilateral trans-regional institution fostering fi nancial, economic, political and diplomatic cooperation. For South Korea MIKTA should have become a mechanism for increasing its infl uence in the international organizations, Indonesia expected MIKTA to make it stronger politically and diplomatically in the world affairs, both Turkey and Mexico wanted MIKTA to perform an instrument for solving their economic problems (increase international trade volume, attract foreign investments etc.). Special political, diplomatic, trade and economical potential of MIKTA is based on the fact that its member countries claim to play a role of regional pivots which are located as bridges among various continents and geographies like Turkey (between Europe and Asia) and Mexico (between North and South America) or serve as a sort of a portal for the West to the region of Southeast Asia, specifi cally to its Muslim populated part, (Indonesia) and Asia-Pacifi c (Australia).