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The Political Logic of Russia’s Imperialism

According to the political economist Ilya Matveev (2021), Russian imperialism transitioned from the economic logic to the territorial logic around the year 2014, when the Russian state resigned from the strategy of expanding private businesses to Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics and started waging political control over these territories even at the expense of the interests of private capital.

A Review of Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents

What remains constant is Fukuyama’s reliance on transhistorical psychological models of immutable human nature, rather than an analysis of material and economic relations, to explain the current fragility of liberal democracy. While Fukuyama does not abandon a commitment to the capitalist market, he avers that, under neoliberalism, the “valid insight into the superior efficiency of markets evolved into something of a religion, in which state intervention was opposed as a matter of principle.” The review has a misleading title. Fukuyama, according to the review itself, does not argue that or has reached the conclusion that “socialism is the only alternative to liberalism.”

Gas and Israel’s Regional Integration

“The picture that emerges is clear. East Mediterranean natural gas is serving as a lubricant for Israel’s regional integration . It connects the country politically, economically, as well as in terms of infrastructure to the rest of the region, and serves as an effective tool to deepen its normalization with its neighbors. This process, carried out under US tutelage, highlights the ways in which regional ruling classes are increasingly deepening their ties, simultaneously, with Israel and the Gulf.”