THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR IN THE CONTEXT OF XXI-ST CENTURY WORLD-SYSTEM CHANGES. EXPERIENCE OF I. WALLERSTEIN'S METHODOLOGY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the Russian-Ukrainian war problem in the context of global changes in the 21st century first quarter. The theory of worldsystem analysis, methods of historicism and comparativism were taken as the direct methodological basis of this issue. The novelty of the article lies in the comparison of the world-system process evolution (mid-XV – first quarter of the XXI century) with the world wars dynamics (from the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648 to the Cold War of 1946-1991). The authors hypothesized that these wars are triggers of the world-system self-development, phases of the previous world orders destruction and the establishment of new ones. Each world order records a certain upgrade in the development of the world-system. These are the Westphalian, Paris, Vienna, Versailles and Yalta-Potsdam world orders. A systemic failure in the world orders change is considered as one of the reasons for the Russian-Ukrainian war. Attention is drawn to the fact that the Cold War, which led to the collapse of the USSR and changed the actual state of affairs, nevertheless did not consolidate these results in the norms of the new world order. Thus, a situation of geopolitical ambiguity was formed, and that was used by Russia. The article also discusses I. Wallerstein’s position on the “end of the world as we know it”, marked by a streak of military clashes with all the signs of global “Thirty Years’ War.” It also examines his scenarios for a probable global future in the “postliberal era.”