Author: Konstantinas Andrijauskas
Institute: Vilnius university
Year of assertion: 2014

The research objective of this dissertation is to assess the impact that a regional level of foreign policy has on Sino-Russian relations in the 21st century, by successively determining: (1) whether the relations are characterized by power asymmetry at a regional level; and, if yes, then (2) what the main features of that regional-level power asymmetry are; and (3) what influence it has on both actors’ positions in their traditional spheres of influence and on the strategic partnership between them. Based on the regional approach of international relations, the dissertation presents an innovative theoretical model of regional-level power asymmetry along with its three component methodological tools. More

Author: Vadim Volovoj
Institute: Vilnius University
Year of assertion: 2012

Contemporary Central Asia (CA / Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) is an internationally important region in economic and security sense. Its biggest problem is the lack of long-term political stability, which became the object of the thesis. Accordingly, the purpose of the thesis was to determine the basic reasons of instability in CA states, to disclose their detailed essence and offer an effective conception to maintain long-term stability in them. Stability was defined in dissertation as absence of revolution and objective/subjective socio-political and socio-economic base of discontent with the government of a single taken country, which is a premise and condition of the revolution in it. More

Author: Karolis Aleksa
Institute: Vilnius university
Year of assertion: 2012

Although US remained the strongest military power in international system after the Cold War, it was still deeply concerned how to retain its military dominance in the longer term, that could guarantee US further predominance in solving major international issues. Three US military transformation initiatives, namely the transformation of the US conventional forces, the development of missile defense systems and long-range conventional precision-strike capability, are considered as the main instruments to maintain US military dominance in the future. Considering that for Russia and China, which are perceived as the major US opponents, the US military transformation emerged as a big challenge, the research problem is formulated as an attempt to understand whether and how the US military transformation poses a threat to Russia and China’s security and in turn, how this affects Russian and Chinese security policy towards the United States. More