Paul B. Anderson (1894–1985) stood out as a leading Western advocate for Orthodox Christians in the USSR. In March 1956 Anderson traveled to Moscow as a key member of a delegation representing the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA for meetings with leaders of several Christian church bodies. He acted based on knowledge of Orthodox history and Soviet politics and was the only Russian-speaker in the US delegation. He took a moderate, balanced, and diplomatic approach – avoiding both the uncritical celebration of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) or the condemnation of the church’s leaders due to their cooperation with the government. The Moscow visit, and the visit to the US that followed, contributed to a strengthening of ties among these church organizations and the 1961 entry of the ROC into the World Council of Churches. However, the meetings also illustrated the challenges of engaging in church activism during the post-Stalin era. This account demonstrates the significant contribution of Anderson to the building of informed and constructive connections among the believers of the US and USSR.

The article clearly demonstrates the current state of Russian data diplomacy and reveals the features of its formation in 2010–2021. Data diplomacy includes the use by the state of artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics (Big Data) and other technological innovations to project influence on foreign audiences, block objectionable information on the Internet, and resolve other foreign policy problems. The first part of the study examines the stages of the development of digital diplomacy as an instrument of Russia’s foreign policy influence and analyzes the first steps of official Moscow to integrate Big Data into its diplomacy. The paper defines the existing concepts, methodological framework and successful cases of Russian Internet diplomacy. The next section identifies the trends, directions and projects of contemporary Russian diplomacy, as well as forecasts its further development. The authors state the interest of the Russian leadership in the development of data diplomacy as an analytical track of foreign policy forecasting and a set of means for integrating new tools into diplomatic activity. The findings of the study can be used in the practical aspect of the further development of Russian diplomacy and in the scientific aspect of studying its role in domestic foreign policy.

The article studies the development and implementation process of the US trade strategy towards the People’s Republic of China in 2018–2020. The author tries not only to describe the state of things but thoroughly analyze the peculiarities of the decision-making procedure in trade during Donald Trump’s tenure.

The President was a hardliner and thought that maximum pressure would force Beijing to make concessions. We can discern two aspects which have decreased that strategy’s efficiency. First, Trump’s persona has destabilized the diplomatic process. Inconsistency and ever-changing rhetoric have deepened the crisis in the Sino-American relations. Second, right from the beginning, the president did not understand the way the decision-making process worked. The formation of the team in charge of trade took almost a year. In the end, a special group was set up; it managed to elaborate a plan of coordination with the PRC and also secure the Congress support. However, it was unable to establish a regular communication system with the president, who even during the negotiations was openly contradicting the official position of the US delegation.

Thus, despite a relatively efficient decision-making system (from a structural standpoint: advisors, cooperation with the Congressional Committees), Trump turned out to be inept to develop a long-term strategy to regulate the commercial relations between the USA and the PRC.

The paper provides a brief analysis of the main Islamic fundamentalist groups and movements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including extremist organizations that actively use terrorist methods of struggle for the power. The main stages of the formation of Saudi Islamic extremist movements are studied. The first contacts between the authorities of the Kingdom and the Islamists represented by the Muslim Brotherhood took place in the second half of the 1930s. In the 1950s, some members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, fleeing repression by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, received jobs and shelter in Saudi Arabia. By the end of the 1960s, two trends of Islamic fundamentalism were actively developing in the Kingdom: al-Sahva al-Islamiyya and al-Jamaa al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba. The first was a relatively moderate current, advocating for political reform under the auspices of royal authority. It had many supporters and quickly became the mainstream of Islamic fundamentalist thought and practice. The second movement, on the contrary, chose the path of rapid radicalization in the 1970s, culminating in the tragic events of 1979 in Mecca. The war in Afghanistan and the deployment of a large multinational force in Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait have become the new factors in the radicalization of the members of Saudi Islamic fundamentalist groups and movements.

One of the economic priorities of the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran was the strong commercial relations with Russia at different periods of time. The accession of Iran to the Eurasian Economic Union will open new opportunities for Iran’s economy. However, Tehran should enhance its economic diplomacy with other countries, especially its neighbors. Russian Federation is a world power as well as the most important northern neighbor of Iran. Because Russia is one of the UN council’s five veto-wielding permanent members, Iranian authorities are seriously considering Moscow in the policy of orientation to the East within the framework of strategic unification. Earlier, this was seriously pushed by the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. In recent years, Iran’s economy has been eroded by The US sanctions, and it is still experiencing serious difficulties. Undoubtedly, the implementation of macroeconomic policy within the framework of strategic goals requires a clear consensus in the power structures of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This goal seems to be achieved with the election of Ibrahim Raisi as president of Iran. This article examines the role and capabilities of Iranian sovereign organizations and independent of the government with enormous economic potential and close to the core of power, which are important for the development of economic relations with Russia. The author believes that these organizations, having the appropriate characteristics and capabilities, can largely implement the long-term target programs of the Iranian state within the framework of a strategic association with the Russian Federation.

The article analyzes the attractiveness of higher education and the necessity of using education as a source of integration. The goal of the research is to evaluate the activity of Russia directed to attracting to Russian universities the international students from the Eurasian countries significant for the national foreign policy. On the basis of the connection between the G20 countries, the research finds out the correlation between higher education, the economic component of soft power and the countries’ integration ties. Thus, the author looks at the importance of the national higher education from a different point of view. Since the international students’ streams form the connections between the countries, a network analysis is considered to be the best method of measuring the bonds’ intensity. The Eurasian governments’ integration potential is measured by the cluster analysis of the K-cores method. These types of analyses are convenient and proficient, because they are schematic and have a high degree of visuality. Comparing the ties’ intensity between China and the Western countries with an excellent higher education system, on the one hand, and between Russia, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Cooperation Organization countries, on the other, the research leads to the final conclusions. Set in 2008, the goal of engaging more international students in Russian universities has been achieved. Nevertheless, the potential for the integration has not been fully realized. To sum up, the author gives recommendations for developing the Russian higher education system and presents proposals to enhance cooperation in the sphere of education between Russia and its close partners.

The paper provides a brief analysis of the main Islamic fundamentalist groups and movements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including extremist organizations that actively use terrorist methods of struggle for the power. The main stages of the formation of Saudi Islamic extremist movements are studied. The first contacts between the authorities of the Kingdom and the Islamists represented by the Muslim Brotherhood took place in the second half of the 1930s. In the 1950s, some members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, fleeing repression by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, received jobs and shelter in Saudi Arabia. By the end of the 1960s, two trends of Islamic fundamentalism were actively developing in the Kingdom: al-Sahva al-Islamiyya and al-Jamaa al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba. The first was a relatively moderate current, advocating for political reform under the auspices of royal authority. It had many supporters and quickly became the mainstream of Islamic fundamentalist thought and practice. The second movement, on the contrary, chose the path of rapid radicalization in the 1970s, culminating in the tragic events of 1979 in Mecca. The war in Afghanistan and the deployment of a large multinational force in Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait have become the new factors in the radicalization of the members of Saudi Islamic fundamentalist groups and movements.

The public communication practices of U.S. and Russian presidents are built on the basis of legal norms, political culture and established national traditions. The key genres of public communications of presidents in both the U.S. and Russia are: messages to parliaments, inaugural and crisis speeches, press conferences, and interviews.

In the practice of the United States and Russia, the genres of messages and inaugural speeches practically coincide in this case. This is not coincidental, since the institution of the presidency in Russia is much younger and the key genres of public communications have been borrowed from Western practices. However, there are also certain specifics. In particular, the genre of crisis speeches is quite often used in the public communication practices of American presidents. In Russia, the practice of crisis speeches is used as a rhetorical tool of presidential communication much less frequently. The exceptions include presidential speeches about the most critical events; as a rule, they are broadcast on record.

The know-how of presidential communication in Russia is the format of multihour direct lines with the president, which are broadcast by federal TV channels. The genre of press conferences is used by Russian presidents much more frequently.

The rhetoric used by specific presidents adds to the peculiarity of their communication practices.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the pharmacological theory of the “Set and Setting” in the American socio-cultural context of the XXI century and focuses on the main collective factors that influence the emergence and rise of the third wave of popularity of illicit substances in American society, such as identity crisis, racial and gender split, social contradictions, as well as the loss of confidence of US citizens in government against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and environmental disaster. Employing a comparative method to juxtapose the “psychedelic renaissance” of the 2010s with the “psychedelic heyday” of the 1960s, using journalistic articles, psychedelic film texts and the descriptions of music festivals as sources, the author examines the influence of the domestic political situation in the United States: 1) on the popularization of LSD, psilocybin and other psychedelic substances; 2) on the promotion of psychedelic trends in modern US popular culture, namely, in cinema and festival activities; 3) on the effectiveness of contemporary psychedelic research.