Instead of reforming the old world order, the global powers are busy establishing new institutions with unclear powers that no one really knows how to use.

Syria demonstrates the new limits of U.S. power. The international legality of the threatened military action matters to Obama perhaps more than it ever mattered to his predecessor.

The Syrian case has proved the existence of a very serious problem in international relations. Russia and the United States, which used to regard themselves as great powers, have no capability to be such powers.

Norwegians are anything but paranoid about Russia. Rather than dealing in stereotypes, they are engaged in deep and extensive research of their neighbor.

The current Russian regime may not explicitly present itself as a successor of the Soviet regime and its policies, but it firmly defends them against their detractors.

All the shadows and ghosts of the conflicts of the last three decades make it hard for any decision maker to focus on what is the best policy for Syria itself.

The situation in and around Syria is remarkably different from the Balkans in the 1990s. There will be multiple reactions to the U.S. actions in the region and beyond, and massive unintended consequences.

Austria is on the lookout for a distinct international identity. The ministers are seeking to expand the bridge-building function which Austria has traditionally served between Europe’s east and the west.

The Soviet Union’s collapse and disintegration did not come all at once. It was a long process, which is still unfinished. Instability, unpredictability, and insecurity of the 1990s became a good launching pad for the current leadership of Russia.

Over the past 30 months, Syria has become a place where Moscow and Washington have been pushing hard for their very different concepts of international order. For the first time since the first Gulf War over two decades ago, Russia is actually checking U.S. power in the Middle East.

Today, there is no misery like in Yeltsin’s days, but the emptiness remains in economy as well as in the hearts of the people. The economy is too dependent on oil and gas, and the society tends to suffocate the creative intellectuals and innovative business people.

The majority of people, and particularly those in power, would like to skip over this “unnecessary anniversary.” People do not value August of 1991 because of a collapse that followed and a nightmare of bungled but inevitable reforms that took place right after.

Kremlin’s current actions toward Ukraine indicate that the Kremlin is ready for a rough policy of coercion and intimidation in the post-Soviet space. Moreover, the Kremlin is ready to force Ukraine to either agree or pay a high price for resisting.

A generation ago, Vladimir Putin would have been a strongly patriotic Soviet leader. Now Putin has to be modest in his efforts to "re-gather" the former Soviet republics. The Customs Union is one such project. Promoting the Russian language is another.

In the Russian history this peaceful popular drive was unique: for a brief period it looked like Russia would break away from its traditional paternalism and develop a sense of “we, the people.” This is not something the current regime would celebrate.

The August putsch should not be considered taboo. On the contrary, it should be seen as a moment of national pride. It’s time for the younger generation to start forming opinions on the crowning moment of the post-Soviet Russian Federation.

The August revolution put an end to the Soviet Union, but nowadays the Kremlin sees the Soviet Union’s collapse as a disaster and looks back to the Soviet past in an attempt to build continuity. This explains why August 1991 in Russia is an unwanted anniversary that no one wants to remember.

It appears that the playing field may already be shifting dramatically regardless of the status of Ukraine’s relationship with the Customs Union. Who in the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchic structures stands to lose the most after the EU Eastern Partnership summit in November?

The dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is similar to that in the Middle East in many ways except that it is more likely to be resolved if it is paid some high-level international attention, particularly from the United States.

Russia is still a country without a nation. Nation-building from above is reduced to symbolism and will not succeed. Time has come for round tables of representatives of various interest groups and ideologies to start the process of nation-building from below.