1.What role do Russia, the USA and China play in the international relations?

2.Why does the author call the relations between China and the US turbulent? What brought them to the point of crisis?

3.What has recently eased the tensions?

4.What made the US consider China as its ally?

5.Why are Chinese leaders interested in preserving and expanding economic relation with the US?

6.How did the relationship between the US and Russia develop after Bush took office?

7.What issues fuel tensions between Moscow and Washington?

8.What created an opportunity for improving the US-Russian relations?

9.How did the American administration «reward» Russia for its cooperation?

10.What kind of relations does Russia need?

11.In what way have the Russian-Chinese relations been developing after the Cold War?

6.Questions for discussion.

1.Why do you think the relations between Moscow, Washington and Beijing are of crucial importance for the moment?

2.Do you think the states will continue to play this important role in international relations in the future? In what way could their roles change?

3.What are the prospects for Russian-US relations? How do you see the future relations of these two states?

4.Do you think Russia and China will be able to avoid conflicts in the future and preserve friendly relations?

II

1. Read the article and look up the meaning of the underlined words and phrases in the dictionary.

A second-generation alliance system

WASHINGTON — During the Cold War and in the decade after its end, the United States based its global strategy on an alliance system whose primary elements were NATO and Japan. That system is in degradation, in part for reasons having little to do with the United States, but increasingly for reasons directly related to the policies and attitudes under the present administration.

This trend, if neglected, points towards a situation in which the United States could ultimately stand alone in a hostile world. It is necessary to develop a second-generation alliance system that will serve the long-term security requirements of its participants.

Unlike America's European allies, Japan has a military that is being carefully developed into an impressive regional force. Nevertheless, there is a growing sense that Japan faces rising challenges to its physical security, principally from China. Over time, Japanese experts see reduced American ability to maintain regional stability, and they fear that at the end of the road there may well be a Chinese-American war, probably triggered by a clash over Taiwan. Japanese experts are deeply concerned that the United States'determination to build a ballistic missile defense system will stimulate the Chinese to exceed American expectations by increasing the size of their nuclear forces, rather than by merely deploying more modern systems. They worry that India might be compelled to increase its forces to offset China, thereby further stimulating a nuclear race with Pakistan. They have good reason for concern about North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The present administration aims to fundamentally change foreign policy. What is to be abandoned is the goal of a world system based on multilateral institutions, underwritten by security alliances anchored in the United States. In place of these things, what is intended is a world order serving US interests, based on US military and

economic primacy, although to the maximum extent possible avoiding American engagement in long-range tasks.

The issue to be thinking about is not how to go back but how to go forward. The United States needs a second-generation alliance system. Europe and the United States can take steps to make sure that the emerging Rapid Reaction Force6 is precisely that part of NATO that has been equipped and trained to fight together with the United States in out- of-area7 engagements.

Europeans should focus on understanding the revolutionary trends in US military capabilities and doctrines, and plan to have a Rapid Reaction Force develop in such a way as to intercept those capabilities in a certain number of years. This is substantially less demanding in technological and financial terms than trying to upgrade the alliance as a8whole. Japan must find a way to cut, or at least loosen, its constitutional Gordian knot . Essential forms of future cooperation with America should be identified and ways should be found either to design these forms to make them compatible with the Japanese constitution or to change the constitution to help Japan and the United States to improve their mutual security relationship.

That issue comes to its sharpest edge in terms of ballistic missile defense. Right now the Japanese assume that their constitution bars any integrated US-Japanese defense against ballistic missiles. That is a negative consequence, because it blocks effective cooperation against the most dynamic part of the security threat facing Japan. There may be ways to work around this problem; the United States and Japan should be making it a very high priority to find them. The United States especially needs to offer an overall idea of how to bring Asia through a period when power relations will be changing to a new equilibrium reflecting China's rapidly growing importance. Washington should

a benign regional adjustment to growing Chinese power. The goal here need not be a formal alliance but rather region-wide interest in collective security, capable of generating coalitions for specific purposes and possessing the means for effective joint operations with the United States.

In both Europe and Asia, governments most friendly to America deeply believe that the purposes of alliance now also extend to the need for collective, forward engagement against environmental collapse and poverty. To the extent that US allies neglect to maintain the capacity for basic collective military defense9, they are forgetting or ignoring the lessons of history. But to the extent that the United States tries to minimize its engagement with any issues other than physical security, it is failing the prime obligation of leadership: to chart a future worthy of the aspirations of all.

The largest goals of a second-generation alliance system are no longer strictly regional, but global. They are no longer purely military, but societal. For such purposes, the United States is still the indispensable nation, not by custom or some version of divine right but by clear vision and commitment.

2. Give Russian equivalents of the following words and phrases.

A long-term security requirement; to trigger; a clash over; a determination; to exceed; to compel; to offset; a multilateral institution; to be compatible with; primacy; an engagement; Gordian knot; to bar; a ballistic missile defense system; benign; to bring about; an adjustment; indispensable; to base on smth.

3. Give English equivalents of the following words and phrases.

Препятствовать; превосходство; компенсировать; превышать; противоракетная оборона; вывести; долгосрочное требование в области безопасности; вызвать; столкновение из-за чего-либо; незаменимый; решимость; корректировка (приспособление); принуждать; вовлечение; благоприятный; вызывать (быть причиной); совместимый с; Гордиев узел; строить/основывать на чем-либо.

4.Read the article again and answer the questions using the active vocabulary.

1.What is the US global strategy based on during and right after the Cold War?

2.Does the current alliance system get stronger?

3.What do Japanese experts fear?

4.What are Japanese experts deeply concerned about?

5.What do Japanese experts worry about?

6.What marks Washington's approach to current alliances?

7.What does the Bush administration intend to abandon in its policy?

8.How should Japan change its constitution?

9.What does Japanese constitution bar?

10.Should the United States resort to military force in its policy towards China?

11.What do most friendly to America governments believe in both Europe and Asia?

12.What do the US allies neglect?

13.How is the United States described as a nation?

5.Using the active vocabulary render the article in English.

6.Questions for discussion.

1.What can the widening gap between the military capabilities of the United States and those of its European partners lead to?

2.To what extent do you think Japanese experts' concerns are justified?

3.What is your assessment of the idea that the world order should serve US interests based on US military and economic primacy?

4.Should Japan redefine the constitution and embark on a military build up?

5.Do you see eye to eye with those who believe that growing Chinese power may challenge US and Japanese security? If yes, how should both US and Japan react to it?

6.What do you think is meant by the following statement: «To the extent that US allies neglect to maintain the capacity for basic collective military defense, they are forgetting or ignoring the lessons of history»?

7.Do you support the approach that the United States is still the indispensable nation?

III

Translate the following articles into English using Translation Notes.

1

Представители Госдепартамента США намерены встретиться с японскими и южнокорейскими коллегами для обсуждения дальнейших действий в отношении Северной Кореи. Как стало известно из дипломатических кругов, в центре внимания встречи будут вопросы о том, как убедить КНДР отказаться от ядерной программы. Затем высокопоставленные американские официальные лица отправятся в страны региона.

2

Президент США подтвердил, что его администрация намерена согласовывать с другими странами свою политику в отношении КНДР. Ранее президент США неоднократно выражал готовность продолжать тесные консультации на эту тему с Японией, Республикой Корея10, Китаем и Россией. Однако в их подходах к северокорейской проблеме существуют различия. Вашингтон выступает за усиление международной изоляции Пхеньяна11, а Токио, Сеул, Пекин и Москва считают, что урегулирование на Корейском полуострове12 может быть достигнуто только путем активного политического диалога.

Comment on the quotations:

DIPLOMACY: The ability to tell someone to go to Hell so that he'll look forward to making the trip.

«Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments». (Frederick the Great)