New Eastern Europe Magazine March-April 2019 Vorige editie

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “To know a nation’s geography is to know its foreign policy.” While this was clearly in reference to the geopolitical games of the19th century, we can certainly see some relevance in the French ruler’s words today, especially when looking at the post-Soviet space. In the 21st century, however, geopolitics is not limited to physical geography, as Andrew Wilson notes in the opening interview to this issue. Postmodern geopolitics can be found as much in the information space as it is in the physical world. And this has become one of the defining features of the emerging world which is slowly taking shape; one that is based on greater competition, a vie for influence and greater multipolarity, with new and reemerging powers such as China, Russia or Turkey playing transformative roles in the post-Soviet region. Clearly, this new multipolar world order is still in the embryonic form and thus we cannot fully define its shape from today’s perspective. All in all, the consequences of the new postmodern geopolitics should be more scrutinized if we are to make any sense of the diverse and dynamic processes taking place. This issue also takes us through another transformative process that has been unfolding in our region since the fall of communism, namely the revival of Jewish life. For centuries, Central and Eastern Europe has been the centre of Jewish life yet only since the end of the Cold War has its renaissance started to take place.