Territorial disputes are complicated by the long-term vicious cycle of “rival” identities constructed by continuous interactions. The purpose of this study is to analyze how Japan’s commitments to certain types of collective identities affect bilateral relations with Russia, using two case studies that analyze how Russian political elites perceive Japan’s position on sensitive issues of international politics. By doing so, the study argues that Japan’s commitments to “Western” collective discourses in the international arena over the past decade have largely undermined relations with Russia, reducing the likelihood of significant progress on critical issues.

This article examines the state of the global food problem, food security in East Asia, and the opportunity for Russia to prevent a food deficit in North Korea. The authors analyze the symptoms of the global food problem, the theoretical approaches to food security, the transformation of food consumption in Asia, and the food trade between Russia and the Korean Peninsula. One major conclusion is that Russia is in the best position among all countries to increase food exports to Asia-and especially to North Korea-as the people of Asia’s food consumption habits shape the new structure of food trade between that region and the rest of the world.

This article sheds light on the foreign policies of China, Russia, and Turkey towards the controversial Iranian nuclear program and analyzes to what extent their policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. While advocating a nonhegemonic security culture discursively, China, Russia, and Turkey still partially adhere to hegemonic power structures on a behavioral level. These states’ policies are the outcome of a balancing act between resistance to hegemony and hegemonic accommodation. The analysis in this article nuances the idea that counter-hegemonic discourses of rising powers always herald a revisionist power transition. The article thereby makes a contribution to the scholarly debate about emerging powers and the coexistence between declining hegemonic powers and norm-shapers in the making.