Abstract

The research analyzes peculiarities of militarization/demilitarization of the world as one of modern tendencies of international relations. Authors emphasize that despite the existence of a bipolar international system and tough confrontation between the two superpowers, the international community attempted to limit inflence of the military factor in international relations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of a bipolar system, there was hope that the process of demilitarization would become more intense, making the world less aggressive and more secure. Such expectations, according to the authors, were not unfounded, because at the early 21st century the clearly processes of demilitarization were observed. Russian aggression against sovereign Ukrainian state is considered by authors as the event that could become a turning point which will certify the beginning of militarization processes. According to the authors, this can be explained by several reasons, as the aggression has shown the following features: the rules of law fail to operate against the brute military force; any nonnuclear country in the world has no guarantees for its own security; reliable guarantee against the aggressive actions can only be provided via state’s own military power; there are still many security threats in the world, so the military factor should not be neglected. The situation is reinforced by events in the Middle East, the intensifiation of international terrorism, etc. Authors emphasize that it is still quite early to talk about trends to militarization in the world, as too little time has passed already. While still the series of events shows that many of the foundations for future militarization have already laid. However, the authors stress that development of events in Ukraine and the Middle East will have crucial inflence on the transformation of the impact of military factor in international relations. With the successful resolution of these conflcts the returning of the international community on the path of demilitarization can be expected. In the case of escalating of mentioned conflcts, it will lead to a signifiant increase in militarization of the world.