The focus of the article is on current discussions on the heuristic significance of the "soft power" concept, examines the socio-political and philosophical foundations of the phenomenon, and states the de-Americanization of the soft power discourse and the related changes in the behavior of the new "soft power" actors.

The theoretical basis of the article is the conceptual interpretation of the concept of "power" proposed by Joseph Nye as an alternative to Realistic and Neo-Realistic models of power relations in modern world politics. Nye singled out coercion, influence and attractiveness as equivalent dimensions of force.

The research methodology is based on formal-logical and content-logical methods.

The research procedure first of all is built around the typology of criticism of "soft power" as a concept and the prospects for its overcoming.

In the analysis of the results, it is noted that Nye in the concept of "soft power" had verified the accents of modern socio-philosophical and political-philosophical approaches in relation to the power-discourse of international relations. It is predicted that the theoretical comprehension of the "soft power" will develop, as its use by states will continue. First, it concerns "rising forces" (such as China and India).

In conclusion, it is emphasized that the ability of the state to compete globally in three areas (economic growth, military technological development and value-cultural impact) allows us to talk about it in terms of full power, which is impossible without resorting to the complex phenomenon of "soft power", questions of national identity in a new way and to the non-material grounds of the state.

Today, the term "the Baltic states" is used, as a rule, as an umbrella-name for the three former Soviet republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The grounds to unify them into a single construct are, above all, their geographical location, as well as some parallels of state development, deeply rooted in the mass consciousness. However, the problem of whether these grounds are sufficient to speak of a single "Baltic identity" shared by three states, or whether its unifying potential is limited to providing an "umbrella term" convenient under certain circumstances, is still a matter of research interest. How relevant today is the idea of a unified "Baltic identity" of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and how does it correlate to other types of political and geographical identities of these countries?

The article strives to go beyond the common understanding of China's BRI strategy as a set of Eurasian logistics corridors and related investment and transportation projects. Scrutinizing the five integration areas (wu tong), namely foreign policy, infrastructure, trade & economic, financial and humanitarian, one can come to the conclusion that it is a set of activities to support the "going out" of the Chinese commercial firms to the leading positions in various sectors of the world economy. Climbing up the value chain by the "national champions" is a necessary condition for China's entrance to the center of the world economy. The arena of action is the periphery and semi-periphery (so called "countries along the belt and road"), where China is gradually pushing out corporations of developed countries.

In addition, the strengthening of China's status in the eyes of the international community and the formation of the image of a great power hold independent importance for the people and leadership. Assessing BRI as the next natural stage of China's foreign economic openness policy at the new stage of globalization and at the same time as a self-valuable tool for restoring the country's prestige on the world stage allows more accurate evaluate Chinese intentions in joint projects.

Immediately after D. Trump was elected President of the United States in November 2016, he announced that he had his own plan for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict settlement. D. Trump promotes this plan as "the deal of the century", which will lead to the long-awaited peace in this long-suffering region of the Middle East. However, as soon as several media sources started publishing certain details of this plan with reference to reliable sources, it immediately gained sharp criticism from many well-known politicians. The Palestinian side officially announced that the initially biased new American initiatives exclude the USA mediation in the negotiation process on the Middle East settlement. For this reason, the abovementioned "Trump's plan" has not yet been officially announced.

In the course of the recent business trip to the West Bank the author of this article managed to meet several well-informed representatives of the Palestinian team, who had earlier participated in the negotiations on the settlement of the conflict with the Israeli side. Basing on the information received, the author of this article analyzes the key points of D. Trump's Middle East initiative. The main conclusion of the analysis is that the widely advertised "deal of the century" died before its birth and even under strong pressure of the USA, both sides of the conflict will not agree to cooperate within the frames of the new Middle East doctrine of D. Trump.

The article is devoted to the comparison of two protest coalitions in Armenia: the coalition of Sasna Tsrer armed group supporters in 2016 and the coalition that arose around Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power as a result of the protests of April and May 2018. It was shown that the success of the protests led by Pashinyan can be explained by the fact that they, in contrast to the supporters of Sasna Crer, were less framed by the counter-statist understanding of the nation. It is also shown that the Pashinyan coalition, in contrast to the coalition of supporters of Sasna Tsrer, was not liberal-natiмonalist, but rather liberal-bureaucratic. This distinction turned out to be critical, since it made it possible to avoid reproducing the situation of "double powerlessness" - the polarization of public controversy between the adherents of the statist and counter-statist frames of the Armenian nation both parts having no sufficient resources to win.

In the paper an attempt is made to summarize the factors and trends characteristic of the functioning and development of the world economy and international economic relations under the conditions of slowing down the globalization pace and growing dependence of foreign trade and investment on geopolitical processes. An analysis of key macroeconomic indicators of national development and interstate relations has been employed as a basis for exploring the general context of the development of the world economy. The strategic contours are also determined of Russia's effective participation in the system of world economic relations at the stage of global economic turbulence.

The article considers the foreign policy course of France under Emmanuel Macron. The disire of the new president to conduct a "great power policy", i.e. more independent policy vis-a-vis main world actors, introduce into it more elements of realisme and flexibility is noted. At the same time, attempts to intensify the process of deepening euro-integration, the line for preserving co-operation within the framework of the NATO are showed. The impact of this contradiction on French-Rus-sian relations is analized. The prospects of these relations are predicted.

The article aims at assessing the potential of trilateral cooperation of Russia, China and India amid growing geopolitical and economic contradictions between India and China in recent years, as well as the role of Russia in strengthening trilateral partnership. Despite the unfavorable dynamics in latent conflicts resolution, the high economic interdependence and importance of the three countries for each other push them to search for opportunities for mutually beneficial constructive partnership on an equal footing.

The study demonstrates the low potential of trilateral cooperation. At the same time, cooperation at the multilateral level can be much more effective: within the SCO, BRICS and, quite possibly, "BRICS+", if this initiative is implemented in accordance with the Russian approach, with the participation of all members of the BRICS-driven integration blocks. At the same time, Russia can take on the role of moderator of the Indian-Chinese contradictions, concentrating efforts primarily in the economic area to achieve higher efficiency in the short- and medium term.

The paper analyzes the formation of a single services market in the Eurasian Economic union. Free trade of services plays an important role in the Eurasian economic integration. It contributes to the development of cross-border trade and business ties of the EAEU partners. The impact of services sector on reciprocal and international trade of member-states is expected to grow further in future as a result of deepening of economic integration and expanding of external economic relations of the EAEU.

The paper reviews economic and institutional factors, which may hinder integration of member-states services markets. Among economic impediments the author highlights such factors as a low volume of intraregional trade in services, member-states' orientation on third countries in trade in services, a low level of diversification of brunch structures of their trade in services, a low share of innovative and business services in reciprocal trade, as well as monocentric system of trade in services (with one dominant state in the Union as a main supplier and consumer of services). As an institutional factor the author regards a lack of supranational mechanism of liberalization of reciprocal trade in services. Eurasian economic commission elaborates the plans of liberalization of trade in services. However the power of Commission to influence the decision making process in this sphere is limited by the member-states. The regulation of a single services market belongs to the authority of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council and is beyond of the scope of direct competences of the Commission.