Tag Archives: sofia

Russia in Global Politics [part 1/2]: “How post-’91 reconstruction failed.” My Sofia IGA highlight talk

It was honored to give the Highlight lecture at the IGA Conference (Institute for Global Analytics) in Sofia, Bulgaria, invited by IGA and the Polish Embassy. on 27 October. My special thanks to Dr. Rumena Filoipva, founder and director of IGA.

I divided the topic into two key aspects:

  1. How did Russia end up at war with Ukraine & West?
    That is, how did 20 years of Russian reform & reconstruction fail after the USSR collapsed in 1991.
    I focused on two aspects of that once-hopeful history:
    i) the geopolitical and ii) the economic histories.
    The second aspect (this will be in a following YouTube and GlobalBarrel.com post):
  2. What is today the USA’s (i.e., the Trump administration’s) Russia strategy? This focused on two aspects:
    i) the Ukraine war, and ii) the USA’s present energy geostrategy under the Trump administration. That is, “USA Energy Dominance,” which is presently focused on both Iran and quite strongly on Russia, but ultimately all this, including its policy to Venezuela and to W. Hemisphere oil, to OPEC, etc, is all is vs China.
Continue reading →

Invitation: “Russia in Global Politics”- My Highlight Talk, IGA Conference, Sofia. 27 October

Dear GlobalBarrel.com readers -and others- in Bulgaria, you are cordially invited. – I’m honored to give the highlight talk at the IGA Conference in Sofia, co-sponsored by the Polish Embassy. The program (Page 2 below, in red) lists my talk: “Russia in Global Politics, Regime Dynamics, Foreign Policy Outlooks and Interactions with other Powers,” Best, Tom O’D. (I’ll post a video after the conference.)

Central and South Eastern Europe After Four Years of War:
New Trends and Old Patterns in Foreign Influence, Resilience-Building
and Regional Cooper ation

International Conference
Grand Hotel Sofia, Triaditza 2 Hall
10 am – 5 pm, 27 October 2026