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Ostensibly, Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections should have placed United States international policy back on a familiar path. However, despite the prevalence of a highly traditional vision of US foreign policy, the Biden administration has maintained significant continuities with the previous administration, as reflected in the policy towards China and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In part, this is due to the constraints produced by the deep divisions that exist at domestic level. This paper aims to unravel the fundamental elements of Biden's foreign policy, focusing on possible ideological and doctrinal elements, strategic priorities, and any continuities and changes relative to his predecessor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2014 and Russia's annexation of Crimea and the start of hostilities in Donbass, the West has shown unprecedented solidarity in imposing sanctions on Russia. Yet Asia-Pacific's response to the Ukraine crisis has been different. While Japan and New Zealand imposed symbolic sanctions, South Korea refrained from introducing any measures at all. The main objective of this paper is to explore the response of the Asia-Pacific region to the Ukrainian crisis and the underlying motivations behind these stances. From a perspective of sanctions coordination and alliance behaviour theory, this paper examines the interaction between domestic and international factors when states decide whether (or not) to join international sanctions coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effects on Belarus of European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia, on the one hand, and Russian sanctions on Ukrainian and EU goods, on the other. International sanctions opened up new political and economic opportunities that the Belarusian authorities sought to capitalise on. But Minsk's attempts to swim between two waters (retaining the benefits Moscow offered while improving relations with the EU) have backfired and distrust towards Minsk has grown in Moscow, Brussels and Kiev. A theoretical approach is made to the foreign policy of small states, before this paper shows how Belarus has been harmed by its attempts to take advantage of EU and Russian sanctions regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]