A little more than nine years ago, in April 2005 Diplomaatia was redesigned for the first time. At that time, not only did the physical format of our monthly journal change (the exercise book-like supplement was replaced with a broadsheet in its own right), but so did the publication’s appearance. While Diplomaatia was purely text-based and without illustrations in its early years, the new design brought photographs, graphs, and editorial cartoons to its pages. The monthly was, however, still black-and-white, which was not uncommon for a high-quality Estonian or foreign publication in 2005.
Nine years is a long time—especially when we consider that changes occur at high speed and in large number in today’s information and media space. This is why Diplomaatia will, as of the current, 130th/131st issue, be brought to readers in a new design. The most conspicuous and important change is that Diplomaatia is now in colour. Moreover, the whole design has been thoroughly updated—the layout created by top designers Kristjan Mändmaa and Piia Ruber will shape the text on our pages into a more easily comprehensible form. Since printing in full colour costs rather more, the cover price of an individual issue of Diplomaatia will change—as of now, an issue costs €1.90. The subscription price will remain unchanged for the time being.
In terms of content, our June–July double issue focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the influence on world security of the Ukraine crisis, which has continued with unchanging intensity for the past half-year. This crisis (by now, war) continues despite the fact that a new President of Ukraine has been democratically elected and has started work. Many hoped that the security situation in Ukraine would improve as soon as the new President, Petro Poroshenko, assumed office. On the day he was sworn in, the sky above Kyiv was cloudless and the sun was shining on the golden church domes, while Ukraine’s military and political horizon remained dark.
The sky above our continent is also expected to be cloudy with clear spells. According to the President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, we are witnesses to the failure of the collective agreements that served as the basis for security in post-war Europe. “Today, we can yet again see that international agreements are no longer valid,” states Ilves.
Our journal writes about the new security order being shaped before our eyes and of the ways in which we can successfully deal with it.
The next issue of Diplomaatia will be published in August. Happy reading and enjoy the summer!
This article was published in ICDS Diplomaatia magazine.