#12
Expert
No. 1
January 13, 2003
A PYRAMID BALANCED IN CHAOS
Russia's new role in the world
Author: not indicated
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

RUSSIA IS SUPPOSED TO TAKE AN ACTIVE PART IN DEVELOPING OF A NEW SYSTEM OF AGREEMENTS, IN THE CREATION OF NEW RULES OF THE GAME, CREATION OF A NEW BALANCE OF POWER. THIS INVOLVES ITS NATIONAL INTERESTS AND ITS TRADITIONAL FUNCTION AS ONE OF THE WORLD'S LEADING NATIONS.

President Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan will be his first official visit in 2003. In the past, long before Russian-Japanese summit meetings, media headlines featured speculation related to the problem of the South Kurils: whether Russia would give them to Japan, and if it would - whether it would be by parts and on what terms. The official sources regularly leaked reports that the matter was decided and Russia would supposedly give the islands away. The patriots were objecting, while the liberals were pointing to human values, international treaties and economic benefits. There's no agitation now, because everybody - here and there - knows that we won't give up the islands; in particular, this means that Russia's foreign policy has finally become predictable.

As far as the diverse old treaties to which the most obstinate of the Japanese refer are concerned, it would be extremely stupid of Russia to refer to them during the epoch when the entire system of international treaties concluded previously was totally collapsed and it wasn't Russia to do that, despite its will and interests.

According to Henry Kissinger, there are three versions of the world order: chaos, a balance of forces and a pyramid of supremacy of a single power. After the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact disappeared, the balance of forces vanished either. As everybody seemed to comprehend at first, the time for America's pyramid of supremacy came for a long time. However, the events of September 11 proved that the pyramid was towering above the chaos and its ability to stand up against the challenges of terrorism, the anti- globalization movement, proliferation of the nuclear weapons should yet be vindicated. Moreover, the pyramid as such was a virtual entity in many aspects. Its only real part is the stem - the supremacy of the US, which enjoys overwhelming military-technical and economic superiority above all other countries.

America's strategic unity even with its traditional smaller partners is becoming more and more dubious. The uniting Europe and the US are demonstrating a serious gap in approaches to the majority of global problems. The US neither signed the Kyoto Protocol, nor joined the agreements banning the testing of nuclear, biological weapons, antipersonnel mines, many other humanitarian projects. The EU has its own, very much distinguishable view from the one the US has on the problems of settlement in the Middle East and Iraq.

The EU has almost caught up with America by its main economic indicators and the euro has been giving the dollar the edge on the continent. Sociologists note an unprecedented upheaval of the anti- American spirits in Europe.

The Bush's administration, which came to power following a decade of unprecedented economic growth and world supremacy, was ready to resume and develop the single-polar policy. However, the economic and political adversities that followed shortly after made it revise something. Nowadays, two tendencies are struggling one another in the American elite; the new is realizing that the US will fail to cope with the role of the world police state and the world manager all by itself and that resumption of the one-sided policy might result in the country being isolated, rather than being the leader.

America's activity in the foreign policy scene therefore looks contradictory; its impudent one-sided actions are alternating with attempts of establishing equitable cooperation with the countries, which don't want to be parts of the American pyramid, but are ready to fix the impaired world order jointly with the US. Russia has proved to be the first among such states.

Contrary to the accustomed opinion, the Cold War didn't end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The inertia of the doctrinal Russophobia was continued through the 1990's and hasn't died away completely nowadays. The West was continuing surrounding and isolating Russia, expanding NATO; its relation to the former Soviet republics was inversely as its current political proximity to Moscow. Keeping the weakening Russia away from nuclear excesses and, in the long-term outlook, annihilating its strategic and geopolitical potential was considered to be the chief task.

The Cold War was ended on September 11, 2001, the very day another war against Islamic terrorism started.

Shortly after the September attacks, the US announced four main targets of its policy in spheres of international relations and national security. Given below is how Andrew Kutchins, director of the Russian and Strategic Programs of the Carnegie Foundation accounted of these tasks:

"On the part of the US, the fundament of the new Russian-American partnership is based on the revision of the US's targets in the sphere of foreign policy and security, which include: 1) successful prosecution of war against international terrorism; 2) intensification of efforts aimed at preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and means of delivering them; 3) peaceful management of the upsurge of China as a great power; 4) stability of the world energy maintenance... Efficient achievement of these targets is only possible in cooperation with Russia. At bottom of fact, no other country can offer more for implementation of these targets than Russia."

Indeed, Russia has some decisive advantages as a participant of the antiterrorist coalition and guarantor of the international order. Firstly, it still retains the powerful military potential and developed intelligence network. Secondly, the arc of the world Islamic terrorism is margining Russia's southern border and even infringes on its territory in some places.

The heroic operation on releasing hostages, captured by a group of Islamic kamikazes at the Theater Center in the Dubrovka in Moscow proved that the Russian security structures are capable of resolving the hardest combat tasks under conditions of the modern total terrorist war.

It also became clear that the process of the country's state degradation has stopped, society is being consolidated, authority of the central power and controllability have been restored on all levels.

On the threshold of a big war in the Persian Gulf, the role of Russia as the largest exporter of energy resources has increased. Russia, which has acquired the top place in oil extraction and is confidently holding the palm in the sphere of natural gas extraction is now capable of giving the West a hand in case the state of the Persian Gulf declare an energy blockade.

Particularly, this was the point under negotiation at the conference of ministers of fuel and energy of the G-8 member states held in Detroit and the Russian-American energy summit meeting in Houston. Having the entire complex of nuclear armaments, technologies and control systems for them along with the US, Russia remains the key guarantor of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The matter whether or not China has the most state-of-the-art military hardware, technologies and armaments primarily depends on Russia, since it has been the chief supplier of these to China.

Moscow's unspent diplomatic resources have proved to be claimed for.

At a regular G-8 summit in Canada, Russia was granted powers in the cause of Indian-Pakistani settlement. Russia's role in the Middle East, where it enjoys the trust of both the Arabs, the Jews and is confided in the Korean dialog, is unique.

Russia remains on the top ten of the world's largest economies and has been demonstrating dynamic growth for the fourth consecutive year, against the background of stagnation in the Western economies. In the receded 2002, both the EU and America conferred the status of market economy on Russia; the Council Russia-NATO was created in May. All of this enables many of the domestic and Western politicians say that our relations are as good as never before in history.

The parties continue doubting the opportunity of stable strategic cooperation and give one another a sufficient amount of grounds for that. Despite abrupt objections on the part of the US, Russia is continuing its nuclear cooperation with Iran, political contacts with the regime of North Korea and, in its own turn, is criticizing America for its preparation of a military operation in Iraq. Washington has highlighted its presence in the post-Soviet states - Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, using the anti-terror tasks to account for it.

The official Moscow is trying to offer quiet response to that, but it doesn't obviously like this. Having visited Bishkek in December, Vladimir Putin attended the ceremony of opening a military base of the Collective Security Treaty member states (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia). The salt of the situation is that an American-French military base is located in the vicinity.

At the same time, the Russian generals have shown their sheer anxiety for the fact that "a vacuum may emerge" in the region after their Western colleagues withdraw when the UN mandate elapses, even though the colleagues haven't expressed their willingness to leave.

The heated debate with the EU surrounding a rather simple issue of granting an opportunity to travel to other areas of Russia for residents of the Kaliningrad enclave, a flat refusal of the majority of Europe's political forces to understand Russia's problems in Chechnya, occasionally emerging "anti-dumping scandals" surrounding the Russian exports prove that nobody intends to make concessions or give an easy time for Russia and nobody intends to let it enter any markets.

There was an opinion in Russian society in early 1990's (which was supported by the obscure promises of the leaders of the advanced Western states) that Russia should be "rewarded" for the victory over communism, voluntary and early withdrawal from Germany, dismissal of the social camp, refusal of confrontation, etc.; that it would be given assistance in restructuring its economy, its debts will be remitted, etc. Nowadays, Russia is expecting a reward for participation in the world anti-terror campaign.

After all, it has done everything to suit its own goals, rather than for the West or the East. Russia has come to a sad understanding that no reliable friends could be achieved in the outer world; that a place both in the new world order and the world economy should be struggled for. In this aspect, the matter can only deal with tactical alliances.

Even if they wanted, neither America, nor Europe and the UN could guarantee security and observation of its economic interests to Russia. Without special favor to nobody, Russia chose the tactics of "multilateral bipolarity," which was displayed in late 2002 when within three weeks Putin held bilateral negotiations with leaders of the EU, the US, China, India and finished his tour in Kyrgyzstan, with discussing cooperation between CIS states. This series of agreements now remains the only reliable medium of ensuring the country's security and interests.

The new American National Security Strategy was published in September 2002. As this document has it, in case the US government determines that any state can pose a threat to America in the future or in case a state is concealing in its territory a group which is posing a potential threat, the US would hold a forestalling action in that state to eliminate the threat by means of changing the ruling regime if necessary.

This marked the end of the entire system of the world order, existing since the adoption of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which recognized absolute sovereignty and legal equality of the states. Thus far, these principles have been considered unshakable, although they have been violated many times.

Abrogation of the national sovereignty as the basis of legality and legal order is threatening with a new redistribution of the world, experts in the sphere of international law assume. The Strategy caused a deep agitation among European politicians and lawyers, whereas it faced almost no objections in Russia.

The post-Soviet Russia interpreted the preceding cancellation of the Yalta Agreements of 1944 and the mass reformation of borders, which the exultant Europe perceived as the triumph of justice. A new America's step in this direction was quite predictable and, taking into account the new challenges to the mankind, even indispensable.

Moscow's doctrine of foreign policy should lie in the following: a collapse of the world order should neither cause chaos, nor war against everybody and pyramid-like supremacy. Russia is supposed to take an active part in the elaboration of a new system of agreements, in the creation of the new rule of the game, creation of the new balance of forces. This involves its national interests and its traditional function of one of the world leaders.

(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)

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