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#1Vek
No. 20
28 June-05 July
Nikolai ZLOBIN, Director of the Russian and Asian programs at the Center for Defense Information (US), Washington -- special for Vek.
The New World Order
Making Friends with a Superpower
Recent events show that our perception of the world order, our understanding of the distribution of power and authority in the world is outdated. Most of our conclusions and calculations are drawn from a traditional set of ideas and theories. Many long-standing international political institutions and structures are encountering great challenges, now that their goals and missions do not fit the contemporary world. We are witnessing the agony of the traditional system.
The nature of international threats and dangers has changed. Concepts like "ally," "enemy," "partner," "danger," "war," and "leading and second-level nations" now have a very different meaning; the concept of "neutrality" has disappeared. National governments no longer play the traditional role. Not only have they lost most of the control over financial and informational flows, but they have also turned out to be unable to perform the very function they were created for -- defending the security of their citizens. That's why the economic and military superpower -- the US -- admits that, at this time, it can't protect itself from the microscopic Iraq.
We need new, non-traditional -- and perhaps even supra-government, non-government, and inter-government -- approaches, organizations, and structures. We need a principally new understanding of the world order. We don't have it, and the overwhelming amount of the effort and of the financial and intellectual resources of world governments is spent on perfecting and modernizing the legacy of the past.
Most of the world's national elites have a vested interest in maintaining traditional structures -- Russia is not an exception. One can see the way the Russian elite opposes the new pro-Western foreign policy line conducted by President Putin, a line that threatens its financial and political capital. The opposition is cloaked in the rhetoric of protecting national interests, but there are no illusions regarding the matter in Washington. The Russian foreign policy elite had been formed, existed, and continues to exist as an anti-Western force -- it's enough to look at the Foreign Ministry or the pro-Iraq lobby in Moscow.
That's why it's pointless to work on "improving Russian-American relations." It's impossible to improve something that was created under different historical and political circumstances, with other aims and priorities. A new understanding of the essence of Russian-American relations and their political foundation and values is necessary. Only then can we think about "institutionalizing" these relations and arranging them into formal systems.
The policy of containment, which governed American foreign policy for half a century, is being replaced by a policy of engagement and the involvement of other nations into fulfilling priorities put forward by Washington. The new policy is re-dividing the world into nations that are with the US, willing to be its allies, and those that are acting against it. This division is not driven by ideological or geopolitical motives, and therefore the traditional East-West or North-South demarcation does not play a decisive role.
The integration of Russia into the West is an undeniable fact. But Russia will always play a secondary role in Europe.
It is, however, Russia's Asian component that makes Moscow a highly valuable ally for the West. If Russia can become part of the Western civilization in its values, domestic policy, and economics, while remaining in Asia geo-politically, it will occupy a niche that no other country of the same orientation can occupy. This view is gaining force in Washington.
It is very difficult, or impossible, for the United States and for Europe to achieve goals that Russia can achieve in the region. This includes goals that, for a number of reasons, Japan could not achieve in the past decade. Japan could not Westernize (in the positive sense of the world) Asia and the Far East. It did not play the role its Western allies hoped it would. It seems that now Russia is beginning to understand this division of power and interest. The Summit for Cooperation and Trust-Building Measures in Asia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are a good start in this direction. The problem for Washington is that it's still unclear what functions these organizations will actually perform, whom they will serve, and what role Russia will play in them.
Naturally, if Russia secures Western interests in Asia, Russia will be able to demand that its allies protect Russian interests in regions where its direct influence is small or nil. I believe that Washington is willing to go pretty far in discussing such guarantees in return for help in Asia. There is evidence that the US is very serious about Russia's strategic interests -- to a certain extent because they largely coincide with its own. Bush's three-day visit to Moscow and US lobbying for Russia in NATO and the WTO are the most noticeable examples of the public display of this attitude. The general attitude of the American elite towards Russia has also changed noticeably.
Today's world is largely reminiscent of the early post-WWII years, when the old system of international relations collapsed, and it was necessary to create something new. We need to build a new system of international relations for a world which -- for a long time to come -- will have only one superpower. This is a new fact, a new reality that we have to come to terms with, and make useful. (translated by Luba Schwartzman)
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