Vladimir Putin's visits to China and India have garnered positive responses from nearly everyone - both from those who call for a complete fusion with the West and from those who are categorically against it. Their uniting commonality is the admission of the fact that foreign policy must follow the state's national interest. That is, in many ways it must be one-sided, egotistical, and if necessary, cynical.

Moscow's foreign policy egoism is more readily accepted on the shores of the Potomac these days. After September 11, Washington began to understand the difficulty of Russia's geopolitical situation better than at any time before. No other country in the world equals Russia in the number of neighbors, many of whom, moreover, can hardly stand one another. Russia is positioned dangerously close to the most unstable regions in the world, areas of concentration of international terrorism.

Since the times of Ivan the Terrible, Moscow could never appease all its neighbors and allies simultaneously. Its foreign policy simply had to be flexible, balance-oriented, partly unpredictable, based on not even double, but several standards and approaches. As was, by the way, American foreign policy. Many past troubles of Russian and American policies arose from their obdurate global agendas, their false comprehension of loyalty to allies and doctrines.

The collapse of the USSR stimulated the process of democratization in many countries around the world, but on the global arena it led to the formation of a system dominated by the United States, whose elite already possessed the habit of interfering with the business of other countries and a deep conviction of their ability to regulate the global situation. The events of September of last year deeply shook that conviction. After the end of the Cold War there were many calls for the necessity of the democratization of international relations, of redistributing strength from strong to weak states. Russia, having lost a significant part of its international influence, expressed support for such ideas more than once.

But in reality the democratization of international relations might lead not only to complete chaos, but also to further contraction of Russian influence upon the international process. Thus, a re-assignment of the centers of power around the world would require, first of all, a change in the degree of influence of the Security Council members. In many capitals around the world, a fair question is being asked: why do Russia and France, for example, have such decisive influence in the council, when it doesn't even represent Germany - Europe's most powerful nation, or Japan - the strongest Asian power and the world's second biggest economy, or India - a country that has nuclear weapons and a billion people. The Cold War is over, they say, but we keep holding on to a hierarchical global system that reflects the outcome of the Second World War.

Will the UN Security Council members agree to equal in rights with, say, Venezuela, Poland, Chad or Mexico? The result of such democratization will have a more dramatic impact on Russia than on China or the U.S. This question can be examined in relation to the "the Big Eight", of which Russia only recently became a member. Imagine that instead of the "eight", Russia will have equal standing in the framework of "the Big Two Hundred" and coordinate its activities with the governments of Nepal, El Salvador, and Lesotho.

The democratization of international relations, a collective approach to making decisions could mean less democracy, since the democratic countries may find themselves in the minority. Collective decision-making in the international arena will lead to the breach of a major democratic principle - responsibility of those who make decisions to those who are affected by those decisions. It is the impossibility of placing responsibility on anyone particular that is the major detraction of democracy in a united Europe. Not one single democratic organ of power is able to make the Security Council responsible for its decisions.

The administering personnel and various clerks of international organizations did not get there as a result of elections; moreover, as a rule, they weren't even selected through the electoral systems of their countries. Many times they represent another layer of a well-paid bureaucracy. And if today the majority of them comes from democratic nations, that is, it possesses a certain political culture, then with further democratization of international processes the representatives of these nations will become diluted in a mass of clerks who are used to completely different political traditions. The irony is that the world's democracies would be the first to suffer from the democratization of the international system, while Russia would risk losing the last attributes of its global influence.

A multilateral approach to making international choices forces strong countries to make concessions, which significantly lower their efficacy. Solving the actual problem fades into the background, and all the effort is spent on maintaining a multilateral coalition and searching for a compromise. Today's war on international terrorism gives many examples of the sort. Meanwhile the terrorists, unburdened by the need to arbitrate, often act more decisively and effectively.

The most hypocritical aspect of this is that a multilateral international approach to decision-making usually doesn't lead to multilateral action. A great majority of the countries who demand greater responsibilities for their role in the decision-making process usually don't strive to administer those responsibilities - send soldiers into a region, for instance, risk their reputation, spend money on maintaining a modern army, combat illegal financial flows or international crime. The long discussion over Iraq did not mean that anyone was eager to take direct part in solving the Iraqi problem. It was assumed that the US would have to, if necessary, send their soldiers and spend the money from their own budget. The majority of countries, as a rule, see their international role only in the capacity of a disputant who brings nothing to the table. This can be seen in the example of the war on terrorism, the regulation of the Middle East problems, or establishing order in Chechnya.

Winston Churchill once noted that a united world is better that a separated world, but a separated world is still better than a destroyed world. Russia in past has experienced too much of the destructive nature of collective irresponsibility to promote its spread over the globe.