OREANDA-NEWS. May 22, 2009. The Caucasus crisis and the world financial and economic crisis are united by the fact that they draw a line under the 20-year period since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, and set the limits of the possible for the inertial policy pursued all these years, particularly along the lines of the previous political and psychological assumption behind the “containment” of Russia. In so doing certain of our western partners – for justice’s sake it has to be said, far from all – acted in the spirit of the notorious triumphalism, based on the thesis of “Cold War victory” and the possibility of a western style “world revolution.” It was because of this inertia that one could not talk about a conclusive end to the Cold War: for many it continued at the world-view level, now as a virtual project of certain forces that pronounced the “end of history” and a “unipolar world” and attempted to transfer all of this into the sphere of fully concrete practical politics.

As for the new, democratic Russia, it simply withdrew from the Cold War, renouncing the ideology that underlay Soviet participation in it. That was the choice of the Russian people and the peoples of the other ex-Soviet republics.

If there was a “victory,” then the states and political forces that drew the right conclusions from what happened may be considered to be the top winners. And here, I make bold to assert, Russia turned out to be among the frontrunners. That it was easier for us to draw these conclusions is another matter; partners acting in the spirit of “tough pragmatism” helped us shed illusions. And then in purely objective terms too, taking into account the conditions of the 1990s and the situation in which Russia all at once found itself “on our sinful earth,” it was hard for us not to take a stand as realists and common sensers.

On the other hand, it really took the West an intellectual effort to foresee the subsequent course of events and to articulate a realistic, forward-looking policy in international affairs. Glimmers of a sober approach occurred: it is enough to refer to the 1994 book of Henry Kissinger “Diplomacy,” where he foresaw the emergence of a multipolar world, with a role for the United States as the “first among equals.” But a euphoria that had nothing to do with serious analysis, let alone forecasts, engulfed real politics. All of this was at the level of mass culture presupposing neither an individual interpretation of what is happening nor individual creativity. In international affairs a purely consumerist approach prevailed – in the spirit of “inheritance division.”

I think obviously the new Russia could not become a part of the western world order, since the burden of proof regarding its universality lay with the West. Yet the West, represented primarily by the US, drew conclusions that turned out to be wrong. The western world order was not created in the 90s. Essentially, especially at the level of economics and finance, it had already existed during the Cold War and after the Soviet collapse the question arose whether it could be universal. But this question wasn’t given much thought. Meanwhile the world entered a transition period of its development – from a bipolar directoire, where all major decisions were made in Washington and Moscow, to something freer, fairer and more democratic, presupposing a significantly broader consensus. This was fully in line with the globalization tendencies, resulting in the appearance of new centers of global economic growth and political clout.

Now, to use the terminology of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, we are threatened with a stage of “deglobalization.” A similar process was under way in the period after the Great Depression, when the tendencies toward autarchy prevailed, and an exit was searched according to the principle “everyone for himself,” largely on lines of the militarization of the economy, which gave the push toward a new war. Unfortunately, wars played not the least role in the evolution of western democracy. Arnold Toynbee also noted another historical regularity: militarism served as a vehicle for the self-destruction of empires. It has to be stated that it was the militarization of foreign policy that largely predetermined the choice in favor of the Cold War with its irrational waste of all kinds of resources.

A feature of World War Two and the Cold War was that the struggle for survival initially and then the ideological confrontation ensured a high degree of motivation at the level of states and individuals, which was a factor in the development of scientific and technological progress on both sides of the “barricades.” Let us hope that humanity will at last put an end to this and find other sources of technological development.

So far it does not appear to be possible to guess in advance the concrete directions in which the formation of a new technological base for the global economy will proceed. But the motivation for a new technological breakthrough could be provided by the imperatives of sustainable development and of addressing a broad spectrum of problems, particularly energy security and climate change, on which the survival of all humanity depends.

When we now face the crisis of global governance, it is difficult to escape the conclusion about its complex, systemic nature. I would not agree with the assertion that a kind of structured international relations existed in the last 20 years. It was rather about the drift of what had been and what had ultimately proved its inadequacy to the new realities. Therefore, the speculation about preserving the status quo appears to be pointless and, essentially, reactionary conservative.

It is self-evident that all elements of global governance are interlinked. There can be no stable world economic system under the conditions of instability at the level of international security. Simply the crisis manifested itself in the beginning at the level of the superstructure and only now, having accumulated a critical mass, descended onto the financial and economic base.

By the way, British correspondents of the International Herald Tribune in a piece of March 30, 2009 cited the testimonies of London City experts who consider that the start of the process of the loss of control over the international financial architecture created at Bretton Woods was linked with the breakup of the Soviet Union and with the American triumphalism that followed it.

It is hard to argue with the opinion of a whole array of historians that the West’s adoption of a socially oriented model of economic development with reliance upon the middle class was the forced product of the Cold War to a significant extent, when the ruling Western European and US elites reacted to the “challenge of the Soviet Union” along the lines of the “socialization” of the economy. Probably only in this way could European society create a sustainable economic development model, realizing at long last the French Revolution’s promise of a more equitable social arrangement. Whereas the attempts at renunciation of the socially oriented economic model led to the fact that, to use Nicolas Sarkozy’s words, it is today “the crisis of a system that has drifted away from its most fundamental values,” including a sense of morality.

It is obvious that the national state retains and even consolidates its significance as a basic element of international relations. The need for meetings of heads of state and government to overcome the financial and economic crisis is an extra testimony to this. The role of the state is one of the leading themes of the current debate on ways of social development. It cannot be ruled out that during the course of this debate a return to the “sources” will have to be made; that is, to how this question was raised a hundred and two hundred years ago.

The confrontational structure of international relations of the Cold War era ensured the leadership of European civilization in global politics, economics and finance, although its main participants, the United States, Europe and the Soviet Union, were part of this leadership in varying measure and each in its own way. With the end of the Cold War the system naturally lost its sustainability. The extra-economic grounds for keeping afloat the global financial architecture created in the postwar period were also no longer valid.

Presently at issue is not preserving the dominance, which is impossible in conditions of a sharply increased influence of cultural and civilizational diversity on the destinies of the world, but reinforcing the claim of European civilization to a place on the team of leaders at this new turn of world development.

To this end, the unity of European civilization should be restored in all its parts along with reformulating the very understanding of leadership, which, as President Medvedev pointed out in his article in the Washington Post, ought to be based on the desire and ability to reduce to a “common denominator” the interests of all members of the international community and of all major groups of states. The summits of the Group of Twenty are a major step in this direction.

Today many people associate the hope for changes for the better with the coming to power in Washington of the new administration. Under the previous administration it was US actions, particularly as part of the course toward an intentional destabilization of certain countries and whole regions (as Zbigniew Brzezinski acknowledges in his book “America and the World,” 2008), that largely determined the accumulation of a negative potential in global and regional politics. Abandoning this line, including the policy of containing all potential global competitors, would have a positive impact on the international situation.

Regardless of what decisions the Obama administration arrives at in the coming months, the very prospect of positive changes in our relations with the US and the West as a whole will work for bringing the general atmosphere of global and regional politics, primarily in the Euro-Atlantic area, into a healthy state. Back under the Bush administration the principles of equality were already established between Moscow and Washington, but of negative equality since Russia refused to cooperate on the terms being imposed on us. The challenge now is to convert this equality into a positive magnitude through mutually respectful practical collaboration on a broad agenda. It is then that a qualitative transformation of Russian-American relations will occur, including their strategic context.

Russia and the United States, which continue to bear special responsibility for the destinies of the world, are called upon to play their role in the collective leadership of major states of the world. This calls for the restoration of trust in the first place. The Russian philosophy of a “new beginning” in our relations is clearly laid out by President Medvedev in his aforementioned article.

We are pleased with the way our relations with the new US administration are developing. Here a stance of cautious optimism is appropriate and our American partners seem to share it. Mutual trust has long since been eroded, and its restoration will take time. And most important, we cannot afford yet another false start in our relations.

Russia is interested in cooperation, but we cannot participate in international projects being carried out on the basis of decisions made without our participation, without our intellectual input. Only on an equal basis can Russia, like any other leading state of the world, become a part of an international system being shaped.

Since much is written about this recently, I would like to clarify the question of “trade-offs” in Russia’s foreign policy. Any trade-offs would be unprincipled. Worse, they would undermine trust in Russian diplomacy, and we cherish that trust no less than others. The most effective and only possible method of conducting affairs appears to be equal cooperation on the substance in each particular matter, with due respect for the lawful interests of each other.

Today, objective possibilities are emerging for very sustainable convergence on a solid basis of major coinciding interests of all Euro-Atlantic states in the face of global challenges and threats and the imperative of providing our region a worthy place in the polycentric system of global governance now taking shape.

There can be no return to the previous “spheres of influence” – the world, I don’t mind repeating, is no longer a bipolar directoire. But this gives no one the right to deny, even less undermine the natural, determined by a whole array of historical and other objective factors, mutual gravitation of states on the basis of mutual interests. Speaking of our nearest encirclement – Russia is interested in seeing our neighbors friendly, stable and dynamically evolving states. This approach corresponds to the plans of these states themselves and cannot contradict anyone’s interests. In our turn, we demand nothing of our western partners but an understandable and transparent policy in the CIS space which would above all proceed from respect of the position of the appropriate countries and from the principle of the mutual complementarity of the integration processes in different regions of Europe, as agreed upon in our documents with the European Union.

We hold that reinvigorating integration in the Commonwealth space meets the general tendency toward strengthening the regional level of global governance in conditions of the imbalanced state of the global mechanisms, including economics and finance. The regional level precisely can provide us all with a “safety net” in case of relapses of financial and economic crisis. It is not fortuitous that decisions have been taken recently to establish such mechanisms as the permanent conference of CIS finance ministers, and the Anti-Crisis Fund and the Center of High Technologies of EurAsEC. These decisions are a real contribution to worldwide efforts aimed at stabilizing the financial and economic situation.

Russia together with its neighbors went through many hypostases over the centuries. Each hypostasis was determined by the particular historical epoch and found the meaning of its existence and its explanation therein. The Russia that we are creating now is the product of our time and meets its requirements. We are open for cooperative, integrative processes both in Eurasia and more broadly in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Despite the existing conditions and prerequisites, convergence in the Euro-Atlantic area is unlikely to happen unless there is an intelligent political dimension. This calls for the closure of questions left over from the Cold War era and an earlier period. Today a common vision of the contemporary historical epoch is lacking. It should have been the result of the very same peace conference with which all wars end, and the Cold War should not be an exception. A conflict of expectations occurred instead, and this conflict failed to be resolved by the pan-European meetings that were quite a few and which produced a host of political promises and declarations meeting all the requirements of so called constructive uncertainty.

Only now, in the framework of collective efforts to overcome the consequences of the financial and economic crisis and to create a new global financial architecture which would guarantee us against such upheavals in the future, has not only a real possibility arisen, but also a vital necessity to work out that common vision of the contemporary epoch. Wherever we might step, everything will be held up by its absence. Without a firm unifying ideological principle, the policy of “demarcation of dividing lines” and “selective” cooperation will pursue us.

Few people now try to deny that NATO is going through a crisis. Attempts are being made to solve it by enlarging the alliance while improvising with its proposed “new mission,” including “globalization,” in the process.

The Caucasus crisis has shown how dangerous and unpredictable the situation can be, resulting from NATO’s obsession with its mechanical eastward expansion. Enough to imagine what would happen if Georgia were a NATO member and Russia had no option left but to act exactly as we had to act last August in response to the aggression of the Tbilisi regime against South Ossetia and the killing of our peacekeepers and civilians.

Another subject of concern is the drafts of a reform of the alliance that envisage a scenario of the use of force without a sanction of the UN Security Council (as if the lessons of Kosovo were not enough), along with renunciation of consensus within the alliance, which would lead to a further fragmentation of the security space in our common region.

We are realists and understand that NATO is one of the key subjects of network politics and diplomacy in the Euro-Atlantic area. We hope that, while talking about the alliance’s transformation, they will not forget the commitments given to us regarding equal security and the inadmissibility of securing oneself at others’ expense. On this condition and with the political will, it would be possible to build a solid construct of interaction in the realm of security in the Euro-Atlantic area. It is clear that today reliable security in our region is possible only with the engagement of both all states and all relevant organizations in the Euro-Atlantic space.

Admittedly, the significance of the Russian initiative for a European Security Treaty will be determined by a deepening of the already launched process of collectively comprehending the relevant state of affairs in the near future. In practical terms we suggest that the political commitments assumed by all of us should be transferred to the category of juridical. The pivotal pledge is that no one should secure himself at others’ expense. It will also be necessary to agree the mechanisms to ensure the universal application of this and other previously agreed principles. That arrangement would be the most drastic step in breaking with Cold War ideology and practices.

We do not oppose the OSCE becoming an umbrella pan-European organization. But this was not done 20 years ago, nor is the readiness for this discernible at present. Our proposals for further institutionalization of the OSCE so that it becomes an understandable and transparent entity operating according to the agreed principles does not evoke enthusiasm among the western partners. There are no reciprocal ideas, all they suggest to us is to leave everything as it is and to be content with the present loosely structured OSCE within the patchy Euro-architecture. At the same time the very reaction to the European Security Treaty initiative shows that few people are satisfied with the current state of affairs; hence the need for serious discussion which we suggest.

The recent situation surrounding the elections of the new secretary general of NATO bears out the topicality of the problem of a civilizational compatibility of Europe. It is good that the “demand” for anti-Islamic provocations has dropped in Europe. We welcome the openness of the Obama administration for broad cooperation with Muslim states, particularly as part of the intercivilizational dialogue. The policy of broad engagement of the entire Arab-Islamic world is an indispensable condition for solving the Afghan-Pakistani knot and other problems in the Middle Eastern region. Herein may also be the hope for progress in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict – despite all the complicating aspects on the ground.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of the religious and moral component at this stage of world development. Many people write about this, particularly about the de-Christianization of Europe. The statement made by the late Patriarch Alexy II in Strasbourg that “the Christian ideas of dignity, freedom and morality in their interrelationship create a unique code of European consciousness, possessing an inexhaustible creative potential in personal and social life” is utterly relevant here.

It is to be hoped that these thoughts will be accepted for the sake of ensuring social justice and sustainable development. Along these lines and given a choice in favor of international law and multilateral diplomacy in international affairs, it may be possible to reduce Euro-Atlantic politics to a common constructive denominator in the interests of the entire world.

In the final analysis all problems in global and Euro-Atlantic politics come down to the fact that some people continue to try to act in the new conditions within the previous system of coordinates. I think we are entering a critical moment of international relations which may be called the era of creation of consensus politics – since outside the broadest consensus not a single one of the general or particular world problems can be solved, be it new world arrangements or specific conflicts and crisis situations.

Overall, the significance of diplomacy as a method of conducting affairs in international relations is going to rise. The situation which we will encounter will be more complicated by an order of magnitude than what we have had to deal with in the last several years. The role of such resources of foreign policy work as parliamentary diplomacy, and engagement of the domestic expert and business communities and nongovernmental organizations will keep steadily growing.

For the most part during the course of a long period we will have to deal with processes and not with end products. In this case one should not underestimate the significance of, so to speak, products in the intangible form – stronger mutual trust, and qualitative changes in the atmosphere of relations and in the culture of dialogue. And in this sense, we shall point out once more, the first personal meeting between Presidents Medvedev and Obama is encouraging.

The multipolar world is linked with both opportunities and challenges, which will have to be answered together, and we are perfectly aware of this. A debate on ways of further social and world development is called for as never before. And Russia is entitled and in a position to take part in them on a par with others.