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CIAO DATE: 5/00
International Affairs:
A Russian Journal
Russia's Chances in the 21st Century
By Vladimir Chernega
Vice-chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire Aleksander Gorchakov allegedly said: "La grandeur ne se dit pas, elle s'impose."
Indeed, it is not enough to claim the great power status—it should be constantly supported by the state's aggregate power determined today by its economic, political, military, geostrategical, moral, sociocultural, and sociopsychological factors.
The West and the East are more and more insistently ask themselves: Is Russia strong enough to support this status?
Deliberations to this effect normally go along the lines that Russia's share in world economy and trade is "negligible" (about 1.5 percent, that is, smaller than the South Korean share), her federal budget is only a fraction larger than that of Norway (with the population of 4.5 million) and that in many respects Russia looks like a developing, rather than a developed, country.
It is readily recognized that she is a nuclear power with the world's largest territory and 30 percent of its natural riches (her population, however, is not more that 3 percent of the world total). Everybody just as readily agree that the above factors, with the exception of the nuclear component, today have no significant role to play. French political scientist H. Ramonet writes that "today any nation is rich in its gray substance and scientific and innovation potential rather than raw materials. Today one can safely say that the three traditionally accepted factors of might—a large territory, population strength and vast natural resources—are no longer advantages but rather impediments." 1
This is only partially true: China and India are gradually growing out of their regional power status while the United States have all the above factors. Today, a state that neglects its scientific, technological and educational potential is doomed to poverty and dependence as a second-rate power. Russia is facing another threat: if she continues weakening her natural riches will temp other states to dismember her (formally or actually) to get access to them. This can be done by supporting all forms of separatism.
When looking at these trends one is advised to avoid an extreme of seeing anti-Russian plots everywhere. Throughout history such trends emerged every time when a strong power declined; they are especially pronounced if the ailing nation shows no readiness to submit to stronger nations, the United States and their Western allies in this case.
Before plunging into an analysis of Russia's future as a great power in the present-day context which will extend into the twenty-first century one should answer the question: Does Russia need the great power status?
Obviously, to survive the largest state which is a structural and stabilizing factor on the vast Eurasian territory has to take part in world developments otherwise all decisions that, to various extents, touch upon its vital interests will either ignore it, or worse, damage its interests. Naturally enough, Russia has significantly to contribute to international stability and development as a UN Security Council permanent member, a member of G8 and an OSCE, and the Council of Europe member.
Today, everybody agrees that the United States will dominate the world at least during the first decades of the twenty-first century.
Western experts agree that the share of the US economy in the world declined in the latter half of the twentieth century yet the country can retain its leading positions both qualitatively and quantitatively. What is more, its present economic situation is described in the West as "an economic model of future." 2 Today the United States are responsible for more scientific discoveries and innovation technologies than the rest of the world. The United States are controlling the major international instruments, IMF and WB among them, which boosts the country's role internationally. It was back in 1993 that Samuel Huntington pointed out, with a no mean share of pride, in his famous "The Clash of Civilizations?" that the United States and their allies were using these institutes "to promote their economic interests and impose on others economic policies, which they consider suitable". 3 (In fact, these institutes were created with this aim in mind.)
As the world economic processes are globalized the role of these instruments increases. Their geographic scope has become wider when a number of countries, including Russia, formerly part of the rather closed socialist system, opened to the world. Today, they embrace nearly the entire globe.
The United State have the larger part of the world information resources under their control in the context when their importance is growing in the economic and military spheres, public and everyday life.
It should be noted that the United States are the world's leading laboratory of mass culture. Together with their informational leadership this allows them to promote on an increasingly wider scale the American way of life in other countries thus strengthening and extending their influence.
One cannot doubt that the United States are dominating in the military sphere too: witness the Gulf War and the recent Kosovo conflict. Their military budget is the world's largest; they create more new and innovatory weapon types than any other country.
Today the United States are enjoying unprecedented political influence underpinned by a system of military and military-political alliances. NATO, which has not merely extended its geographical scope but is also claiming a larger role in Europe than the UN is the system's heart.
There are no serious challenges to this role. In the future such challenge (mainly economical) may come from the European Union and China. There are voices saying that the twenty-first century will be "a century of the US-Chinese competition." This will not happen soon; it has not yet become clear whether China overcomes the present discrepancy between its old political system and accelerating new economy without crippling its development.
The Unites States emerge as the uncontested world leader in all respects in the foreseeable future.
How will this affect Russia, the legal heir to the Soviet Union, the US main rival of the past? Will she be able to claim an independent role in the world while remaining financially dependent on IMF, WB, the Paris and London clubs which are controlled, to different degrees, by the United States. The question is especially relevant in the situation when the influential circles in the United States while wishing stability in Russia are straining their efforts to prevent her revival as a strong great power. What they want is stable yet weak Russia. I think that this position is profoundly wrong: first, a large country with an ethnic administrative structure of Russia's type cannot be weak and stable at one and the same time; second, strong Russia will be an important factor of international balance which the United States also need.
China is swiftly increasing its economic and military power, which is influencing the balance of forces in the world at an accelerating pace. If it overcomes the contradiction described above China will emerge as the second superpower of the twenty-first century. This is why America and the West are closely following the developments there. It is for several years now that Russia and China are developing cooperation in various spheres, the military-technological sphere including. Does China want a strong Russia? Its huge population and its growing need of natural resources, which are developing in close proximity to the vast, rich and sparsely populated Russian Far East and Siberia do not allow to ignore this question.
India, another giant, has a good chance to join these two leaders. It seems that the nuclear tests were not so much an act of deterrence aimed at Pakistan as a claim to the nuclear club membership. India wants to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council which points to it desire to be recognized as a great power. Russia and India are tied together by friendship and cooperation. Both believe that China should be counterbalanced. These relationships will not be damaged or changed considerably if India reaches the world power status; at the same time, objectively, it will push Russia down in the world "table of ranks." One should not leave the second most important economic power, Japan out of sight. It is also claiming a permanent place in the UN Security Council.
There is another group of states that are either equal to Russia where their economic might is concerned or even develop ahead of her. They are Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Germany, Great Britain, and France.
Closer economic integration and political coordination within EU promoted by the Euro final introduction and the organization's extension are potentially dangerous for Russia. NATO expansion is even more threatening for her security and political influence.
How great are Russia's chances to preserve (or even strengthen) the great power status in the present context? We should bear in mind that the economic situation today is very competitive—those who fail to stick to advanced position face a risk of never catching up with the leaders.
I believe that the chances are not great and are decreasing. They do exist thanks to the nuclear potential and an active and varied foreign policy.
Obviously, the future of Russia as a great power depends on her ability to promptly overcome the protracted and deep-cutting systemic crisis and to create contemporary and highly competitive economy. This task will require of anybody coming to power in Russia a maximally objective analysis devoid of ideological tinges of the past mistakes and a long-tern strategy of survival (or, rather, a strategy of national survival).
Any discussion of the mistakes and errors that the Russian reformers have made is a banality yet I feel that one of them should be mentioned. This one is also increasingly frequently mentioned by independent Western experts as well as by those working in the Council of Europe.
The attempts to liberalize Russian economy, open it to the world and develop a free market of capitals coincided with the time when, as a result of globalization of economic processes, the international markets, financial among them, fell under the increasingly strong impact of the barely regulated transnational (often speculative) capital guided by purely market considerations. For a long time the Western countries have been concerned over the existence of this highly competitive and unstable phenomenon. It has been repeatedly stated that the too strong bias towards a purely market logic in the national economies this phenomenon creates kills off many important branches, sends unemployment up and the standards of living down. The increasingly large groups are moved to the roadside and fell out of society thus threatening democratic stability. This explains why the Council of Europe sees greater social cohesion as one of its priorities which requires integrating mechanisms for economy and society which, in turn, calls for an active regulatory role of the state. 4
In other words, the Russian reformers with their motto "The market is a great regulator" found themselves in a wrong epoch. Russian economy was left with no flexible and rational protective measures when opened for the international market. This, and other mistakes, weakened or destroyed industrial branches unable to survive amid international competition and inefficient agriculture; huge masses of people were impoverished and moved to the brink of survival. The country was swiftly losing its scientific and technological potential while the extracting branches and the banks, which were amassing wealth by speculating with budget money, moved to the fore.
It should be added that the Russian state while rejecting the administrative-command system of managing economy and the social sphere failed to grasp the regulatory levers and abandoned many of its functions. It was great Charles de Gaulle who said: "The state dies of lack of power or even when it fails to adequately realize its responsibility." 5 The weakened Russian state did not become less bureaucratic—neither did it shook off its trend towards an expanding state machine.
The Council of Europe said in one of its reports about Russia and Ukraine: the Russian population "lost its faith in the market and the state." 6
Today, there is a growing awareness in Russia and the West that an alternative lies in the state's active involvement in economy and social sphere. John Galbraith, a well-known American analyst, said, for example that "in the last fifty years those countries which had strong states, mixed economies and weak financial markets enjoyed successful and prolonged development periods." 7
I think that no matter who wins the parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia he will have to revive the state's authority and to establish an adequate balance between the administrative and regulating functions, the state and the new economic elite.
It is the task of the state to create and translate into practice a long-term development strategy aimed at successfully dealing with the challenges of the new century. The emphasis should be shifted from extracting raw materials and energy fuels to the maximal use of the gray substance, which means priority development of high technology and science-intensive branches. It is the state that should shoulder the task of shaping adequate conditions for the still absent group of entrepreneurs vital for an efficient market-oriented industry. The state alone is able to revive science and education in the shortest time possible indispensable for a competitive Russia of the new century.
There is a concerted opinion in the West that Russia has not lost her chance to revive as a great power of full value which, of course, will require a lot of time. At the same time nearly all analysts agree that any strategy, no matter how correct, would not work in a country afflicted by the cancer of corruption. The experience of other countries, in Latin America for example, has shown that corruption strangles economy, debases the state apparatus, and renders justice and democratic institutions ridiculous.
The same experts see immediate efforts to stop the flight of capitals as another priority closely connected with the anti-corruption struggle. The country was bled white—time has come to repatriate the money. There is nothing new in the problem, which was successfully resolved elsewhere through favorable investment climate and a combination of repression and encouragement.
Naturally enough, very much as before an active foreign policy is important for maintaining and strengthening the great power status.
In the nineties Russia was losing and continue to lose domestic resources needed for such policy yet Russian diplomacy is sticking to old positions and even strengthening some of them at the cost of increasing efforts which is made possible by the international system of today.
One of its key structural elements is an incontestable leader which is unable to become a single center to stabilize the system: the United States have neither enough might nor moral authority. It is believed in many countries that American foreign policy is driven by national egotism and double standards. By acting in Kosovo as the United States and NATO acted they put themselves above international law and the UN and did not acquire many supporters.
What is more, under the impact of American claims to rule the world alone or together with a handful of allies (to revive the past practices) other large states such as Russia, China and India are urged to move closer and try to oppose this trend with their own ideas, of which the idea of a multipolar world is one.
The international system lacks an adequately rigid structure which makes it wobbly — at the same time, this makes Russia an important balancing factor, the role recognized by many states. The country was admitted into the Group of 8 (at least, into its political component) and APEC which increased its foreign political potentials on the global and regional levels.
On the whole, having traveled through a stretch of gross errors and blunders of the romantic period experienced by the young Russian democracy, the foreign policy of Russia has finally arrived at the course determined by world realities on the one hand, and the country's ability and need to maintain the great power status, on the other. This pragmatic approach and varied policy are aimed at preventing Russia's isolation on the international scene which might cripple the country and damage stability in the context of the ever growing mutual dependence in the contemporary world. At the same time, no effort is spared to boost the country's international role and to firmly defend its national interests as best as this can and should be done.
This policy was first actively promoted under Yevgenii Primakov as foreign minister and is pursued by Igor' Ivanov, who inherited the post.
Russia has accepted the course, which means that it successfully combined the foreign political ideas of various forces and can serve a socially consolidating factor.
Russian foreign policy is not free of certain failures: It lacks strategic forecast and strategic initiative; it still follows the events rather than leads them.
It is loosely related to the country's economic needs despite the intentions to the contrary proclaimed many times. One may say that the entire state, not its foreign policy department alone, is facing the problem in the context of unstable economic interests that crop up haphazardly or through intrigues. I believe that the Foreign Ministry should have taken a firmer position when Russia's strategic interests are at stake: The division of the Caspian energy resources is one of the examples. In the next century it may become of signal importance. Much has already slipped away.
There is nothing bad in a down-to-earth foreign policy closely connected with the country's economic needs. It is common practice in the West for the president or prime minister personally lobby important foreign trade deals: that has been done by President Chirac, President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair.
The CIS is still the weakest point of Russia's foreign policy though her role of a great power hinges, in many respects, on her ability to remain the Commonwealth leader. Russia's major strategic interests lie within this geographical zone yet we have no integral strategy based on a rational analysis of the situation and Russia's interests. Russia, which for many years has been trying to force political and military-political closeness instead of concentrating on economic cooperation and integration, is mainly responsible for the Commonwealth's inefficiency recognized by many.
Russia has failed to take into account the narrow corporate interests of the fully-fledged national elites that put limits to the extent of real closeness. Huge economic interests alone can overcome such barriers or downplay their importance.
The relations with Byelorussia are the most important example of Russia's long-term strategy in CIS. The problems born by the different political and economic systems and subjective factors can be overcome with time while Russia will acquire for centuries to come an advantageous geostrategic position in Central Europe which she badly needs in view of NATO's eastward expansion and the European Union's extension.
It seems that we lack a strategy in our relations with Ukraine either though they are no less important than the relations with Germany, France, and Great Britain, where Russia's position in Europe is concerned. The West is fully aware of Ukraine's key importance if not as a counterweight than a buffer state between Russia and Europe, the idea actively pushed by influential forces.
Foreign policy, and society as a whole in Russia, is still thinking of Ukraine as a "younger and very much dependent sister." This prevents Russia from tapping the friendly feelings and sympathy abounding in Ukraine especially among the older and middle-aged population groups. The Black Sea Navy issue virtually screened the fact that the Russian language was driven away from schools and higher educational establishments and the attempts to cast doubt on the Russian and Ukrainian nations' closeness were made.
There are positive shifts in Ukraine that give another chance to Russian foreign policy. The euphoria of independence and its manifestations in relation to the mightier and not always polite (to put it mildly) Eastern neighbor are exhausting themselves. My personal impressions say that the majority of the Ukrainian nation favors closer economic ties with Russia or even a sort of an association. There is a general feeling that there should be no elder and younger members but an equal and mutually advantageous cooperation. Objectively speaking, Russia is demonstrating a growing acceptance of this—the feeling that needs to be encouraged and promoted.
There is a domestic side to the problem: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian shuttle traders and gastarbeiters are harassed in Russia which means playing into the hands of those who would go to all lengths to detach Ukraine from Russia.
In the twenty-first century Russia's relations with NATO and EU will increasingly determine her role in Europe. The article is too short to go into details yet I want to say that the Russia-EU Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation and the Russia-NATO Founding Act created a good legal basis that allows to address problems and advance cooperation. It will be hard to realize their potentials, especially those of the Russia-NATO act, because the alliance is trying to impose on Europe a NATO-centrist security model and because in Russia there exist stable anti-NATO sentiments that became more pronounced after the Kosovo crisis. Still, there is no rational alternative to cooperation. Russia, NATO and the European Union, which will probably integrate the Western European Union, are the key factors of European order. No security and stability in Europe are possible without them.
I would like to conclude the article with the words Aleksander Gorchakov pronounced following Russia's defeat in the Crimean War: "Russia is not angry. Russia is concentrating." This meant a desire of a stable and protracted peace while opposing the country's international isolation and its active and constructive policy "in all directions" 8 without overtaxing the state's forces so that it could concentrate on economic development. The main priorities are on the domestic scene—Russia's foreign policy should be subordinated to this.
When entering the twenty-first century Russia should concentrate again.
Vladimir Chernega is national expert of Russia at the Council of Europe, Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, II class, and doctor of juridical sciences.
Endnotes:
Note 1. Le Monde diplomatique, January 1999. Back
Note 2. Y. Mamou, "Les Etats-Unis, prototype d'une nouvelle economie?", Le Monde: economie, 27 April, 1999. Back
Note 3. S.P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?", Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, p. 39. Back
Note 4. See Vtoraia vstrecha v verkhakh Soveta Evropy. Plan deistvii dlia ob'edinennoi Evropy, Strasbourg, 10-11 October, 1999, p. 28. Back
Note 5. M. Debre, J.L. Debre, Le pouvoir politique, Paris, 1977, p. 14. Back
Note 6. "Situation economique en Russie et en Ukraine," Conceil de l'Europe, Doc. 8294, 8 January, 1999. Back
Note 7. J. Galbraith, "Krizis globalizatsii," Vremia, 26 August-1 September, 1999, p. 10. Back
Note 8. Kantsler A.M. Gorchakov. 200 let so dnia rozhdenia, Moscow, 1998. p. 6. Back