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CIAO DATE: 02/03
International Affairs:
A Russian Journal
What is Russia: a Superpower, a Great Power or a Regional Power
A. Kokoshin *
The question of Russia’s place in the post-Soviet system of international relations is unresolved and still causes discussions that at times develop into sharp contradictions. Meanwhile, it is a cornerstone of a broad and stable consensus among Russia’s “political class” and the nation as a whole over the country’s foreign policy and strategy of sustainable domestic development of society and the state.
In many respects this question causes a lot of pain in the nation’s mind: it was quite recently that the country was one of the two superpowers on an equal footing with the United States. Today, the status of the Russian Federation is different.
The Russians’ national psychology tends to extremes–this is true of the approaches to foreign and domestic policies and to Russia’s place in the world and the tasks the country can and should address on the world arena within the context of its domestic interests.
Some of the prominent members of Russia’s Council of Foreign and Defense Policy believe that “there is no alternative” to the country’s drawing closer to the West as an “island of stability.” They are convinced that “for the sake of maximally fast integration in the structures of the most developed states of the world (claims to any considerable degree of independence in world politics should be abandoned) Russia should assume the role of a “junior partner.” 1 At the same time, some of the State Duma deputies headed by Dmitri Rogozin insist that it is “Russia’s world historical mission” to stand opposed to globalization as the “International for the chosen ones.” “With this aim in view Russia should remain the only power in the world.” Those who side with this opinion believe that it is for Russia to demonstrate to the world new approaches to economic and social problems, and problems of world politics that will “allow the world community to overcome corporate, national, and state egocentrism.” 2
The problem of Russia’s place in the contemporary world is part of a much wider problem of Russia’s cultural and civilizational self-identity also affected by a vast range of opinions, assessments, ideological stereotypes, and emotions. By determining the country’s place in the hierarchy of states and the place of other main figures on the world arena the leaders and the elite build up a foundation for foreign policy and military-political planning that include the plans of developing and reforming the armed forces.
We should find a place for our country in the contemporary world within a definite system of coordinates. Such concepts as “superpower,” “great power,” and “regional power” frequently serve this purpose together with others: “a middle-level power,” “a regional center of power,” a “global center of power,” etc. The former set appears to be best suited to describe a hierarchy of states within the system of international relations.
The Place of Nation-State in the Contemporary System of International Relations
Any discussion of the question of the hierarchy of states should be prefaced with several observations about the role of states and other actors of world politics. On the international scene the states work side by side with, first, all sorts of alliances, unions, and coalitions of states with supra-state and supra-national functions; second, international and transnational non-governmental organizations. (Such structures as the European Union will be discussed below.)
The first group includes highly structuralized alliances (NATO) and all sorts of cartels that know their ups and downs. OPEC is the most pertinent example.
The second group normally includes transnational corporations and all sorts of public organizations, such as Greenpeace. There is an opinion that transnational terrorist organizations (including the well-known as Al-Qaeda) also belong to this category. Both groups of actors are playing an increasingly prominent and important role on the international arena.
It should be said that numerous previous forecasts (especially those of the 1970s) about a gradual retreat of sovereign states as the main structural element of world politics under the pressure of multinational and transnational corporations and supranational international organizations proved to be wrong. The states have withstood another, and unprecedentedly strong impulse of globalization of the 1990s with its economic, informational, and cultural dimensions evident in all spheres of politics and defense. (When saying this I proceed from my conviction that globalization first manifested itself at the turn of the 20th century. It was cut short by World War I and the 1917 October revolution in Russia and later deformed by World War II and the Cold War.)
Economic, informational, and cultural globalization goes hand in hand with greater ethnic and religious fragmentation and isolation. This has inevitably affected the roles of nation-states. 3
These problems remain topical in Russia though in the last 18 to 24 months the threat of separatism in and disintegration of the Russian Federation has diminished partly because the laws of the federation subjects were matched with the Constitution of Russia. These problems are even more urgent in the majority of post-Soviet states obviously affected by disintegration trends.
This factor is also connected with the end of the Cold War: ethnic contradictions were very much smoothed down, on the ideological and institutional plane, by the opposition between the two systems headed by the USSR and the US. It also affected what is frequently called national self-identification and what probably should be described as national-ethnic self-identification. 4
The first years of the new century has demonstrated that some of the deep-cutting ethnic conflicts will not be resolved in the nearest future. They have been dragging on for decades or even centuries (the confrontation between Arabs and Israel, between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, there is a problem of Basque separatism and a conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.)
The Middle Eastern developments of 2000-2002 in the zone of Arabic-Israeli confrontation demonstrated to all of us that it is easy to fan an ethnic conflict that seemed to be close to its settlement. It was rekindled, reducing to naught the efforts of superpowers, great powers and politicians, and destroyed all previous agreements and compromises.
Even the United States that for decades has been successfully translating into practice the “melting pot” ideology has its share of considerable ethnic confrontations; certain ethnic communities are even separating themselves from the rest of the nation.
In the last ten years new (yet deep-rooted) conflicts were added to the old ones. Information technologies in the conditions of globalization made local conflicts even more dangerous: a huge number of people across the world are exposed practically on-line to information, and deliberately distorted information, about these conflicts. 5 This turns comparatively small confrontation seats into spots of tension fraught with global conflicts.
The principle of “self-determination of nations” (ethnic groups that are part of polyethnic nation-states) is more and more frequently opposed to the principle of nation-states’ territorial integrity and inviolability of their frontiers. The principle of humanitarian intervention is opposed to the principle of state sovereignty.
There is no doubt that sovereign states (nation-states) will survive in the 21st century and remain the pillars of international relations and key elements of the international political system. It should be admitted, however, that state sovereignty (the sovereignty of nation-states) is being diluted from above by the diktat of the world market and the world community’s very real desire to protect itself (through non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the measures to prevent their use, efforts to protect the environment, wipe out the most dangerous diseases, eliminate genocide, create more equal economic and social possibilities, etc.). Separatism, racial, ethnic, religious, etc. conflicts are diluting state sovereignty from below.
In the last 20 to 30 years sovereign states (nation-states) have been operating in a fundamentally different international, social, economic, and political context than before. Today one can admit, with certain limitations, that there is “international community,” “international public opinion,” etc.
The greater part of international community today regards nation as a sum-total of citizens of one state connected by shared civic conscience, history, and cultural heritage. Quite often they also share a language and a religion. 6 This explains why the concept of “nation” is frequently identified with that of “state” (hence the United Nations Organization).
The absolute majority of nation-states today are polyethnic 7 the degree of which differs from country to country: it is much higher in the United States and India than in the CPR or Japan that (with certain reservations) can be called a mono-ethnic nation. 8
Real Sovereignty
A comparatively small number of states have real sovereignty as opposed to de facto sovereignty. This is not a recent phenomenon–it has been in existence throughout world history.
Real sovereignty means that the state is free to independently determine its domestic, foreign, and defense policies, enter into unions and leave them, form strategic partnerships or stay away from them, etc. It is based on independent armed forces, developed defense industry and science that rest on the country’s scientific and industrial potential.
A strong financial system that depends to a very small degree on external loans is another key factor today.
By the end of the 1990s, Russia’s real sovereignty declined sharply due to its foreign debt that was considerable in absolute figures and in relation to the country’s GDP. In the last 18 to 24 months the debt was diminished and this is one of the important achievements of Putin’s administration. This measure strengthened Russia’s real sovereignty. 9
A reasonable approach to real sovereignty does not spell economic autarchy (for example, remaining outside the WTO) or cultural and intellectual isolation from the rest of the world. This has been counterproductive a at all times and became even more counterproductive today. b
Real sovereignty makes it possible to ensure favorable conditions for foreign trade, attractive conditions for foreign investments, the best possible conditions for foreign borrowings, etc.
The Chinese People’s Republic is one of the best examples of how to realize the real sovereignty potential. It has achieved impressive successes in the last 20 to 25 years, one of the main sources of which was attraction, on a large scale, of foreign investments (the size of which, according to some of the experts, exceeded $700 billion) mainly in the processing branches. As a result, there is an opinion that China is the world’s second country where the GDP volume (with due account for the purchasing power parity) is concerned.
It is for a long time that the process of transfer of part of states’ sovereign rights to international organizations has been going on. Like all other processes in social systems it knows its ebbs and flows. This is also typical of the behavior of the United States of America, the largest power of the contemporary system of international relations.
In the 1990s, the US played the role of a leader of the economic, information, sociocultural and political globalization processes to which it sometimes sacrificed, de jure and de facto, its sovereignty. (It obviously expected to gain more than the other countries involved in the de-sovereignization processes because of its dominant role and greater efficiency of its institutions.) Early in the 21st century the liberal Democratic administration went away to cede place to a conservative Republican administration that has demonstrated its unwillingness to limit its sovereignty on a number of key international issues.
This refers, first and foremost, to environmental protection (the Republican Administration refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, a product of a lot of concerted effort); fight against proliferation of bacteriological (biological) weapons (refusal to sign the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972), limitation of the role of nuclear weapons and ensuring strategic stability (refusal to ratify the multisided Test Ban Treaty and withdrawal from the Soviet-American (Russian-American) ABM Treaty of 1972); further destabilization of world trade (decision on a large-scale support of national agriculture at the moment when the WTO reached an agreement to start negotiations on gradual discontinuation of such practices in the US and Western Europe, introduction of prohibitive tariffs on imported steel, etc.).
Power and Influence of States
The place of any state in the world hierarchy is determined by many parameters, some rather strict and measurable, others of an approximate and estimating nature.
The following are the most general factors of any state’s might: the GDP, population strength, the size of the territory, the numerical strength of its armed forces (and the number of nuclear weapons and delivery means first and foremost).
Fifteen or twenty years ago political scientists impressed by the fast economic growth in Japan and Germany first doubted the importance of territorial dimensions. It was commonly believed that economy would restore their great power status lost because of the crushing defeat. Today, many political scientists have revived their faith in the territorial component of national might yet mainly from a different point of view.
A large territory contributes to military security and increases the country’s agricultural potential. More than that: it offers wider possibilities of transit transportation corridors, sovereign environmental protection measures, and so on.
There is another side to this: according to reliable World Bank’s forecasts the world’s population will grow from 6 to 8 billion in the next 20 years. This will inevitably increase an anthropogenic pressure on the environment therefore a large territory with a good climate, plenty of fresh water and other vitally important resources adds to the state’s might. In this context, Russia’s vast territory is of great value.
Population strength together with the territory determines the market capacity and the country’s attractiveness for foreign and domestic investors. During the last 10 to 15 years two Asian giants, China and India, have moved to the foreground in this respect. Spellbound by their sizes and the resultant potential consumer demand foreign companies hasten there with their money. The real market potential in both countries is determined by the numerical strength of the middle class: today, according to various assessments, it is over 200 million in each of them. This is much more than the entire population of Russia but less than the number of people living on the post-Soviet territory. After the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the CMEA disappeared Russia lost its attractions as a large market in the eyes of foreign investments. Late in the 1980s it comprised about 400 million and, in certain respects, was more attractive than the Chinese and Indian markets taken together.
Together with GDP the Human Potential Development Index (HPDI) 10 is becoming more and more important in assessing the state’s role in the world. Might and influence do not directly depend on them but they are increasingly important for the world’s perception of the state. The HPDI reflects that state of “human capital” of the nation-state–one of the key factors of any country’s competitiveness on the world markets.
At all times might and influence have been a relative factor compared with those of other states and other subjects of international relations.
In the final analysis they are manifested by the state’s ability to cause desired changes in foreign, domestic, economic, and defense policies of other states. Prominent American political scientist J. Nye has rightly pointed out that this is not always achieved by a direct impact of one state on another. Such changes can be ensured in an indirect way by formulating an agenda for the international community and creating a policy in each specific case bound to attract the main characters on the international political stage at any given moment. 11 This deserves very special attention of those engaged in formulating foreign policy strategy for Russia.
A closer scrutiny of the military might reveal a fact that quantitative indices come second after the indices that describe the military machine’s battle-worthiness. Their estimation requires high professional skills.
Today, it is becoming increasingly important for top leaders of all countries to have a wide range of military means at their disposal so that to flexibly tap power potential in crisis situations.
This also applies to nuclear forces and means and to general-purpose forces. For example, effective nuclear deterrent in relation to nuclear powers is ensured not only by an ability to incur retaliatory “unacceptable damage” but also by an ability to prevent “escalating domination” of the other side at the earlier stages of an armed conflict (war) before it develops into a nuclear conflict. 12
The non-military components of a state’s might (including financial and economic ones) should also include the widest possible range of means and the methods of their application.
The real role of any state on the world scene is determined, to a great extent, by the personality of its leader and his team as well as the institutes of power and state administration in this country that a state or political leader can adjust to specific tasks addressed in the interests of society and the nation.
Peter the Great and his team who transformed Russia, a second-rate state, into a great power is one of the most vivid examples in world history (even though his activity was very contradictory). His team was made up of people of various extractions and confessions ranging from Tartars, Poles, Lithuanians to Scots and Jews (Bruce, Gordon, Lefort, Menshikov, Iaguzhinskii, Shafirov, Romodanovskii, and others). They all contributed a lot to shaping a multi-ethnic nation of Russia and the Russian nation-state that returned to Europe through the efforts of the czar-reformer and his team.
Charles XII of Sweden who inherited a great European power and left to his descendants a second-rate country is an opposite example.
The example of Frederick II the Great, king of Prussia is much less popular in this respect. By the latter half of the 18th century, he had made his country (formerly one of the periphery states created by the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 out of dismembered Germany) a first-rate European power. Prussia had practically no resources that would put it ahead of other German states, its population and territory were smaller than those of its neighbors. Its climate and geographical location offered no opportunities–it was removed from the major trade routes of the time. Frederick the Great is best known for his achievements in the art of war and as an architect of Prussia’s military might. His diplomatic art and skillful financial and economic policy (that provided his army with adequate means at any, even the worst, moments) played an important role in the transformation of Prussia into one of the great powers of the 18th and 19th centuries. (His chief financier Gotowski was an outstanding figure in the financial sphere.)
Frederick the Great could create a great power virtually out of nothing because he had managed to gather in Berlin many active and capable people who belonged to various religions and social and ethnic groups. Each of them contributed to the unique cause of building up the nation-state and to the sphere that was considered Frederick’s forte–the art of war. 13
Nearly everybody agrees that the role of a leader and his team are limited today to a greater extent than before by institutions, organizations, constitutions, and laws. This is especially true of developed democracies yet recent history has already provided us with striking examples of outstanding contributions of individual leaders. Such was the role that Charles de Gaulle played in securing France the great power status in very difficult conditions. In the 1980s, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher demonstrated her country’s ability to be a great power without renouncing “special relations” between Great Britain and the United States (that on the whole limited Britain’s sovereignty to a much greater degree that France’s membership in the Western European Union and the North Atlantic community). This was vividly illustrated, among other things, by defending with military force British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, the territory of negligent economic and military value and far removed from London
Superpowers
The very fact that for several postwar decades world politics was dominated by two superpowers–the US and the USSR–is unique in the history of the world. The situation was very much specific because at some point both acquired nuclear arsenals capable of eliminating in case of war the superpowers, a larger part of the Northern Hemisphere and contemporary civilization as a whole. c
It was after the very dangerous Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 that the United States and the Soviet Union realized that a strategic (nuclear) stalemate emerged when they had acquired considerable nuclear arsenals. 14 It took them ten more years to codify in 1972 the fact (in an indirect way) in Soviet-American agreements. The Soviet-American ABM Treaty that cut to the minimum defense potentials of the two countries in the face of their gigantic strategic nuclear offensive stockpiles played its role. Ten years later the sides finally openly and unequivocally recognized their mutual vulnerability. (It was only in the mid-1980s that the military and politicians stopped talking about winnable nuclear wars very much in line with V. Sokolovski’s Voennaia strategia [Military Strategy] and similar American works.) The new nuclear powers that have not yet created on a mutual basis a similar system of “super-administration” to guarantee nuclear stalemate can learn a lot from this story.
The Roman republic was a superpower of Classical Antiquity. The Byzantine Empire several times in its millennium-long history came close to the superpower status (especially under Justinian I the Great when it controlled Italy and certain other areas of the former Roman Empire).
There was no single worldwide system of international relations until the 19th century. Europe and the Far East were divided by a vast expanse difficult to negotiate at that time and several civilization barriers (despite numerous trade connections and land and especially sea voyages by outstanding people starting with Marco Polo). For this reason we can regard China as the only superpower in the immense Asian-Pacific region. Its power and influence were quite comparable to those of the Roman Empire. It should be added that China with its unique combination of civilizational continuity and cyclic development regained the role of a superpower several times during approximately two thousand years.
Rome and China were superior to their regional neighbors not only economically and militarily, not only because the life of state and society was better organized but also because of their considerable cultural superiority. However, despite all their might that J. Nye called “soft power” and immense influence these two superpowers of the past could never spread their influence even to the closest neighbors. More than that, from time to time these neighbors inflicted crushing defeats on them: this happened, for example, during a confrontation between China and what we now call Vietnam.
The phenomenon of two superpowers in modern history was predated by several attempts of European great powers to acquire the superpower status. From time to time one of them decided to become the only superpower in Europe and to spread its influence outside the continent by capitalizing on weight and influence European civilization as a whole had acquired by that period. It was Louis XIV in the early 18th century who made one of the earliest serious attempts in the form of the War of Spanish Succession, Napoleon who created the French Empire followed along the same path, there were two German attempts in the 20th century that developed into two world wars. In the 16th—17th centuries the power (with vast New World colonies) that emerged, to borrow an expression from Paul Kennedy, from a Spanish and Austrian “dynastic-religious bloc” of the Hapsburgs 15 tried to become the only superpower in Europe.
Long before the cataclysms of the 20th century that created two superpowers, French historian and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville intuitively predicted the main feature of this phenomenon: “Today there are two great peoples in the world that despite all their dissimilarities are moving towards the same aim. They are Russians and Anglo-Americans.” d He wrote about America and Russia: “Each of them are destined to become the master of half the world.” He said: “Both peoples appeared unexpectedly” and “remained ignored for a long time.” “It seems that all other peoples have already reached the limits of their quantitative growth, all they have to do is to protect what they have. These two are growing permanently.” 16
The two superpowers were not simply stronger than the rest of the world. They were ideological leaders of two opposing groups of states, movements, parties, intellectual schools, cultures, and cultural movements.
The phenomenon of the superpowers was in their absolute domination of the rest of the world, including those states that were called “great powers.”
Their superiority was especially evident in the military sphere, in the nuclear weapons in the first place. By the 1970s, the USSR and the US had reached a “super-absolute” superiority over other nuclear powers (China, Great Britain, and France) calculated in hundreds of times: they had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads while the other three nuclear powers (great powers) hundreds of them.
Besides, only the Soviet Union and the United States possessed a complete set of the nuclear deterrence components: nuclear warheads and delivery means supplied with the control, missile attack warning, and space control systems and the entire range of the means of space strategic reconnaissance (judging by non-classified information neither China, France, and Great Britain to say nothing of India, Pakistan, and Israel have a complete range of such components.) 17
The two superpowers’ superiority over all other states was very considerable where the general- purpose forces were concerned: in land forces (the USSR), in general-purpose aviation (both superpowers with US domination) and in naval forces. This differed radically from the structure of international relations on the eve of both world wars.
The question of naval domination is worth discussing in more detail.
After World War II the United States preserved and developed its global naval presence that was, in fact, a continuation of its global naval operations of 1941-1945. It was the United States that crushed in the Pacific the Japanese military might and liquidated that of Germany together with Great Britain and a certain Soviet contribution. The military might of Great Britain that “ruled over the seas” in the 18th through to the early 20th century sharply declined because of the total collapse of the British Empire and its contracted economic potential.
By the 1970s, it was the Soviet Union alone that was capable of challenging American domination in the World Ocean. It created a Navy that met many latest requirements. (These developments are associated with the name of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov whom some of the authors compare with good reason with German Admiral Tirpitz who in the late 19th and early 20th century created “an open seas fleet” to challenge British domination in the World Ocean.)
The Soviet Navy was created with a purpose at least to limit (and at best to liquidate) American domination in the World Ocean. The general- purpose forces of the Navy were structured differently from the US Navy and had different fighting effectives. The general- purpose forces of the US Navy were dominated by carrier strike groups while the unique feature of the Soviet Navy was groups designed to fight against carrier strike groups. The American Navy was superior to that of the Soviet Union when it came to “projecting force” at a great distance from American territory.
It was in the middle of the 1990s that Henry Kissinger wrote that the Soviet Union had been a military giant and an economic dwarf. It seems that the second part of the formula is a great distortion. At all stages of confrontation the Soviet Union was behind the United States were the quality of its GDP were concerned but it was no “economic dwarf.” The Soviet achievements in science, education, health protection, and in many industrial spheres were obvious. Its economic, scientific and technical aid (often completely free,) massive training of young people from other countries in its higher educational establishments created a great impetus for the development of many countries, including two Asian giants–China and India. At least one of them (China) is prepared to become a superpower by the middle of the 21st century.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union was developing at a fast pace while the United States was bogged down in the Vietnamese war. Many countries looked at the USSR as a real alternative to capitalist economy.
But in the final analysis the Soviet Union failed to create a competitive socialist economy and to formulate labor ethics that could compete with Weber’s “Protestant ethic”–the failure that will echo for a long time in Russia and other post-Soviet states.
Driven by ideology the Soviet leaders scattered resources far and wide outside the Soviet Union without any pragmatic political and economic and sober military-strategic considerations (in an absence of correcting impact of civil society and political opposition present in the US and other Western countries with developed systems of political democracy).
The Soviet state stood on the foundations of the Russian Empire that had taken centuries to acquire its final shape through adding lands in the west and in the east. The Soviet leaders spurred on by a stronger than the Third Rome ideology went even further than the Russian empire builders. They created not one but three empires each of them detracting money from the “mother country” and surviving mainly at the expense of the Russian and other Slavic ethnoses. The strain proved to be too great. 18
A comparative inefficiency of the Soviet system of strategic administration set against the Soviet leaders all leading centers of power. In the Third World the Soviet leaders failed to keep under their influence several key states into which the Soviet Union had poured huge resources (Indonesia, Egypt, and before that China).
On the whole the democracy’s system of strategic administration proved more efficient than that of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (that lived under “one man power” as Tocqueville put it). There was a permanent deficit of well-educated and highly professional men in the top echelons of power who knew enough of economy, social problems, history, and political sciences (the military-industrial complex and energy production were the only exceptions). It was partly an echo of Stalin’s purges when not only specialists the Soviet Union inherited from the tsarist Russia but also newcomers were exterminated.
In the second half of the 1980s, the Soviet leadership failed to successfully destroy two extra empires–as a result all three disappeared, the Soviet Union among them.
A “Mono-Superpower”
The United States remained the only superpower in the world after the tragic disintegration of the Soviet Union. This was not only a triumph of one state over another, of one system of alliances over another but also a “triumph of the capitalist market economy,” contemporary Western democracy, its practice and ideology. There are still large officially communist (socialist) states in the world. This is China with its population of 1,300 million and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
In the ten years that have elapsed since that time the US relative weight as the only superpower has further grown in relation to the leading European countries, the EU as a whole, and Japan that earlier were regarded as the United States’ main rivals in the world economy and potentially in the political sphere.
In the latter half of the 1990s, Japan entered a stage of economic stagnation with an entire range of negative repercussions in the social, domestic, and foreign policy spheres. Before that, after its crushing defeat in World War II and the post-war deep-cutting changes in its political and economic system, the country had been demonstrating an outstanding development pace.
The United States increased its already huge domination in the military sphere (nuclear and general-purpose forces) because of its ability to “project force” to practically any corner of the world.
Foreign and especially Russian political scientists are ignoring the facts that there are two states that, in the last 10 to 15 years, have considerably narrowed down the previously inconceivably wide gap between themselves and the United States. They are China and India. The gap is still very wide especially where per capita GDP and the HPDI index are concerned yet it may start narrowing down faster than before in view of certain economic problems the US is experiencing today.
The US domination over all other states is assessed according to the same scale to which Roman domination over the rest of the world was assessed when the Roman Empire was at the peak of its might. 19
As the only superpower the United States dominates in the information sphere and in the global media that are gaining importance (the CNN TV network is one of the best examples. BBC is its only rival). The country also dominates in mass culture (that plays a destructive role inside and outside the country). In the 1990s, American corporations as a world economic subject and the American management system strengthened their superiority. (It was at the turn of the 1970s that French publicist and economist Servan-Schreiber described this as an “American challenge.”) According to the great American citizen and outstanding politician of the 1960s-1970s, the late Senator Fulbright, the US was demonstrating to an increasingly greater extent what he called “presumption of force.” This reduces the attractiveness of the American democratic ideal that otherwise is of great importance for democratic development of Russia and elsewhere.
All the parameters of the US tremendous might described above failed to protect American citizens against a powerful, well-organized terrorist structure driven by a clearly stated ideology and headed by Osama bin Laden, a “super-mighty person” as a prominent American political observer T. Friedman called him in his definitive work on globalization problems that had appeared long before 11 September 2001.
The events of 11 September 2001 demonstrated that the only superpower’s sovereignty was also limited. The American response to the acts of “mega-terror” proved to be an intricate combination of cooperation efforts and steps towards even greater “one-sidedness” of American foreign policy evident even before the tragedy of 11 September. This combination reflects personal and institutional contradictions inside the American state machine personified by State Secretary Powell and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
How long can this situation survive? The answer to this question, very much like other questions created by similar situations in the past, depends on the development dynamics of other centers of power and on the United States’ internal developments.
The events and trends that have manifested themselves in the last couple of years and, especially, during several recent months, inspired pronouncements of the beginning of end of the American “mono-superpower” status coming from certain journalists and analysts. They proceed not only from the 11 September events that demonstrated American vulnerability. American economic growth slowed down and experienced a recession during several months in 2001; several largest American corporations went bankrupt. In some of them top managers were caught swindling. The greatly undermined trust in the American corporate securities and American joint-stock companies that considerably reduced the flow of foreign money to American economy. 20
This casts doubt on the entire system of “new economy” on which the previous administration and Albert Gore who ran against Bush Jr. in 2000 pinned their hopes.
There is no doubt that American economy will remain the strongest in the first decade of the 21st century yet one can say with a great degree of certainty that American economy will no longer increase the gap between itself and the EU while the gap between the US and China and between US and India will be narrowing.
Despite its obvious (and quite natural) unwillingness to be drawn into settling the Palestinian-Israeli problem the American administration has found itself in its midst with little chance of achieving significant results in the current exceedingly complicated situation if it continues to pursue its line. e
Today, voices from the EU countries have joined those of political and public figures of the Muslim world to accuse the United States and the Bush Administration that is courting the Jewish community in the US (traditionally more Democratic than Republican) of an exceedingly active support of the radical forces in Israel on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. This increases the already strong anti-American feelings in the Islamic world (especially in the Arab countries) that sometimes take very radical forms. This obviously broadens the social and psychological basis of political terror that might take even a larger scope than before and result in new acts of “mega-terror” with a possible use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States and its allies. 21
The antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan that got off to a good start is fraught with a protracted land war and a long period of domestic instability in the country now headed by a person that is generally considered to be pro-American. The United States may discover that its enormous breakthroughs in space and air reconnaissance, its air might and its high-precision weapons will be nearly useless. To a great extent the present Republican administration’s much publicized resolution to fight terrorism on the global scale looks similar to what Democratic President Kennedy said about his country’s readiness to fight for freedom and democracy. There is a good reason to believe that this served political and ideological justification of the United States’ involvement in various corners of the world (in Vietnam in the first place) in the 1960s and 1970s that considerably undermined American might and influence. It was at that time that Kissinger formulated his idea of a “five-pole balance of forces” contrary to the obvious fact that two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, were two main structural elements. In the early 1970s he used this idea to declare that the five-pole balance of forces had appeared (the US, USSR, China, Japan, and Western Europe). It was never realized to the full extent yet as an operational conception helped the United States restore its positions worldwide. 22
Candidates to the Role of the “Second Superpower” in the 21st Century
Today it is the Chinese People’s Republic that is considered to be the most promising candidate to this role: throughout nearly two decades it has been demonstrating stable and fast economic growth.
The Chinese leaders have formulated the task: “to complete by the middle of the century, on the whole, modernization, make China a prospering, strong, democratic, and socialist country, and to resurrect the Chinese nation.” 23 One should treat this program that looks fifty years ahead seriously: all previous long-term programs announced in the early and middle 1980s and mainly associated with Deng Xiaoping were realized to a great extent. Those who predicted China’s collapse under the burden of snowballing social and ideological problems proved wrong.
While building up the “second superpower” of the 21st century the Chinese leaders do their best to avoid the mistakes made by the Soviet leaders. Chinese economy is no longer autarchic, it is increasingly integrated in the world economy partly thanks to China’s recent WTO membership. Much attention is paid to fortifying the country’s positions in the world financial sphere by gradually strengthening the yuan, building-up the gold and currency reserves of the Bank of China, developing stock exchange in Shanghai together with the Hong Kong stock exchange, etc.)
The Chinese leaders demonstrate a lot of caution where the country’s possible involvement in settling acute international conflicts and crises is concerned, they limit to the minimum China’s involvement not only in material but also in political, psychological, and emotional respects. (This is true, in particular, of its participation in the Middle Eastern settlement, in the series of the Balkan crises, and elsewhere.) Still the country is gradually building up its influence along its borders, within the zone of its traditional influence by strengthening its economic positions (especially in Southeast Asia).
While integrating China in world economy and scoring victories in the competitive struggle on the world markets the Chinese leaders are consistently and firmly protecting the country’s real sovereignty and preserve its freedom of action to the maximum degree in foreign policy and national defense. f
For a long time the Macao (Aomin) and Hong Kong (Siangan) issues were the symbols of China’s struggle for sovereignty. Recently the territories were finally returned to China. Today, the problem of Taiwan is on the agenda. g
The CPR may use military force, strictly within international law, to restore its sovereignty over Taiwan. “The status of Taiwan as part of China cannot be altered. The position of the Chinese communists in relation to state sovereignty and territorial integrity is firm and unshakeable. We are completely sincere in our desire to peacefully reunite the country but we cannot promise that we shall not use force,” said Jiang Zemin. 24
The Chinese leaders are consistent and sometimes harsh when they reject all attempts to interfere into domestic affairs of their country. They refuse to recognize the Western human rights standards (observation of which is Russia’s official course) as universal and therefore applicable in China. In this respect China is much further removed from the West than the other Asian giant–India that was frequently described in the West as “the world’s largest democracy.”
The American “mono-superpower” cannot remain indifferent to China’s development into a potential “second superpower.” Throughout the last 15 to 20 years American state policies in relation to China was an intricate combination of “containment” and “involvement” (that became especially evident in the wake of the Tiananmen events of 1989.) The “containment” elements became more pronounced when a conservative Republican administration came to power in 2001. Much confirms that the statement US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made early in 2001 about China being a rival rather than a partner reflected (and reflects) the dominating philosophy, foreign-policy, and military-political convictions of this administration. h
Being aware of the United States’ enormous economic, financial and military might (including its naval forces that is of fundamental importance in the context of reestablishing sovereignty over Taiwan) the Chinese leaders are carefully avoiding direct political clashes with the US partially by deliberately narrowing down the number of spheres in which such clashes with the so far only superpower of the 21st century are possible. At the same time they do not avoid significant cooperation with America in the spheres where such cooperation promotes Chinese interests. China’s active support of the American war on terror is one of the best examples.
India and the European Union are called two other candidates to the role of a superpower of the 21st century. The latter can assume this role if it develops into a federative entity (that was recently suggested by the German leaders.)
In the last 10 to 12 years India has been demonstrating impressive economic, scientific and technological, and military progress though lagging behind China where the growth rates are concerned–something that the Indian business and political elite do not like in the least. India has staked on science-intensive industry to a greater extent than China and on mobilization of its human capital. It is fighting for a place in the sun by consistently integrating in the world economy and international information expanse (capitalizing, among other things, on the knowledge of English fairly common among the Indian elite and the middle class). Like the other Asian giant it is doing a lot to strengthen its real sovereignty–this is testified by the fact that in 1998 it acquired nuclear weapons and state-of-the-art delivery means. (There are indications that in the next 10 to 12 years India, like China, will acquire nuclear intercontinental missiles to support its status.) On the whole, however, in the foreseeable future India is less likely than China to become the “second superpower.”)
The dynamics of the EU development into a superpower of the 21st century will depend not only on the rates of its economic growth (that in the last 10 to 12 years were lagging behind those of the US) but on the process of creation of its own foreign and defense policies. (Back in the middle 1990s it was proclaimed as one of the major tasks.) 25
Until recently the process has been progressing with difficulties partly due to a quite natural American opposition. It may go faster because the present American administration has lost part of its interest in NATO. (The observers in Washington close to the administration have started talking more and more frequently about the alliance’s death.) The United States had to admit that it proved practically useless for the antiterrorist effort in Afghanistan and other places where Russia, with the same possibilities and attributes of real sovereignty, turned out to be a much more valuable partner than the NATO allies with no similar instruments.
Recently I heard from a prominent West European politician that the EU would inevitably formulate its own, and independent of the US, defense and foreign policies if the present conservative Republican administration was reelected and insisted on its foreign policy that was driving the US and EU apart.
The Great Powers
The great powers like the superpowers can be regarded as subjects of international relations that individually are much more powerful and influential than the states of the next lower level. (In fact, the superpowers can be regarded as part of the great power phenomenon, that is, each superpower is a great power but not all great powers are superpowers.) From this it follows that great powers are a much more common historical phenomenon than the superpowers.
At different periods there existed different great powers. In the latter half of the 18th century Sweden and the Netherlands with the highest for their time HPDI level dominated the European scene together with strengthening France and England and weakening Spain.
In the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim state with its main territorial possessions found outside Europe, was regarded as a great power on the European continent because of its considerable political impact.
In the 18th century, Russia that won the long and expensive Northern War against Sweden surprised many when it appeared on the European arena as a great power. In the 18th century, the Netherlands and Spain left the ranks of the great powers; Sweden too degraded into a “second-rate power.”
It was in the first decades of the 19th century that the “great power” concept came into the European political parlance–it became especially popular after the rout of Napoleonic France, to which Russia made the greatest contribution by winning the 1812 Patriotic War.
The 1815 Vienna Congress of the victor states codified the status of the great powers (Russia, Great Britain, Austria, and Prussia), registered their incredible domination over all other subjects of international relations that were sovereign de jure yet had limited sovereignties de facto. The great powers demonstrated their special rights by actively changing the map of Europe while seeking a stable balance of forces. (The result was very close to what Premier William Pitt the Younger, dead by that time, had wanted.)
The European Concert, a product of the Vienna Congress, successfully managed international relations and prevented large wars (comparable by scope with the Thirty Years War in the 17th century, the War of Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, the wars of the French Revolution period, and the Napoleonic wars) for forty years. The Crimean War of 1853 that involved great powers was followed by 60 years of peace as Kissinger has correctly noted. 26
Gradually France, humiliated and insulted by the victor-states in 1915, regained its place among the great powers of the 19th century. The restored Bourbons, and the entire nation together with them, got back from the victorious great powers their old, pre-Napoleonic territory (that was much larger than the country ruled by Henri IV and Richelieu before French expansion).
This differed greatly from what the western powers did to Germany and Soviet Russia after World War I: they created a highly unstable Versailles system and never tried to realize the policy of involvement in relation to Germany and Soviet Russia.
As a result in the wake of the war Germany and Soviet Russia (the USSR) played the role of anti-systemic forces the separate (or even concerted i ) efforts of which undermined the Versailles system. Had the Western leaders of the time showed more wisdom and imagination and had they actively involved the Soviet Union and Germany into the Eurocentrist system of international relations the world would have been different.
After World War II the “great power” conception was reconfirmed despite an obvious trends towards a more democratic system of international relations. At first, this found its reflection in the Roosevelt’s idea of “four policemen” (the US, USSR, Great Britain, and China) expected to maintain international order through concerted efforts that did not exclude the use of force.
With the Soviet and British support the great power club acquired another member–France. This group became the permanent members of the UN Security Council, an organization initiated by the leaders of two Anglo-Saxon great powers. At the time, crippled by its heavy defeat inflicted by nazi Germany France could not compete either economically or militarily not only with the United States but also with Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
It was its Resistance movement headed by the great leader Charles de Gaulle, its traditions of statehood, civil society, and democracy, its rich culture that justified France’s formal participation in the great power club. Some 15 to 17 years after the end of World War II, having been tested with the disintegration of its colonial empire (that was much more painful than in case of Britain) and the crisis caused by the military action of France, Great Britain and Israel in the Middle East in 1956 (the Suez canal) France convincingly demonstrated that it had ample material and spiritual reasons to claim back its great power status when de Gaulle had returned to power.
It acquired its own nuclear weapons and delivery means completely independent of the US and UK and demonstrated its considerable successes in the civilian science-intensive industrial branches: nuclear power, electronics, rocket production, aviation, etc that made France one of the locomotives of West European development. Much was accomplished contrary to an active opposition of two other Western great powers, the United States especially: it did not need a rival in the sphere of commercial launchings of satellites.
France’s upsurge in the 1950s and 1960s and to great extent during the next 10 to 15 years was ensured by its insistent efforts to protect its real sovereignty, to keep its place in the sun not only in the material but also in the cultural, sociopsychological, and emotional spheres. All postwar leaders continued the traditions of Richelieu by paying great attention to the preservation and development of the literary French language, its international role and continued presence in the areas of France’s traditional influence.
Having strengthened its real sovereignty in the increasingly interdependent and globalizing world France, strange as it main seen, assumed one of the key roles in European integration–the process that created the European Union in 1992 (that may become, in the foreseeable future, a much more consolidated subject of international relations and develop into a superpower of a new type).
Great Britain, another western great power, chose a different road in the postwar world and concluded a series of agreements on “special relations” with one of the superpowers, the United States. (This deprived Britain in many respects of its status of an independent nuclear state.) The country acquired certain advantages but, in the final analysis, it was much less sovereign before the European Union was set up and after this event when the West European members (including France and Great Britain) consciously and voluntarily limited their sovereignties both de facto and de jure.
Germany can claim the role of a great power according to many parameters of its national might. This had become obvious after the GDR had collapsed and Germany had become a single state again.
There is an obvious process of spreading German economic (and in many respects cultural) influence that in certain cases becomes political influence. This happens first of all eventually because of strong German economy, and the great nation’s high cultural and technical standards.
As one of the main actors of European integration Germany, like France, is actively promoting the German language and German culture with the help of the Goethe Institute, a structure acting in Europe and outside it, in India for example.
After a heavy defeat of nazi Germany in World War II and its unconditional capitulation the country for a certain period of time was deprived of the de jure sovereignty. For a long time its real sovereignty was limited by the Warsaw Treaty Organization in case of the GDR and by NATO in case of the FRG. To a certain extent because of Germany’s great dependence on its NATO allies and especially on the United States in the military sphere its sovereignty remains limited.
Twenty years ago one of the prominent statesmen of the FRG told me that the political and business elite of Germany would never contest for a place in the sun by moving its tank divisions across the map of the world. He said that Germany would address its national tasks through the power of its national currency. We have seen that the German mark proved strong enough to destroy the Berlin wall and the GDR and, together with them, the entire “second empire” of the Soviet Union.
Within the new subject of international relations that is taking shape (the European Union) Germany having created the euro together with other EU members made a very important step–it abandoned the symbol and the genuine component of real sovereignty that was the German mark in a hope that Germany would acquire the leading role in this new element of the world hierarchy. This will make it in an indirect form the dominant force in Europe, in the European Union in the first place that has a chance to become a superpower.
Regional Powers
Regional powers are the states with limited influence that reaches only the opposing states with equal possibilities or weaker states. There are cases when they stand opposed to great powers and even superpowers not only with their resources but also by uniting in coalitions to increase their possibilities. Today the number of regional powers in the system of international relations or in a limited segment of such relations can be considerably greater than that of great powers.
The number of regional powers (that occupy the place below the great powers and the superpowers) is great: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Pakistan is another large regional power: its population strength, geographic location, and military might further boosted in 1998 by its own nuclear weapons and delivery means spread its influence as far as to the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia in particular.
The majority of regional powers are also striving towards real sovereignty yet not all of them have it today. Iraq’s sovereignty is limited by the UN sanctions imposed on its as a result of its aggression against Kuwait and the defeat at the hands of the US-led coalition in 1991. The real sovereignty of Egypt, one of the key regional powers, is limited by its dependence in annual US aid that started when Kissinger’s diplomacy removed the country from the Soviet sphere of influence in the middle 1970s in exchange of restored Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai Peninsula.
Vietnam, the country that together with China has preserved the Communist Party’s leading role and can boast of many attributes of real sovereignty, is an obvious center of power in the Asian-Pacific Region. In the 1960s-1970s, the country (with an extensive help of the USSR and China) demonstrated its ability not only to stand opposed to one of the two superpowers but also to score an outstanding military victory over it in 1975 associated with the name of General Nguen Wo Ziap. Later Vietnam successfully withstood the pressure of China, its great power neighbor, and even rebuffed its military pressure in the 1979 armed conflict. (According to certain data China had up to 300 thous military on its side.)
In the last 15 to 20 years, the Republic of Korea, one of the Far Eastern regional powers, has obviously increased its might and influence due to its economic and technological breakthroughs and is prepared to continue this trend despite is great military dependence on the United States.
Israel is a regional power, the status being supported by its considerable nuclear arsenal and the US Jewish community prominent in the media, finances, mass culture, and the entertainment industry. This fact provides Israel with a certain amount of global influence.
In the last 10 to 15 years, Spain, a country of rich history and culture has emerged as an interesting regional power phenomenon. A great power of the past, the country has been in a crisis at least since the 17th century. The Franco dictatorship accepted by the greater part of the Western political elite in the Cold War context slowed down the country’s development in the period after World War II.
Spain, like France before it, staked on science-intensive branches and on its own components of the military-industrial complex. In the conditions of globalization Spanish politicians and businessmen turned to the Spanish-speaking Latin America (that it was forced to leave in the 18th and 19th centuries) as one of the resources of winning a place in the sun for their country. Its market has become considerably wider and its goods and services are successfully promoted in Latin America thanks to the common tongue and an active propaganda of Span’s linguistic and cultural features.
The Latin American market allowed Spain to achieve great successes in the banking sphere: today two Spanish banks are among the top ten world banks that control up to 70 percent of international banking operations and 70 percent of world payments.
The Place and Role of Russia
In the 1990s, GDP of the United States increased by about 30 percent while Russia’s GDP (within the RF borders) dropped by 40 percent over the same period. Recently it has recovered to a great extent yet the growth cannot (and will not be able for a long time to come) compensate for the previous decline, lead to an adequate revival in the social and cultural spheres, and contribute to the country’s defense capabilities. This explains frequent remarks about Russia being no longer a superpower or even a great power but merely an “influential regional power.” 27
It seems that despite its obvious weaknesses Russia is not too weak to be simply an “influential regional power.” Russia is a superpower, 28 not merely a great power if we take into account the nuclear weapons factor. It is still the key indicator of military might that is confirmed by the huge expenses India and Pakistan poured into their nuclear status in the post-Cold War era. Besides, Russia’s territory and natural resources are much superior to any of the other great powers to say nothing about the regional powers enumerated above. Russia’s place in the HPDI scale is much lower than that of the Soviet Union–62nd as against 34th to 35th 29 yet is much higher than that of China (99th), India (128th), Brazil (74th), Saudi Arabia (75th) and of many others. There are good chances that it may go even higher if we succeed to extend the life span (that has dropped considerably in the last 10 to 12 years).
Russia has one of the largest energy reserves and is one of the largest energy producers. In 2002, Russia led the world in oil extraction. It outstripped Saudi Arabia that remains the world’s largest oil exporter and one of the OPEC leaders, an organization of which Russia is not a member.
Dependence of mining and exporting raw materials that increased in the post-Soviet era is one of the major weaknesses of Russia. It makes our economy less competitive as compared with the economies of developed and of those of the developing states that are actively increasing the share of processing industry in the GDP. This should be remedied–otherwise Russia will never secure the role of a great power.
The post-Soviet countries are an important resource that can strengthen Russia’s economic positions. Its influence there is much greater than is commonly thought and much less used than it is commonly believed in Moscow.
Russia has retained many real sovereignty components that help it secure (with due account for the successful experience of others) a much higher place “in the sun.” In his State of the Nation Address to the RF National Assembly President Putin spoke of this.
Russia’s real sovereignty allows it to actively interfere in the processes that threaten international peace and Russia with huge losses.
One of the best examples of Russia’s ability as a great power to selectively influence key processes in various corners of the world is the Russian leadership’s impact on the leaders of India and Pakistan that came very close to a nuclear conflict during another of local crises. The impact took the form of an invitation of the premier of India and the president of Pakistan to Almaty in July 2002 to meet President of Russia Putin. The results of this meeting were unjustifiably underestimated by nearly all Russian observers and ignored by a considerable part of the Western media. Meanwhile, professional assessment of later developments, their internal interconnection have made it clear that Russia’s efforts played a very positive role in stabilizing the situation at that time. 30
Russia’s real sovereignty and a number of specifically Russian parameters of might and influence have made it a much more important partner in the eyes of the United States in its war on terror than its traditional allies.
Having considerably improved its relations with the United States in 2002 Russia can now develop its relations with the European Union and with its great Asian neighbor China. Somewhat earlier Russia and China signed an unprecedented among such large countries Treaty on Good-neighborly Relations, Friendship and Cooperation that registered, among other things, a rejection of mutual territorial claims. 31
As Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov put it Russia demonstrated its dedication to the “foreign policy of many vectors.” 32
Pursued further this line will help Russia develop as a modern democratic country with developed institutes of political democracy, its gradual drawing closer to the most developed countries of the world in the economic and social respects.
Russia, no longer a superpower (that status belonged to the Soviet Union), can influence many international processes due to the sum-total of the factors of its national might. It has not evolved into a regional power. According to objective indices and its real steps on the world scene it is a great power. We can preserve and strengthen this status if we create an advanced economy based on the correct use and development of the “human capital.”
Endnotes
Note *: Andrei Kokoshin, Director, Institute of International Security Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences; deputy of the RF State Duma; former Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. Back.
Note a: We should not forget that the Soviet leaders’ bias to economic autarchy (and cooperation with the CMEA) finally turned out to be one of the key reasons of the Soviet economy’s inefficiency. Partly because of this the Soviet Union fell apart together with the entire system of cooperation with other socialist states. In some strange way the autarchic nature of Soviet economy coexisted with the country’s high level of dependence on imported foodstuffs (especially evident in the 1970s). This was amply demonstrated by imports of tens of millions of tons of grain from the United States, the main potential enemy. Back.
Note b: Certain political scientists believe that the Korean People’s Democratic Republic provides an extreme example of ensuring sovereignty: it is protecting its autarchy to the detriment of all segments of its internal economic and social development. It remains dependent on foreign aid in foodstuffs and imports of vitally important goods. Back.
Note c: Some foreign and Russian authors indicate, with good reason that mutual nuclear deterrence limited to a great extent one of the key elements of the two superpowers’ real sovereignty. An awareness of the destructive results of the third world war with a massive use of nuclear weapons erected barriers to the use of armed forces by the sovereign states. It became clear that even the mightiest contemporary state could not protect its citizens against destructive impacts. Back.
Note d: De Tocqueville had failed to foresee Germany’s unification. It claimed the role of a superpower and could obtain it had it stuck to the end to Schlieffen’s plan and first routed France and then Russia in 1914. Before that it had to concentrate on its land army instead of creating a Navy capable of challenging in vain Great Britain’s naval might and threatening the US and Japan. This brought all its adversaries together. Back.
Note e: Recently some of the Western specialists have pointed out with good reason that the Palestinian radicals "have started winning the war against Israel" by actively using terror. If this happens this will negatively affect the entire system of international relations; it may worsen the prospects of anti-terrorist struggle in Russia. Back.
Note f: According to information leaked by one of the West European leaders it was two years ago that China had been invited to join G7, the club of the most developed countries of the world (the US, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, and France.) Later, when Russia joined it the club became G8. The Chinese leaders declined the invitation. Back.
Note g: There is an opinion that when Taiwan is returned to China it will probably demand the return of the Paracel Islands (disputed with Vietnam) and the island of Senkaku (disputed with Japan.) Back.
Note h: Many of the Chinese leaders are convinced that it is the American strategic design not merely to limit China’s influence in the world and to prevent it from becoming a real American rival in the key segments of international relations but to destroy the CPR similar to what was done (as is believed in China) to the Soviet Union, the US main rival of the previous epoch. Back.
Note i: I would like to remind that there existed extensive military and military-technical cooperation between Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia that involved tanks, aviation, chemical weapons, etc. Back.
Note 1: Rossia i novye vyzovy bezopasnosti. Site of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council. Back.
Note 2: Manifest Rossiiskogo patriotizma (Za Rossiu velikuiu i nedelimuiu), People’s Deputy Center headed by A. Bolshakov, V. Galchenko, D. Rogozin, Moscow, 2001, p. 53. Back.
Note 3: A.A. Kokoshin, Put’ Rossii v globalnuiu ekonomiku, Moscow, 1999, pp. 10-18. Back.
Note 4: It is interesting to note that the Internet, one of the major elements and symbols of globalization is extremely fragmented both ethnically and religiously. Back.
Note 5: A.A. Kokoshin, Natsionalnaia bezopasnost Rossii v usloviakh globalizatsii, Moscow, 2001. Back.
Note 6: Novaia filosofskaia entsiklopedia, Vol. III, Moscow, 2001, p. 41. Back.
Note 7: The word “nation” is also used in such combinations as the “civil nation” or “political nation” that was accepted in Europe during the French Revolution of the late 18th century to oppose the idea of the divine origins (and special rights) of the monarch with the idea of civil society and its right to create a state, acquire sovereignty and control all sides of the state activities.
The concept of nation got a wide currency during the epoch when contemporary states were replacing the feudal (dynastic, religious) entities. Together with centralized governance, the market, and mass education the state of the new time also acquires cultural and linguistic uniformity instead of local variety (Richelieu) or together with it; there appeared common civil and legal norms and shared identity. As a rule the civil nations are multi-ethnic entities with different degrees of cultural and political consolidation. See V.A. Tishkov, Etnologia i politika, Moscow, 2001, pp. 235-236. Back.
Note 8: The principle of nation-states appeared (and became operational) in France in the 17th century first thanks to the efforts of Henri IV and his Prime-minister Sully and later of Cardinal Richelieu. When building up a nation-state on the basis of administrative, political, and economic unity of the territory and the related linguistic and cultural uniformity Henri IV when dealing with other states always tried to protect this unity against their encroachments. (At that time France was de facto a polyethnic state with considerable distinctions in the languages, cultures, ways of life in provinces (Provence, Languedoc, Brittany, Normandy, and others) and Central France. At that period, the differences were as great as those between the Muscovite Principality and the Kazan or Astrakhan khanates on the one hand, and the Great Duchy of Lithuania, on the other. The principles of nation-state that was first actively employed in France by Cardinal Richelieu (and later by other European states) spelt the end of the principles of universalism of which the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was the vehicle. Back.
Note 9: The West demonstrated reserve when discussing a possibility of restructuring the debts on the conditions favorable to Russia. It was even more reserved when dealing with a possible remitting of the Soviet debts. (This was done for Poland.) This allowed Corresponding Member of the RAS S. Rogov to say, with good reason, that these debts were very much similar to the reparations that Germany had had to pay to the West after its defeat in World War I. The peak of repayments, said he, would occur in 2003 that might seriously aggravate the social and political situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary and then presidential elections. Back.
Note 10: The Human Potential Development Index is calculated on the basis of the expected life span at the moment of birth, literacy among the adults, the aggregate gross index of the number of students in the educational establishments of the first, second, and third levels, GDP per capita, Doklad OON o razvitii cheloveka, 2002, pp. 144-145. Back.
Note 11: J. Nye, Bound to Lead. The Changing Nature of American Power, N. Y., 1990, pp. 31-32. Back.
Note 12: See the section on nuclear deterrence in A.A. Kokoshin, V.A. Veselov, A.V. Liss, Sderzhivanie vo vtorom iadernom veke, Moscow, 2001, pp. 55-56. Back.
Note 13: In this connection mention should be made of such prominent figure as General von Seydlitz, author of a new cavalry tactics that he applied in many battles. The cavalry fought in tens of squadrons in close formation galloping side by side that required brilliant horsemanship of the cavalry units and exceptional courage of the commanders of all ranks. It was demanded of them to execute stable and consistent command in the rapidly changing situation. General von Seydlitz was the precursor of outstanding tank commanders and commanding officers of Germany and the Soviet Union in World War II. The Soviet tank commanders (especially in 1943-1945) were among those who eventually made the Soviet Union one of the two superpowers. Back.
Note 14: According to certain estimates, in case of a nuclear war about 100 million Americans and over 100 million Soviet citizens would have lost their lives together with millions of West Europeans. All other cataclysms known to history would have looked mere trifles against this background. See G.T. Allison, Ph. Zelikov, The Essence of Decision. Explaining Cuban Missile Crisis, N.Y., Sydney, Amsterdam etc, 1999, p. 1. Back.
Note 15: P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, N.Y., 1987, p. XVII. Back.
Note 16: A. Tocqueville, Demokratia v Amerike, translated from the French, 1992, p. 296 (foreword by Harold G. Lasky). Back.
Note 17: A.A. Kokoshin, V.A. Veselov, A.V. Liss, op. cit., pp. 6-14. Back.
Note 18: It was not my task to analyze all factors and circumstances of the Soviet Union’s downfall as a superpower and its disintegration. Regrettably, no definitive work about this has appeared so far meanwhile Russia cannot go ahead with winning its place in the sun without a profound comprehension of all details and nuances of what happened and without reaching a consensus on such understanding. Back.
Note 19: J. Nye, The Paradox of American Power. Why World’s Only Superpower Can’t Do It Alone, N.Y., 2002, pp. 8-40. Back.
Note 20: Stability of the American markets of corporate securities and state bonds the emission of which repays the US huge (over $6 trillion) state debt is to a great extent maintained by money flows from abroad, mainly from Japan and the Arab oil-producing countries. According to certain data late in 2001 and especially in the first half of 2002 the influx became considerably shallower because of continued economic stagnation in Japan and growing tension between the US and the Arab world. There is information that the American law-enforcement bodies engaged in identifying the channels through which terrorist organizations are funded began arresting accounts of Arabic physical persons and charities in the United States and other countries with which the US had corresponding agreements. This is done on a mass scale and under slightest suspicions. The Arab world that so far handles huge financial resources is thinking about re-channeling its money to other countries. Back.
Note 21: Several months ago American multibillionaire Warren Buffet stated that acts of mega-terror using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the United States might continue and were practically inevitable. He advised not to ensure risks created by terrorist acts of this sort and their possible results. (His main interests lie in the insurance business that sustained huge losses after 11 September 2001.) Back.
Note 22: In many respects this happened because at that time the Soviet Union was involved in all sorts of “costly projects” far removed from the traditional sphere of Russia’s national interests: in Angola, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. The Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan was the apotheosis of this policy. Back.
Note 23: Jiang Zemin, “Vmeste sozidat’ prekrasnoe budushchee kitaisko-russkikh otnoshenii,” Speech by Chairman of the CPR Jiang Zemin at a meeting with prominent public figures of Russia in Moscow State University (Moscow, 17 June 2001), Moscow, 2002, Materialy posolstva KNR v RF, pp. 14-15. Back.
Note 24: Jiang Zemin, Rech’ na Torzhestvennom sobranii po sluchaiu 80-i godovshchiny so dnia sozdania KPK (1 July 2001), Beijing, 2001, p. 57. Back.
Note 25: For a detailed discussion of the key elements of this policy see V.V. Zhurkin, Evropeiski soiuz: vneshniaia politika, bezopasnost’, oborona, Moscow, 1998. Back.
Note 26: H. Kissinger, Diplomatia, translated from English, 1997, p. 67. Back.
Note 27: V. Esin, D. Afinogenov, “K voprosu sovremennogo ponimaniia opasnostei i ugroz v voennoi sphere,” Vestnik analitiki, 2002, No. 2 (8), p. 84. Back.
Note 28: This was recently codified by the signing of the Russian-American Treaty on Reduction of Strategic Offensive Potentials, the fact that can be counted as a considerable Russian diplomatic achievement. Back.
Note 29: Doklad OON o razvitii cheloveka, p. 58. Back.
Note 30: A. Minaev, “‘Chelnok’ Putina ne doletel do tseli,” Novaia gazeta, 10-12 June 2002, p. 9. Back.
Note 31: Specialists pointed out that the CPR had never entered into similar agreements with its neighbors. Back.
Note 32: Answers of Foreign Minister of Russia I.S. Ivanov to the questions by a correspondent of Renmin ribao, 15 July 2002, site of the Foreign Ministry of Russia. Back.