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CIAO DATE: 12/03
International Affairs:
A Russian Journal
The Iraqi Crisis and the Imposed Consensus Strategy
A. Bogaturov *
During a relatively short span of time, in February and March, the crisis around Iraq amply demonstrated that new circumstances have surfaced in world politics, in the relations between the U.S. and its West European and other partners in the first place, that may change the existing political system to a great extent.
The U.N. Security Council sitting of 5 February 2003 (that can be called historic) at which State Secretary Colin Powell, in a very assertive way, tried to justify his country's right to punish Iraq revealed that Britain, the U.S. "eternal ally," alone among states of significance was prepared to support Washington. Three out of five permanent Security Council members spoke against these plans during the discussion (I do not have in mind the voting on resolution). In Europe Germany and France united to oppose American plans; Russia joined them during President Putin's visit. NATO spared no effort to close the gap created by the Iraqi issue. This was what happened on the official level. Massive protests that swept Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the United States for the first time since the Vietnam War added new quality to the situation.
Disintegration of bipolarity has not added democracy to the world order. The relations between states and nations remain hierarchical: theoretically they are all equal yet everybody knows which ones are "more equal" than others. The good thing is that the style of interstate cooperation has changed beyond recognition - the most influential powers that continue calling themselves "great powers" by force of habit stopped threatening each other in a very rude way and accepted the old truth: "A bad peace is better than a good quarrel." "Compromise" and "consensus" emerged as two key terms in the early 21st century neither of them becoming a symbol of harmony of interests of various countries; contradictions remained an element of international relations. The diplomats learned new skills of compromising on the bitterest and most unpleasant issues. The quality of the international political environment changed: it offers the diplomats a new, denser and more integrated milieu in which different countries have different possibilities of acting autonomously, independently and separately from each other.
The diplomatic storm in February caused by the American and British intentions to use force against the ruling regime in Iraq threw into bolder relief a thought-provoking trend: armed with all material, technical, and organizational possibilities for their attack on Iraq Washington and London are still insisting on obtaining support, no matter how passive, of the world leaders (probably except China). Due to many reasons the United States wants to avoid moral and political differences with its partners of which Russia is one. This has already altered the context in which diplomats are working.
Indeed, several features have emerged as the key ones in international relations of the new century. First, the classical relations among states are gradually becoming what is called "world politics" - the sphere of compressed, integrated interaction among states and non-state subjects of international relations based in geographical areas, divided by state borders. This interaction covers an unlimited range of problems. In fact, the world entity has not lost its contradictory nature yet its outside contours gained more stability.
Second, the United State uses its leadership in economy, high tech and military spheres to strengthen its position as a global leader around which the new world order is being formed. American leadership that the Republican Administration is confirming with a great deal of arrogance irritates other states. Many countries profit from their cooperation with America yet anti-American sentiments are mounting across the world. The United States is aware of this - an interesting and a relatively new feature of the international situation.
Third, Washington has broadened the range of means it uses to tap the resources of its old (NATO) and new (Russia) partners to realize its international tasks. The means themselves have become more varied and subtle. The American elite is completely taken by its efforts to create a new agenda of global politics for the first half of this century that can be called "American project for Russia and the world." The United States is convinced that to preserve its world leadership it should complete its own resources with resources of other countries not through force but through economic and political integration that is by peaceful means. Integration in all meanings of the word has become the key element of the American foreign policy instrument. Hence its desire to extol the NAFTA and an impressive plan of integration of the entire Western Hemisphere. The Americans are moving in this direction while consistently trying to penetrate the Asian-Pacific economic cooperation with the help of America's special military-political and economic ties with Japan, trade and economic cooperation with China and Taiwan, South Korea, the ASEAN countries, and Australia.
The present stage of Russian-American partnership should be interpreted in the context of this "pan-integration" strategy (or the "strategy of taming embrace" as it should be more aptly called). The value and the special features of Russia's potential (not so much and not only its raw material potential as its spatial, geopolitical, and geoeconomic potential) is much better understood in the United States than among the Russian "spasmodically liberal" politicians. Expanse, an ability of Russia's leaders to preserve and control it, the potential of Russia's influence (constructive or containing) in the key points of its border areas in the Far East, Central Asia, and the Southern Caucasus force Washington to regard Moscow as a valuable potential partner. From the American side of the ocean, U.S. support for democratization of Russia, that Russia objectively needs, looks not so much as an aim in itself but as an instrument of preserving Russia as America's partner.
Later, the roles of the main American partners and their influence become redistributed in such a way that Russia acquired much more influence than in Yeltsin's times. As a result, the trend towards pluralism of opinions and positions asserted itself in 2002 within the "unipolar world" that the United States tried to create. The interests of continental Europe and, especially, of the large states are very close to exceeding the limits of unipolarity. This is what we are watching today in connection with the Iraqi crisis.
Finally, overheated international economy (that in 2002 had barely avoided an expected collapse of its virtual elements) slowed down yet it continues developing towards global production units, stronger transnational financial, technological, and information networks. In this sense the "invisible rebellion" of these networks against Washington and its mechanism of world regulation is responsible for the drama and the conflict of the present situation. The transnational financial networks have escaped control of the leading countries, including the United States, and international organizations. The former is doing its best to restore part of its former control over the worldwide flows of capital under the slogan of fighting those who fund terrorists. They demand that their partners should to the same. So far, the efforts have remained fruitless. The war in Afghanistan the active phase of which was completed in 2002 looked, in the political context, like a punitive expedition against one of the "unreliable regimes." In the economic context, however, it was the first military action of America and its allies designed to restore state and interstate control over the flows of "gray" and "black" money created by drug trafficking. The turn of the Baghdad regime will come soon.
Irritation with which the U.S. administration is treating international terrorism is explained by the fact that it is fully aware of low efficiency of this attempt from the point of view of long-term prospects of global control. Antiterrorist struggle justifies harsh methods and the use of force to restore the complicated mechanism of managing the transnational financial system. After all, in the last fifteen years the national governments lost their positions while the autonomous, extra-national or even antinational and transnational interests dramatically increased their importance.
Terrorism has stuck to the transnational financial networks - it lives at their expense, at least at the expense of that part of them that survives on drug money. Terrorism wants to extend the drug sector of international economy. This desire is mutual: the transnational financial networks need drug money that makes them stronger. We are dealing with a three-headed monster: an informal coalition of transnational financial interest, drug mafia, and terrorism. It is as dangerous as the nuclear threat of the bipolar world because transnational money has placed itself higher than nation-states. The latter do not know how to fight this threat - all they can do is to fight each other.
The conflict between the trans-state threats arranged into networks and spread all over the world and the old mechanisms of international relations managed by impulses from Washington, Beijing, Moscow, the U.N. New York headquarters, and the migrant G8 is the main contradiction of our time.
Am I too abstract? No. The above points to the so far only and main threat to American domination and "pluralistic unipolarity." None of the large states, including China, will in the nearest future plan a war against the United States. The country may fell victim to globalization that President Clinton officially described as one of the aims of U.S. foreign policy.
Will the alliance between Russia and America survive in this context? This is the third attempt to consolidate it. The first of such attempts that dated to the Gorbachev era failed: the Soviet Union fell apart burying the idea of the Soviet-American "alliance for the sake of order" under its debris. The second attempt dated to Yeltsin's presidentship failed because for nine years the first president of Russia was pestering President Clinton with demands of equal partnership. It all ended with a quarrel over Kosovo: the Americans failed to understand why Moscow insisted on equality while lacking equal potentials.
I should say that Putin had luck on his side. First, the economic situation is much better that in Yeltsin's time. The oil prices do not plunge; the cabinet periodically starts talking about structural economic reforms in order to move away from the country's present dependence on raw material exports. Second, Russia and America have finally acquired a common foe named terrorism. We cannot help the United States in its antiterrorist efforts while the United States is not helping us in Chechnia yet a common enemy is an important factor. For the first time since the victory over the Nazis in 1946 the two countries realized that they could be useful to one another. In the past they mainly concentrated on minimizing mutual injuries.
This has changed the political and psychological background of Russo-American relations to a great extent. For the first time after Gorbachev the Americans started treating Russia with a mixture of interest and reserved respect. Not because Moscow has acquired a new president - young and eloquent; not because their new president who vaguely resembles ours and who is always ready to administer justice and dispense punishment liked President Putin. Interest and respect were born by the changed configuration of U.S. global interests in which Russia acquired an absolutely different role than that inherited from the old transitional structure of international relations and America's foreign policy aims left behind in the 20th century.
We are watching how American foreign policy is becoming "Eurasian." This is an absolutely new development: in the past all American strategic conceptions did mention Eurasia in passing. For nearly two centuries America insisted that its main foreign policy task was to prevent an appearance of a power capable of Eurasian hegemony. This was a purely formal approach: Europe, the Western hemisphere and Japan dominated with Europe heading the list of foreign policy priorities.
The order of priorities has changed: Europe is important yet its role is different. In the past it was seen as the frontline in confrontation with the most dangerous enemy. Today, Europe is America's home front; the frontline has moved to Central Eurasia where the borders of Afghanistan, the former Soviet Central Asian republics, and of two newcomers to the nuclear pool (India and Pakistan) meet. This is where the new geopolitical center of the world will be found in the new century. To the east there is China, a strong and dangerous power; to the west, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, three mighty oil-rich powers. The former two are openly hostile to the United States, the latter camouflages its hostility. Europe is impotent or nearly impotent in this part of the world. It cannot help the United States and will become a partner of secondary importance in America's global strategy.
The role of NATO as primarily a European organization has changed to the same extent as that of Europe. Only one of its members, Britain, can practically help the United States to deal with its global or Eurasian political tasks. NATO and Europe remain important for the U.S. yet their military value is diminishing at least today even if we take into account the alliance's new members. They are all small, weak, some of them are even comical in military respects (such as Estonia or Rumania). No matter how strange this may sound NATO needs Russia to preserve its old military-political role in the U.S. foreign policy. Russia's geopolitical (territorial) resource will allow NATO to move to new positions and to acquire decisive influence in Central Eurasia, the new geopolitical center of the world. Recently it has become abundantly clear that with Russia remaining outside the alliance NATO has no choice but reform itself lest it turns into an average European security structure and loses its former role of a global offensive structure (a defensive alliance of sorts). In this case Americans will rely on bilateral alliances-with Britain, Japan and, possibly, India to realize their offensive foreign policy strategy.
This explains the new role of the U.S.-Russia partnership. What if Russia finds itself among America's real or potential allies in the new century? Indeed, it was ten years ago that Russian politicians had declared a course towards an alliance with the United States yet real cooperation became evident a year ago. Not because Washington suddenly discovered a soft spot for Russia -this has not happened and will never happen. It seems that Washington needs Russia - hence a new formula of dual approach to it. On the one hand, Moscow is consistently criticized for everything that does not meet the American ideas of expediency (the Chechnya issue is one of the examples); on the other, it is consistently involved into a long-term political and military-political interaction with Washington that reserves the leading role for itself.
On the one hand, this gives us a chance to consolidate our position among the most influential countries; on the other, there is a lot of risk and a challenge: relations with the United States call for a great deal of composure and a carefully balanced interests of the sides. Today, America is demonstrating more tolerance than ever to Russia's politics in the neighboring countries, in the Middle East and to Russia's treatment of the human rights issue. This is the external side.
It conceals deep-cutting contradictions over the main issue: while the U.S. is prepared to offer Moscow an honorable role of a junior partner with all the consequences (the need to take into account Washington's wishes concerning Russia's domestic and foreign polices) Russia's elite is not prepared to accept this role. It will hardly agree to it in the nearest future. This explains why disagreements and quarrels are inevitable on the road towards closer relations: disagreements over Iraq are one of the examples. Still, a new mode of action can be discerned in world diplomacy.
In the new century the United States is playing the role of a relict, the last superpower in the traditional meaning of the word: a huge country with paramount economic and military-political possibilities, an empire with a loose and heterogeneous ethnic and racial structure. Can this be taken for a sign of America's firm domination? It seems that this points to America's limited possibilities in the 21st century and, probably, to the brittleness of the American state structure. In Russia it was landless peasants and soldiers tired of the war that rebelled against the state. It seems that in America internal contradictions are fed by ethnic communities with their trans-national and "trans-American" identities. If any upheavals happen at all they will happen much later. Today, Russia has to deal with America of the present.
The United States has armed itself with a doctrine of "changing of regimes" in other countries: this is what is important for Russia and its diplomacy. The situation is difficult. The United States has reached an apogee of its domination over other countries the foreign policy resources of which are scattered and limited.
American diplomacy is using its vast resources sparingly. Washington is watching closely its enemies and tries to keep the list of them within certain limits. Indeed, the number of states officially proclaimed "rogue states" is stable and small. The U.S. Administration hints: the number is small therefore the use of force against such countries will not trigger a vast conflict.
The U.S. cherishes unity among its allies and tries to avoid any head-on diplomatic clashes with its partners. Washington prefers to talk, to dispense promises that would fit the situation. Harsh words and harsh warnings come as the last resort. The United States wins twice: it diminishes the opposition among the allies and shifts the burden of fulfilling the decisions imposed on them to their shoulders. American diplomats know how to impose on their "willing or unwilling partners" their variants of dealing with international problems so that it would look like a consensus reached by mutual compromises and negotiated measures.
The United States invites its former and potential rivals into cooperation to turn them into partners. No matter how unwilling or unreliable, they become partners not enemies. This is what the "imposed consensus" strategy is about. It malfunctions at times and everybody sees this. Iraq is only one of such cases.
China, Russia, and the European countries (that have united into the still politically disunited European Union) are consistently and sometimes stubbornly trying to assert their independence of what America is doing. An opposite is also true: the strongest countries (from China and Russia to Germany and France) have trade, economic, and financial ties of long standing with America: none of them is prepared to disrupt them.
The "genetic code" of Russia's diplomacy is changing accordingly. In the 1990s, Russia tried to avoid opposition with the West and to keep the West from becoming too hostile. Today, there is no talk about hostility and opposition. Russia is working hard towards securing the most favorable positions inside the global partnership system so that to use them to maintain the adequate level of control across the territory of the Russian Federation (including the zone controlled by the terrorists in Chechnya) and preserve Russia's influence along its borders within its geopolitical expanse.
A superficial observer may take the present diplomatic course of Russia's for a continuation of Yeltsin's policy. This is not true. Yeltsin demonstrated his friendship with the West (that looked unconvincing) to strengthen his power inside the country the legitimacy of which was constantly doubted by the Russian political community and Russia's realities. Putin has no cares of this sort: nobody questions his power in earnest inside the country. He treats partnership with the United States in a pragmatic and instrumental way. He does not look at American from below, he feels no compulsion to pronounce anti-communist incantations. Russia's new foreign policy demonstrates more reason and more consideration for its own interests compared and coordinated with the interests of America and the West. As distinct from his predecessors - Gorbachev and Yeltsin - Putin never had any illusions about them.
In the new conditions an alliance with the West is seen as an important foreign policy instrument to be used where no other instruments can be effective. Indeed, a head-on attack proved futile when it came to persuading the Baltic states to alter their laws concerning the local Russians. This was accomplished with the help of international organizations. It was impossible to prevent their NATO membership yet it proved possible to anticipate and devalue it by drawing closer to the U.S. and NATO. This was a choice of lesser evil-the choice was made with open eyes, quite consciously, after a careful examination of all possible options (orientation on China, equal distancing, etc.). This was not a romantic choice-reliability was the key word. This explains why Russian diplomacy while being fully aware of the true meaning and nature of the "imposed consensus" strategy has to agree to it in general.
One should not dupe oneself about the true nature of the relationships with the United States based on the "imposed consensus" strategy. The American Administration daily demonstrates its tendency to overestimate its possibilities and inflate self-assertion, to belittle the role of an opposition and its criticism of the American course. This is a risky policy that spreads risks to the American partners of which Russia is one therefore its diplomacy has to think about how to "minimize the risks." Today Russia, as one of the allies, can do this while being inside the group of American allies, while interacting with them and talking to the Americans.
The situation around Iraq provides not so much an opportunity to criticize American presumption and egotism as a chance to approach the idea of a permanent coalition among the continental members of G8 (France, Germany, Italy, and Russia) with an aim of cooperating for the sake of diminishing the authoritarian nature of American leadership and restoring the word "consensus" to its true meaning. This should not be taken for the imaginary game of "inter-imperialist contradictions." Russia has joined the system of political relationships within the Groups of 7 - the fact that breeds many problems and limitations. This also offers a host of possibilities.
When speaking in the Hotel Bristol in Paris on 11 February 2003, President Putin described the seemingly spontaneous yet in fact long overdue "revolt in protection of one's own sovereignty" raised by certain West European countries with Russia's moral and political support against the U.S.-U.K. line on military interference in Iraq as a step towards a multipolar world. This was the first in many years weighty and clear statement of Russia's official position, its preference for the future of international relations that will probably exert an increasingly greater influence on the country's foreign policy course. Today, an outline of a multipolar future is still dim. It is equally hard to say in advance which of the possible variants will answer Russia's interests.
What is clear is a shadow of a tripartite (France-Germany-Russia) an hoc coalition against the U.S. military operation in Iraq and the first since the Greek-Turkish conflict over Cyprus a moral and political crisis in NATO that created a unique situation in world politics. It is for the first time since the Soviet Union's disintegration that the old and recent American partners risked to use diplomatic and political methods to force Washington to see reason and to keep it from another military adventure. It is important to realize that the countries that disagree with the American course are doing their best to avoid confrontation with the U.S. and to persuade it, insistently yet delicately, that the war against Iraq is out of place and ill-timed.
In short, the antiwar coalition that sprang to life "all of a sudden" is trying to reach a compromise with Washington and to preserve a fragile and far from unambiguous international consensus over the Iraqi issue dated from summer 2002. Obviously, what is going on now is the first case when the "consensus strategy" was applied not by the United States in relation to its weaker partners but by the latter to the former. This adds a new dimension to the present international situation and makes the future look exciting.
Endnotes
Note *: Aleksei Bogaturov, Director, International Relations Research and Educational Forum, Doctor of Sciences (Political Sciences), Professor. Back