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CIAO DATE: 12/01
International Affairs:
A Russian Journal
Towards Russia's National Revival
V. Nikonov *
The new century is an age of globalization, which is gradually turning the world into a "large village" with state frontiers easily crossed by financial and information flows. What should Russia expect from this?
By boosting national self-awareness in all corners of the world globalization will increase the number of independent states. After World War II there were about 50 states; today there are 190 UN members, the total number of states being about 220. In fifty years time there will be over 500 of them. The principle of territorial integrity will retreat under the pressure of the right of nations to self-determination. Large multinational states of which Russia is one will have to cope with mounting separatism; the national frontiers between developed countries will become less and less important. We can witness the process today in Western Europe.
Large transnational corporations are the main factor of world economy: daily capital turnover on the world financial market has reached $1.5 trillion, which is many times over GDP of the majority of countries, including Russia. In the twenty-first century their economic might will top by far economic potentials of even large countries.
In fact, the states are losing their monopoly on exercising power and deciding the future of the world. They have to share it with growing international business and influential non-governmental organizations of all sorts-religious, ecological, charity, and human rights. Microsoft and Greenpeace are wielding much more instruments that allow them to influence what is going on in the world than nearly half of the UN members do. The states will no longer be able to settle their domestic issues alone: more and more questions will be offered for international consideration.
Competent state leadership will become signally important: globalization can be coped with only through efficient financial, banking, and legal systems, straight governments and defeated corruption. To remain afloat countries will have to supply complete international and domestic information to their citizens, especially to the intellectual and political classes. Today this is the key to information security of any state.
High-quality education will become top priority. Today the term "poor countries" is frequently replaced with "intellect-deficit countries." Poor states will find it increasingly harder to compete in the intellectual sphere. They will feel the "brain drain" pressure more than others. This will widen the economic and social gap, the gap between the rich and destitute countries.
Democratic values will spread across the world together with informational transparency and increased demands for market competitiveness creating new formally democratic states. At the same time, omniscient electronic databases will store information about telemetric parameters, DNA structure, fingerprints, habits and other features of all and everyone living on earth. This will dramatically limit privacy and open the road towards global control over individuals-an obvious violation of the basic democratic principles. Private life will require additional protective measures. The boundary between domestic and foreign policies will become fuzzy. Willingly or unwillingly political leaders will have to get down to cope with global problems: changed climate, ozone holes, desertification, hydrocarbon emission, ecology, international crime, epidemics, uncontrollable megalopolises and individual alienation. Energy, scientific and technical, and transportation policies will become international issues.
What was known as "low diplomacy" (trade, technologies, and monetary correction) will gradually push aside "high diplomacy" (national security, wars, and summits.)
The security policy will radically change its content: "soft security" connected with economy, finances, poverty and ethnic conflicts will move to the forefront. The military security problems while remaining as important as ever will move from the military confrontation sphere to high-tech competition among the developed states. At the same time, there is a danger of proliferation of mass destruction weapons and missile technologies created by increased know-how transfer across state borders and chaotic international relations. This has already triggered arms race in developing countries.
The three centers of power (the US, EU, and Japan) will determine developments the world over. China and India will do their best to close the gap between themselves and the three leaders. Russia can potentially become another center of power if things go well.
In the nearest decades the three main centers will determine regional integration. Europe, in the form of the European Union, will enter the stage of a post-national state. In the nearest ten years the Union will swell to 30 members with common frontiers, currency, and probably, constitution. The NAFTA will follow suite: it will actively extend to Latin America; it stands a good chance of having 34 members by 2010. Integration in East Asia will proceed at a slower pace while Japan and China will compete for leadership. South Asia and especially Africa where the process of forming national states is still under way will not integrate in the foreseeable future. The CIS members will have their share of integration urge though not necessarily with Russia. Certain former Soviet republics will be attracted by EU or be Asian centers of attraction.
The coming decades will be filled with acute discussions of a system of global management, a sort of a world-wide government. Russian national patriots who are convinced that such government has already become a reality are wrong. The UN that is undergoing changes may claim this role: its Security Council may turn into a quasi cabinet and the General Assembly, into a quasi parliament. This is what will suit Russia best but will hardly be favored by the largest world players unwilling to shackle themselves with the position of hundreds of much weaker states. One hegemonic power (the US) or a group of largest states united into NATO or a "large G7 or G8" transformed into still larger G9 or G10, etc., may try assume political domination over global development. This is actively translated into practice but will inevitably be rebuffed by the states outside the great power club. There will be other options. It seems that the world system will vacillate between the attempts to impose unipolar domination and de facto multipolar system which will go on for a long time: the final choice of the global administration model will not be done in a hurry.
In the early twenty-first century Russia has found itself at the crossroads once more: recently the discussions of its civilizational choice and the place in the contemporary and future world have been revived. Their vehemence is easily explained: there are dozens of contradictory and mutually exclusive answers to the question "Who are we?"
Russia traditionally belongs to the great power club and remains in it due to inertia mainly because of its powerful nuclear potential. It is part of the "First World" together with North America, Japan, and EU with all the necessary trimmings: membership in the UN Security Council, G8, and a place at EU summits.
Its economic potential places it in the lower part of the "Second World" together with those Asian countries which, headed by China and India, are trying to overtake the "First World" and some of the Latin American states. Our advantage that may disappear without trace is formed by unique technologies and the best education system. Even if Russia manages to keep with the planned economic development rates it will still lag behind the West. Despite 8 percent of economic growth it showed in 2000 our GDP is still several hundred billion dollars below that of the United States with their 3 percent of growth.
Russia with its 50th place is well behind the leaders of the second group (and closer to the Third World) where involvement in information revolution as well as internationalization of production and capital are concerned. In fact, we have no part to play in this revolution.
The Russian elite and the man-in-the-street are equally dissatisfied with the country's increasing exclusion from the world's developments: the national pride is badly wounded. It should be said that at no time after the Tartar yoke Russia was equally relatively weak as compared with other centers of power. As a result of Soviet and post-Soviet experiments Russia has shrunk to the frontiers of Ivan the Terrible's times. Economically we are comparable with Taiwan. Problems are piling up: we find it hard to fit into global integration in the West and in the East. There is no national idea or a comprehensible ideology in general to offer the nation. The top leaders are sending out contradictory signals to the people and the world outside.
Today the choice of a road to follow is very important; in the past the relevant discussions were of philosophical and theoretical nature: today it is the question of revival and continued existence as a state. Our time is up: we cannot make another mistake or plunge into another experiment.
The present round of discussions went along the same routes: Westernism, Eurasianism, and anti-Westernism. Each of the trends has long histories behind them and hundreds of great names to back them up; their impact on present discussions is both obvious and inevitable. Correspondingly, there are three geostrategic options: Russia is a Western country; Russia is a specific and isolated civilization; Russia is the leader of the anti-Western world.
Put in a nutshell each of the schools of thought has rationales and myths of its own which doom them to formulating tasks that have no future, cannot be translated into reality or obviously hazardous. Dedication to the old schemes ties us to the categories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It speaks of poverty of imagination and a failure to understand the super-dynamic world of the twenty-first century or, to put it generally the correlation between the desired and the realizable.
Let's start with Westernism: according to its logic we should recognize that the interests of Russia and those of the West are identical therefore we should apply to EU and NATO, drop our objections to NATO's extension and support the US missile-defense plans, refrain from objecting to bombing of Iraq and other actions against the rogue states. All other sentiments are dismissed as adolescent complexes. Those who support the trend are right when they say that it is good to be admitted to a privileged club. There is a lot of money there. The West is riding the privatization wave: 80 percent of financial and information flows come from the United States, European Union, and Japan. The West has started measuring force not so much by military factors (where Russia is also trailing behind) but mainly by the economic, scientific, technological, information, and other factors. What we need is resources to carry out modernization and high technologies. Confrontation with the West is counterproductive. I should say that this approach is oversimplified, unrealistic and impractical. It presents the world as a white-and-black picture (very much loved by the Western mind). People can be either Western and pro-Western or ignorant and anti-Western. There are no half-tones. Meanwhile over half of mankind is living in Eastern Asia with its nearly half of world economy. There are well-educated people who have no anti-Western feelings: they know the West well and have no illusions about it.
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The main thing that prevents us from moving to the West is the knowledge that we shall not be admitted to the club. In any case my generation won't see it. The West does not allow Russia to come too close; in the nearest future Russia will have no chance to be integrated in the key Western structures such as EU and NATO even if we want it very much. It is counterproductive to pose ourselves unrealizable aims. Only a country defeated in a war and occupied can recognize foreign political interests of others as its own. Russia is neither defeated nor occupied. Objectively our interests in many areas do not coincide with those of the West. Indeed, we cannot ignore China or enter into confrontation with it: its northern provinces are a home for 400 million with only 7 million of Russians living across the border in the Russian Far East. Objectively, the West wants diverse routes for Caspian oil while we badly need the pipeline running across our territory. The West wants low oil prices-we want high prices. The list can be made even longer.
We have no reasons to support NATO's eastward movement, which objectively isolates Russia and weakens its role in the European security issue. We have no reasons to side with the United States in unfolding anti-missile defense: this problem goes far beyond bilateral relations. It is not because of malicious anti-Americanism that there are objections to overturning the ABM treaty. There are apprehensions that this will break down the strategic weapon control system, trigger skyrocketing strengthening of China's nuclear potential and proliferation of nuclear energy to the threshold countries. This is why the treaty is important for Russia and for the world community as a whole.
We have no reasons to look at current international law as imperfect and not enforceable therefore we have no reasons to turn a blind eye on "humanitarian" or "routine" unilateral bombing not agreed upon with the UN Security Council.
We are not rich enough to drop our economic interests in the countries, which are causing allergy in the West. Such step would have caused financial losses not compensated for by financial gains elsewhere. One Russian-Vietnamese oil company brings more that the total amount of American aid. It should be added that the West is guarding its present and future economic interests in the "rogues countries" far better than we.
We cannot become like the West or part of the West by next Thursday something that the Russian Westerners want very much. This is where the anti-Westerners and Eurasians are right yet their approaches are even less acceptable in the twenty-first century.
In full conformity with the worldwide plot theory the anti-Westerners are accusing the West of purposeful destruction of Russia: it has no choice but lead the rest of mankind against globalization translated as imperialism and hegemonism. They want Russia to play at strategic "multipolarity" in an attempt to limit the US hegemony which presupposes drawing closer to China, India and other members of the Asian group that is slowly taking shape, to the "rogue states." Russia is also expected to worsen its relations with the United States and Western Europe, which is following the US geostrategic lead.
The anti-Westerners are right when they say that globalization favors the "First World" more than all others; they are right when they say that we cannot expect charity and that Russian and Western interests clash in the CIS. This does not make their unproductive and dangerous course more productive or less dangerous.
It is an illusion that anybody in the anti-Western camp needs our leadership. In fact the very existence of such camp needs to be proved. Russia's possibilities are not as large as those of China and India while their feelings are not unambiguously anti-Western.
There is no future in a confrontation with the most developed countries: potentially we can create less trouble for them than they for us hooking us with our financial obligations, destabilizing our periphery inside and outside the country, and limiting our exports. Not infrequently we lose more than we can acquire through excessively close contacts with the "rogue countries" and exercising instinctive anti-Americanism. Russia has no strength to enter into global confrontation: we shall have to detract the meager resources from domestic needs thus plunging people into greater poverty. Anti-Western sentiments can accomplish nothing but bury Russia.
Finally, there is the Eurasian paradigm stressing the country's originality. It presupposed that we should concentrate on our own development; deal with those who want to deal with us; achieve modernization relying on our own strength by strengthening power and mobilizing all resources.
The Eurasians are right when they say that ours is a unique country (like many others, by the way) and that our failure to fully appreciate the history-conditioned specific mentality and geopolitical situation was one of the main causes behind the flops of the nineties. In his Ot pervogo litsa (First Person Singular) Putin spoke about Russia as a country of European or even West European culture. I doubt this very much.
Yet the Eurasian (isolationist) paradigm dooms Russia to a historically traditional strategy: trying to catch up with the world using its own resources. Theoretically the strategy is inefficient-it will not let Russia occupy the leading positions in the world. We have fallen too far behind, the quality of human potential, the nation's tiredness with the communist experiment and the decade of reforms do not allow us to hope that we can surge forward on our own even if executive power consolidates still more. Russia can develop on its own: there will be a very slow progress or even stagnation, which will increase the gap between it and the West. Our resources (oil, gas, and metal) are the cheapest commodities in the world. They are much cheaper than computer software, high technologies, etc. Overstraining will produce short-lived improvement which will aggravate the existing problem, separate Russia from financial flows and kill off the shoots of hope (among the most active and viable groups and, worst of all, among the young.) We should not pin hopes on an economic miracle, it is a waste of time to hold forth about skipping development stages: this detracts us from consistent economic and social structural reforms. Such talk has very much in common with demoralizing fairy-tale expectations of a golden fish or a frog queen.
The Eurasian paradigm tends to be degraded into an apology of backwardness. If we tend to cooperate with those who want to cooperate with us we shall end with partners who need aid themselves. The Eurasian prescription will push Russia to anti-Western sentiments with unpalatable repercussions.
Is there the fourth road leading outside the old triangle: Westernism, Eurasianism, and anti-Westernism? I am inclined to give a positive answer. My name for the fourth model is an integrational model or a strategy of involving Russia into the world going more and more globalized. Russia will not become the West but there is no need for it to become an anti-West or an island in the world ocean.
Russia should concentrate on national revival. It should avoid self-isolation and confrontation in foreign politics. We should aim at the maximally possible and realistic integration into the world economy and a high-quality market. This can be done with the help of large-scale investments and upgraded goods to add them competitiveness on the world markets. Single-handedly, Russia has no chance to accomplish the breakthrough.
We should not pose themselves a task of EU and NATO membership since this is unrealistic and, therefore, counterproductive. Yet we can formulate a task of reaching the highest possible level of cooperation with the First World countries. Using our G8 membership and possible OECD membership we should strengthen our positions in it. The dialogue with EU should be made more active with stronger emphasis on economic cooperation beyond the traditional frames (gas, oil, metal, and timber). With this aim in view we should accept the European legal standards when drawing domestic laws if they do not go against the national interests. We are doomed to a dialogue with NATO if we want to preserve our positions in the security issues even though Russia has not got a single reason to encourage the Alliance's extension. Russia will never hail NATO military interventions not sanctioned by the UN Security Council with our participation.
We can and should cooperate with the West where such cooperation is possible and where we have common interests. We can work together on a positive agenda which may include the problems of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the threats from the Taleban and Islamic extremism in general, unification of Korea, Middle East settlement, energy security in the context of a possible world energy crisis experts predict for 10 years from now, and many other things. The recent meeting of the contact group has shown that in the Balkans we and the West tend to agree rather than disagree on many points.
The WTO membership is a sine qua non of Russia's fitting the globalized economy and its reaching outside markets. In his annual message to the Federal Assembly Vladimir Putin has described this as one of the national priorities for the next two years. No domestic or foreign investments can be expected if there are no guarantees of secure business activity, minimization of political and social risks, a normal legal sphere and efficient judicial system, putting an end to monstrous corruption, final settlement of land ownership problems, banking reform, improved corporate management, more developed infrastructure, stopping money laundering, and improvement of Russia's international image. The democratic principles of the state order should be preserved and developed. The potentials of the civic society institutes and the non-governmental sector should be boosted: they are to play an increasingly important role in the globalization context. In many respects they determine the influence of individual states in the contemporary world. This is a demand of the times.
Russia needs not abandon its allies-there are few of them and no new ones are knocking at its door. We have to strengthen our relations with the Asian giants no matter what people across the ocean may happen to think of this: Asia is a promising and growing market. Russia will not have another one in the nearest years or even decades.
Obviously, Russia as a "unidimentional" power cannot weaken its nuclear factor in foreign policy especially in the context of growing unpredictability and instability of international relations. We have to modernize our conventional forces yet they will be of little use if not backed up by the nuclear potential, even smaller than today.
The state should change to preserve competitiveness in the world that is going global in the twenty-first century. Globalization places high demands on state administration, the political class, and intellectual elite. We have to close a wide gap in this sphere to be able to continue using the same language when speaking with the First World elites. Its challenges can be met only if state politics are conducted in a disciplined and competent way, when administration itself is more efficient and purer, when there is close coordination between power's efforts in the country and outside it, of the non-governmental public organizations and business structures for the sake of the nation. Russia's future in the twenty-first century depends on whether we join those countries which will become the brain of mankind or side with those doomed to become other parts of the body. Russia will remain behind forever if it fails to make a big leap forward in the economic sphere so that to join the world that is becoming globalized as an equal and strong player.
In our politics we should proceed from the national interests and the priority of domestic problems. Our international activity should be maximally atomized. Without that our economic revival will be protracted and painful. We should be absolutely pragmatic which excludes historically conditioned sympathies and antipathies which presupposes our concentration on realistic tasks.
We have all possibilities to become a respected and self-respecting country able to give its people dignified life and to preserve its own dignity, which lives in peace with itself and the rest of the world.
Endnotes
Note *: Viacheslav Nikonov is President of the Politika Foundation and Doctor of Sciences (History). Back