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04.04.07
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The Kremlin’s View Of The World
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Comment by Vladimir Frolov
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On March 27, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a lengthy document – more than 100 pages long – entitled “A Review of the Russian Federation’s Foreign Policy.” The review is breathtaking in scope and unprecedented in analytical depth and focus. It is also long overdue.
Since the release in 2000 of the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, there has been no formal review of the strategic policy and no updates in doctrinal documents that would have allowed the public to see the evolution of the worldview from Moscow. The present review had been commissioned in Fall 2006, well before President Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich in February 2007, and clearly served as a basis for some of the most important and controversial points Putin made there. In Munich, Putin gave the first public glimpse into what a profound transformation in Moscow’s thinking has occurred. The review is a second, more detailed look.
The review supports Putin’s advocacy for the inevitable transition to a multipolar world. The ministry argues that “increasing globalization processes, despite their contradictory consequences, lead to a more equitable distribution of resources for influence and economic growth, laying an objective foundation for multipolarity in international relations.” The document argues that these processes promote the “equilibrium and competitive environment” that were lost with the end of the Cold War and now are gradually restored in large part due to the return to the international scene of a strong and self-confident Russia.
The document portrays Russia as a force for “positive change in the world,” thus positioning the country as an activist power intent on shaping the international environment in its interests and according to its understanding of international justice. That is quite different from the status quo power Russia has been throughout the last decade and a half. Moscow sees international competition moving toward the realm of values and effective models of development, and stakes a serious claim to leadership in this area.
The review is full of veiled criticism of the United States and sometimes quite blunt criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. The ministry calls Russian-American relations “ambivalent,” and criticizes what it calls U.S. pursuit of a “unipolar world.” It accuses Washington of imposing its own model of democratic development on other countries under the pretext of confronting new global challenges and threats, as well as of arbitrary application of international law. It also claims that the United States wrongly overestimates the utility of using military force to solve international problems, and says it is the by-product of a “unilateralist inertia” based on “victory in the cold war syndrome.” It claims that today’s international problems cannot be solved solely through the use of force, and that the illegitimate, unilateralist use of force as practiced by Washington exacerbates existing problems. The myth of the unipolar world has foundered in Iraq, the review asserts, and the model of international relations based on the predominance of one indispensable power has proven to be unworkable and no longer has a legitimate cultural basis.
In a not so subtle rebuke to the United States, the study points out that there are “some countries that regard Russia as a potentially dangerous competitor on the world economic stage and seek to restrict our country's competitive advantages...as a major reservoir for global economic growth.”
The review also finds a lot of ground to criticize the United States for its lack of interest in new arms control agreements and its efforts on missile defense deployments that might upset the current strategic balance.
All of these sentiments were expressed in Putin’s speech in Munich.
But the review is not anti-American or anti-Western in its conclusions. It does not in any way call for a concerted effort to undermine U.S. global positions or to create anti-American alliances among those nations that find much at fault with U.S. behavior. The review notes that Moscow and Washington are linked by some common interests, including “a shared concern for strengthening the nonproliferation regime.”
Essentially, the new Russian foreign policy concept focuses on promoting the benefits of collective leadership by a group of leading international players with unique responsibility for the state of world affairs. As it has long been made clear by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his public statements, Moscow views this collective leadership to consist of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Germany and Japan.
The review states that multilateral diplomacy is the only effective means of tackling international problems on both global and regional levels. It views the modern international system as being based on global solidarity and multilateral responsibility for managing international affairs, and believes that this could serve as a philosophical underpinning for a stable multipolar world order.
The study defends the primacy of the UN as the unique and sole source of international legitimacy, a claim seriously challenged by the current leading foreign policy thinkers in the United States. Russia’s deliberate emphasis on collective international action as an alternative to U.S. unilateralism requires strengthening UN institutions and allowing them a central role in all aspects of international relations while working to adapt the UN system to the challenges of the post-Cold War world.
The Review confirms strong support for Russia’s commitment to the G8 as one of the central venues for promoting multilateral diplomacy and collective approaches to global security. It is clear that Russia intends to make a full use of its stature in this select group to promote its agenda. Russian participation in the G8, the study asserts, has transformed the body into a more representative forum and has launched its transformation into a vehicle of positive collective world leadership by a more globally diverse group of pivotal states.
Anyone looking for specific recommendations on how to solve major world crises, however, will find the review disappointing. The Russian approaches to hot spots like Iraq seem utterly inadequate. After some “we told you so” comments about the situation in Iraq, Moscow comes up with this breathtaking proposal – remove the foreign factor from Iraq (that is withdraw the coalition forces) and let the Iraqis sort it out among themselves with a little help from a regional international conference. What that “solution” actually means is the Iranian takeover of Iraq and a possible war between Sunni and Shiite Muslim nations.
Russia’s solution to Iran’s nuclear stand-off – a situation in which Moscow has been highly invested – is not much more inspiring: Involve Iran in regional stabilization efforts, including in Afghanistan, and normalize the bilateral relationship between Iran and the United States. But where is the Russian role in this? What is the specific Russian contribution to the international solution on Iran? No answer. The review positions a self-confident Russia as a new force for good in the world, but fails to specify how to accomplish this noble objective.
The Foreign Policy Review is a good document, much better than the dull stuff that has for years been coming out of the Foreign Ministry. It is even written in an innovative format – like a strategy proposal with specific policy recommendations after each chapter. And it lists in one of the appendices the NGOs that contributed to the discussion.
It is obviously the work of a younger generation of Russian diplomats that came of age after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is a welcome change, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clearly deserves credit for this. It would be a good thing to conduct such policy reviews on a regular basis (preferably mandated by law) with broad public discussion accompanying the effort. Perhaps, the next review will benefit from some of these humble criticisms. |
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