/ world today news/ With the adoption of a new foreign policy concept, Russia has largely returned to the self-perception of the Soviet era, when the USSR was an alternative center of civilization to the West. Our country finally gave up the 30-year fruitless search for its place in the circle of countries oriented towards the USA and Europe. At the same time, Russia is perceived not simply as one of the poles in the new multipolar world.
Russia will determine the future of the dialogue with the European Union based on the interests laid down in the new Foreign Policy Concept adopted on March 31, Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with “Arguments and Facts” on April 4.
“The European Union has ‘lost’ Russia. But he himself is to blame for this,” emphasized the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Lavrov indicated that if the Europeans abandon the anti-Russian course, then Moscow will consider their proposals and make decisions based on the priorities that are outlined in the new Concept approved by President Vladimir Putin.
The foreign minister indicated that the new principles of foreign policy will be the basis of the geography of his travels. As REGNUM previously noted, the document listed cooperation with China and India as a priority, while the United States and its satellites were mentioned second to last before Antarctica.
I forgot about everything but the West
The new concept of foreign policy is the result of the natural evolution of all previous documents – 1993, 2000, 2008, 2013 and 2016. An evolution from trying to fit into someone else’s construct to striving to create your own.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has essentially been perceived as part of Western civilization. After Moscow abandoned its claims to the status of an alternative center of civilization to the West (as was the USSR), Russian diplomacy and foreign policy were directed at reintegrating the country into the Western world. No wonder it was oriented towards the West.
“There was a big tilt towards increasing cooperation with the West, especially during the Yeltsin era. It got to the point that only a few paragraphs were devoted to the development of cooperation with the countries of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America in seemingly exhaustive documents. And before such a tilt did not surprise anyone,” Elena Suponina, a member of the Russian Council on International Affairs (RSCI), an international political scientist, explains to REGNUM.
Why the two-vector approach didn’t work
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Russian elites realized that it would not work to integrate them into existing Western structures on equal footing instead of as Washington’s junior partner.
Russia’s approach has changed to a two-pronged one. On the one hand, Moscow offered the West various universal concepts of coexistence within a single, not so much European as Eurasian space (the project for a collective security system from Lisbon to Vladivostok, the economic integration between the European and Eurasian Unions). ). On the other hand, it first demanded and then insisted that its interests be respected, at least in the post-Soviet space.
After February 2022 however, this two-vector approach lost its effectiveness. The USA and the EU launched a hybrid war against Russia in Ukraine and started the process of pushing Russia out of both the internal Western (those that Russia managed to enter during these 30 years – in particular the OSCE) and international structures.
And the new Russian concept of foreign policy underwent cardinal changes. Regarding the place of Russia, its ideology and the hierarchy of external countries.
“World Community” was taken out of parentheses
“But the concept positions Russia not only as an independent center of power in a multipolar world, but also as an independent civilization based on the historical Russian world,” Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the NIEU of the HSE, told REGNUM .
– “Positioning our country as an independent civilization, the authors of the Concept make it clear that the Russian Federation will not join anyone. It will not try to build a “greater Europe” or something else, it will not be part of another civilization,” he says.
“For the first time, the goal of protecting the interests of Russians abroad is more clearly set (earlier this was said in passing). In the foreground is the protection of the economic interests of Russia, Russian citizens and those Russian-speaking people who gravitate towards Russia, “said Suponina.
A civilized country must have an ideology directed not only inwardly, but also outwardly, and this is also reflected in the doctrine.
“This document is not only … practical, but also ideological. Ideological content is often treated with a degree of bewilderment, but in an environment where both world politics and economics are largely driven by purely ideological guidelines and maxims, this was inevitable. And for a strategic document such as the Concept, this is a boon,” notes Ilya Fabrychnikov, a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, on the website of the magazine “Russia in Global Affairs”.
Part of this ideology is a clear anti-Western course.
“For the first time in the new concept, the thesis is heard that the end of American hegemony is coming and that Russia will contribute to a faster approach to this goal. “Never before has this issue been raised so acutely,” notes Suponina.
Moreover, this course is positioned not through the prism of revanchism or even the defense of purely Russian interests, but through the idea of anti-colonialism shared by many countries of the Global South. Russia presents its struggle with the West as part of the global struggle of developing countries against new forms of political and economic dependence
Within this ideology, there is no longer any place for any common world community, with common goals and vision of the world.
“Basically, global tasks, the solution of which must be approached jointly by the entire world community, have disappeared from the Concept. The world community itself disappeared, so to speak, was taken out of the brackets. Instead, there are now regional leading states,” notes Fabrichnikov.
Two different Wests
In accordance with its new role and ideology, Moscow restructured its priorities in diplomacy.
“The concept is based on severing relations with the West and trying to turn their views to the East and Southeast,” notes Suponina.
– “In fact, it is said that Russia should return its presence in the Middle East, in African, Latin American countries”.
To regain the influence that was lost after the collapse of the USSR.
This dictates the hierarchy of priorities: in the first place is the environment of Russia, in the second – the Arctic, then China and India, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America and only in the last place is the West, Suslov points out.
“Furthermore, the division of the West, which we now collectively call the West, into Anglo-Saxons and continental Europeans became an important moment,” notes the expert.
– “Based on the concept, Russia leaves no potential hope in the distant future to build more constructive relations with the continental countries of Western Europe. But after new elites come to power there, they will be able to reconsider their policies, realize the destructiveness of the current their course and to play a more independent role in world affairs. Ambitions in relation to the Anglo-Saxon countries are much more moderate”.
The irony is that Europe will only have a chance to reverse its disastrous course if European elites also recognize themselves as a region-civilization.
With its own values and foreign policy priorities, different from the American ones – which was actually stated directly by Foreign Minister Lavrov. This rethinking is unlikely to happen in the near future, but Moscow is in no hurry.
An independent state-civilization, as opposed to a state that seeks to squeeze itself into the West, may as well wait – since it has things to do in other directions.
“The majority of humanity is interested in constructive relations with Russia and strengthening its position in the international arena as an influential world power,” the Foreign Policy Concept says.
Translation: SM
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