Russia’s success in confronting the West on the Ukrainian issue has turned out to be, in many ways, connected with the support it received from the countries of the World Majority. This means that all global changes inevitably lead to a more active involvement of Russia than would be desirable from the point of view of saving its forces and resources, Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev writes.
The events of recent years have confirmed Russia’s ability to withstand the central confrontation with the West in its history, by relying on its internal resources and by adapting to emerging challenges. Moreover, the change in the global balance of power, where Europe’s fall into strategic oblivion has become a major event, also contributes to the successful implementation of Russia’s foreign policy interests. This means that Russia has once again demonstrated its ability to defend in the international arena what is, in fact, the meaning of its foreign policy – ensuring its own full sovereignty over decisions concerning national security.
However, we are already inevitably finding ourselves in a situation where the successful defence of Russia’s borders from hostile encroachment is accompanied by the preservation of uncertainty in the space around us. The strategy of building a Greater Eurasia, so prophetically put forward by Moscow at the earliest stage of the new confrontation with the West in the mid-2010s, is partly aimed at solving this problem. When discussing this strategy as a probable basis for a practical plan of action, we must not forget that in the centre is precisely what reflects the most important Russian interests. First among them is undoubtedly the desire to secure a safe environment for Russia, without experiencing the slightest desire to control its neighbours by force.
Moreover, even at the theoretical level, such a desire would be hindered by at least three factors. First, territorial expansion beyond the historical expanse of Russian settlement has proven its danger for the survival of Russian statehood. Second, the costs of direct forceful control over neighbours, even small states, would very quickly become so significant that they would cause discontent throughout Russian society. Finally, the space of Greater Eurasia is no longer a huge territory filled with weak states, accessible to the expansion of influence of Russia’s traditional opponents in the West.
This was the situation in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Russia quite understandably had no other hopes for stability in its surroundings except its own coercive force or direct conquests. Now Greater Eurasia is a much more structured geopolitical space, where such significant powers as China and India are present. It is also home to a number of less powerful states, which also quite confidently defend their right to independently determine foreign policy, whether we like its tactical manifestations or not.
In other words, in the 21st century, Russia has no internal or external grounds to think that the security of the space around it depends only on its own military and diplomatic efforts. Greater Eurasia and the world as a whole have become much more comfortable from the point of view of the desired balance of expenses and acquisitions for Russian foreign policy.
Such positive changes do not, however, cancel the existing threats to stability in the continental space surrounding Russia. First, relations between even the largest regional powers are not free from conflicts and contradictions. The recent tragic events on the border between India and Pakistan have shown how vulnerable Eurasian stability is in terms of the problems existing between states that are, in principle, good partners of Russia. These include those that are members of the new international institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS group. Second, even despite their general retreat under the pressure of global political democratisation, Western countries will not abandon their attempts to interfere in the affairs of Greater Eurasia.
They can do this directly, already creating the basis for destabilising the Central Asian countries that are friendly to Russia and China. They can also do so indirectly, by encouraging the policy of diversifying their foreign policy and foreign economic ties, which is traditional among the neighbours shared by Moscow and Beijing. In the second case, the immediate negative effect is not particularly significant, but it can already cause concern for Russia and China, and therefore reduce the trust between large and medium-sized states that exists in Greater Eurasia. In any case, the behaviour of the US or Europe towards the countries of Greater Eurasia is not particularly predictable, since they view it primarily as a space for their diplomatic game, and not as a zone on whose position their security or very survival depend.
Finally, many states of Greater Eurasia are indeed more vulnerable to internal socio-economic destabilisation than giants such as Russia, China or India. There are many reasons for this vulnerability, and first among them is dependence on the global economy, which is still managed by those who lead the most parasitic existence. This means that many of the medium and small powers of Greater Eurasia risk becoming accidental victims of the crises that the liberal market economy produces and will produce on a global scale.
We have seen in recent years that the Western countries which created it face obvious difficulties regarding how such a development model can extend beyond short-term schemes such as the “green economy”. As a result, the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe are beginning to make changes, the main goal of which is nothing more than the absence of changes in the system that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. Needless to say, such a situation threatens countries that do not have levers of influence at the global level and, at the same time, do not have such strong internal reserves of stability as Europe.
Thus, the Greater Eurasia space is still very far from being completely safe for its large and small inhabitants. And we, despite what we’ve accomplished in terms of international cooperation, are at the very beginning of the path to Greater Eurasia being comparatively protected from the negative impact of factors which are being controlled far beyond our borders. Russia, as the central power of this geopolitical space, connected with many of its extended states by land borders, is becoming almost the most interested in creating mechanisms of regional stability and development. Moreover, global processes require our more active participation in affairs which occur far beyond Russia’s borders.
Russia’s success in confronting the West on the Ukrainian issue has turned out to be, in many ways, connected with the support it received from the countries of the World Majority. This means that all global changes inevitably lead to a more active involvement of Russia than would be desirable from the point of view of saving its forces and resources. Greater Eurasia is precisely the region where such participation in solving common problems of development and security will be most relevant. It is becoming important to increase the effectiveness of Russian policy in its immediate surroundings and, at the same time, to “couple” it with the resolution of our national development goals. For this, it would be important, it seems, to address precisely those issues that link the development of Russia itself and the development of the surrounding medium and small states, and also reflect the most important development trends of our friends and allies in China or India.
