International politics is increasingly emerging from a state that is as beneficial to the average person as it is unnatural. As global and regional affairs become less and less linear, it will become more important to have the ability to deny outdated intellectual baggage, learn from new experiences, empathise and understand the motives of others and, finally, to stop being emotionally vested in what is happening. All this seems extremely useful for those who strive for a professional understanding of what is happening in the world and, to an even greater extent, for students of international relations who will inherit this desire in the future. Most importantly, the modern world teaches us that it is better not to yearn for a return to linear logic in observing events than to experience disappointment every time about plans that turned out to be unrealistic for objective reasons. After all, this disappointment, ultimately, does not strengthen our connection with reality.
The most difficult task, in fact, faces those who, by virtue of their professional duties, must interact with public opinion. First, because the scale of access to various sources of information is constantly increasing and even the most vigilant governments cannot put up a truly reliable barrier between their citizens and information intruders. This task is even more difficult in societies like Russia’s, where individual freedom of choice, including sources of various information gibberish, is extremely important for citizens. Second, because it is completely pointless to force the average citizen to think about what is happening like a historian who understands that the objective reality of world politics is rarely connected with our ideas about it. Both problems are unsolvable within the framework of comparatively moral behaviour. Therefore, the British and American establishments have advanced the farthest here. However, in making comparatively professional judgments about world affairs, with regards to the long term, current circumstances can be considered extremely favourable.
We can safely throw out almost all known theoretical constructs regarding the nature of international politics and the behaviour of states when it comes to foreign policy. First of all, because most of them were created over the past 30 years, i.e. during the period when the universal task of university scientists was to substantiate the probability of only one, very linear development of world politics and economics. Edward H. Carr wrote on the eve of World War II that in the social sciences, arguments and purposes are part of the same package.
However, over the last 30-40 years this has become too much: the military-political dominance of the West after the end of the Cold War was so powerful that almost all theories have split into two parts. First, they serve to justify the continuation of this dominance, in one form or another. Second, they explain the relations within a narrow ruling group of states and are aimed at finding ways to make US leadership within the West more harmonious and less costly for the Americans themselves.
In other words, the modern "science" of international politics can contribute very little to its understanding, and thank God for that. Moreover, all existing theories are a product of the historical and cultural experience of Western civilisation. But here it seems necessary to go further and get rid of not only the intellectual cliches of the West, but also of the very way of thinking in the system of coordinates that gave rise to these cliches. This is the most difficult, but also the most important task, as it seems, in the field of our abstract understanding of what is actually happening in the world.
Another important property that modern international politics can instil is the ability to assimilate new experience. This is a challenge exclusively for everyone and there is no need to think that Russia, with our love of "cooling our heels" is an exception. The great powers and their intellectual circles reasonably consider their experience to be the most important and suitable for understanding what is happening around them. They have solid grounds for this, since it is their military and political power that made and makes the wheels of history turn. But such self-confidence is also a limitation, the power of which Russia can sometimes see no less than its traditional rivals in the West. The new global players – China, India and smaller countries – are also inclined to absolutise their experience. For both, this habit prevents them from understanding new events if they are not a product of their own activity. This is exactly what will happen more and more often in world politics. Whoever is the first to understand that any knowledge of other peoples and their culture has value will be able to get rid of the need to squeeze new knowledge into a pre-conceived theoretical framework.
Empathy in international politics is an extremely scarce commodity. However, it can give us the main thing we need – an understanding of the limitations other countries face, even when they sincerely want to cooperate with us. Understanding the motives of others in no way means accepting the correctness of their position or the need to serve their interests. It also does not mean a willingness to agree or consider a compromise where it conflicts with your own interests and values. In any event, empathy helps us see how others see their place in the world and the reasons for their judgment. For Russia, a significant part of whose well-being depends on relations with its neighbours and the global majority, this property is the most important. Moreover, coercion has not only failed in the past, but also does not have sufficient power bases in the present.
Russia's neighbours, for example, feel completely different in the world around them, and this must be taken into account. Belarus, as the closest state to Russia, has recently faced an attempt by the West to push it into the abyss like Ukraine. In general, it is at the forefront of the struggle for a new world order. But Kazakhstan, no less friendly in relation to Russian interests, is a country surrounded by friends. Both of Russia's neighbours build their tactical decisions based on their own perception of their position in the world.
The last thing that general turbulence gives us is a gradual increase in the ability to perceive what is happening less emotionally. However, such ability, strictly speaking, is the result of all the qualities listed above, the development of which is now facing exceptionally favourable conditions. The world will never be the same again because it was never like that.
Stability and predictability turned out to be an illusion. Theories and concepts were called upon to justify them in our heads. Replacing them with more practical skills and, ultimately, simple adequacy is an interesting task.
