The idea of new security architecture in Eurasia is becoming a key concept in Russia’s foreign policy. It was first outlined in the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in February 2024. Later that year, it was included in the agenda of the Russian President’s summits with the leaders of China and India, discussed by CIS foreign ministers, and further developed within the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
Russian diplomacy consistently incorporates the theme of a Eurasian security system into the dialogue with its partners in various parts of the world’s largest continent. The intensification of activity in this sphere inevitably prompts a series of conceptual and political questions. What exactly is meant by Eurasian security? Upon which principles could it be constructed? What steps could be taken for its gradual development? What objectives is it intended to serve, and who are the prospective participants? In what form could its architecture be designed and function? How might it interact with other actors’ projects? It is important to be based on a set of basic assumptions when addressing these questions.
First, modern-day international relations remain largely an anarchic system. The issue of security remains fundamentally unresolved, and almost every country faces a particular set of threats originating from other countries or coalitions of countries, terrorist or criminal groups, or man-made or natural factors.
Second, different strategies for adapting to security threats and challenges have emerged. They range from attempts at hegemony and dominance in regional and global affairs to alignment with stronger players up to and including the dissolution of one’s own sovereignty into the interests and priorities of one’s allies and partners. Adaptation strategies generate hierarchical security systems in which some players are de facto forced to submit to others. The modern world remains highly asymmetric. Only a few poles of power stand out, which are represented by relatively sovereign countries that are capable of independently pursuing their own policies.
Third, rivalry and competition between countries unfold both around material interests and values. Although the Cold War era of ideology-driven bloc confrontation remains a thing of the past, value-based competition is gaining momentum. Moreover, it is becoming more complex and convoluted. Whereas in the past it was a clash of two modernist and rationalist ideologies comparable in nature (liberalism and socialism), today the battle revolves around value systems of a different nature and origin. Modernist ideologies are challenged, on the one hand, by postmodern simulations of ideologies, and on the other hand, by archaic pre-modern frameworks and local nationalist movements.
Fourth, the technological environment of rivalry is changing. A new revolution in the military art is in full swing. It shows itself vividly in the Ukraine conflict, but goes much deeper than the spheres directly affected by hostilities in Ukraine. Changes are taking place at all levels of military art. Tactical manoeuvres, methods of conducting operations, and strategic planning, as well as logistics and transport management, reconnaissance, and so forth are all being transformed.
Fifth, there remains a wide range of parameters of power and dominance, as well as spheres of competition in which they are applied. Military-political tools are combined with methods of economic coercion, information campaigns, and soft power. Hybrid use of various methods of rivalry is customary when it comes to international relations. However, the combinations of tools of dominance, coercion, and influence are taking on new configurations. Communication, surveillance, data collection and processing, and information management particularly through the use of AI technologies play a critical role in these configurations.
Sixth, the modern world is in a state of asynchronous polarity. In some areas (such as military security), the world has long since become multipolar, while in others (such as global finance), it retains features of unipolarity and concentration of power in the hands of a single centre of power.
Seventh, the diversity of political and social systems in modern states did not go anywhere. They do not fi t into a single template. They make their own rules, sometimes even within diametrically opposed systems of coordinates. The modern world is far from living under uniform political and social forms.
Russia is in the epicentre of rapid changes in international politics. It is a unique player, which, by virtue of its geographic location, is present in several key regions of the planet that form the extremities of the Eurasian continent.
