Foreign policy of the People's Alliance

From the program of the unregistered People's Alliance Party ("Народный Альянс") , which holds its Congress in Moscow today: 

Russia will pursue an independent foreign policy based on mutual cooperation, not confrontation. Our country will benefit from its unique territorial position, neighbouring the majority of the major players in world politics and economics: Europe, China , Japan and the United States.

We are confident that the strategic interests of Russia in the world today are very similar to those of developed Western countries, in particular with regard to reducing tension in the world, the fight against international terrorism, and the ensuring of freedom of trade. It is with them that Russia will develop equal partnerships and alliances. At the same time Russia refuses to support regimes that are built on lies, violence and suppression of democracy in their countries.

For historical reasons the post-Soviet countries have closer cultural and linguistic ties. This must and will be used for the development of Russian-Eurasian commercial and economic integration in market relations, in so far as it will contribute to the mutual benefit of our countries. Russia will support the countries of the former Soviet Union and the movement for democracy and civil liberties, while avoiding crude political or military interference in the affairs of neighbouring countries.

Russia planning pro-Western foreign policy

So a report in Russian Newsweek says…

Jamestown’s Roger McDermott has an analysis.

Lukyanov in Stockholm

Tobias Ljungvall took notes during a recent speech given at a Stockholm seminar by Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov. As Tobias observes, Lukyanov more or less reproduces the Kremlin's current view of world affairs and of Russia's role in them [my tr.]:

1. Russian foreign policy under President Medvedev has not undergone any fundamental change compared to the foreign policy that prevailed under Putin. The differences in nuance can be partly explained by the fact that Medvedev is a different sort of person.

2. Russia is not like the Soviet Union, partly because it lacks an ideology.The loss of empire in1991 was worse than other countries’ similar experiences (e.g, Britain's loss of its colonies) as the lost areas were extensions of the country and some were a part of the national identity. The building of the Russian state began many centuries ago in Kiev, and therefore Russia finds hard to accept that Ukraine should join NATO.

3. A key concept is the so-called multi-polar world. The United States' attempt at hegemony has failed but has made the world more unstable because it cannot rely on international law any more. Relations between emerging new poles will shape the present century.

4. While in the West the Kosovo war of 1999 was perceived positively as proof that it was possible to defend human rights by force, Russia's interpretation of the Kosovo events was that national sovereignty no longer applies in the world. Russian public opinion turned its back on integration with the West and Western ideas of morality.

5. Instead, Russia was forced to strengthen its own capability. The only real guarantee of sovereignty for Russia is its nuclear weapons. In the absence of the former capabilities of the Soviet Union, Russia has also politicized gas and oil, in a way that Lukyanov thinks ultimately does most harm to Gazprom itself. The Soviet Union never mixed business and politics in the way that is now happening.

6. So now Russia is trying to avoid new gas conflicts with Ukraine. Today it is only Ukraine’s President Yushchenko who tries to provoke them. But hopefully after the elections which are due to take place in two months’ time Yushchenko will go into political retirement. 

There is more.

Snowball

Writing in FinRosForum, ex-Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov says that

Russia’s foreign policy failures are snowballing at such a rate that they threaten a second geopolitical collapse on a par with the disintegration of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.

Russia's S-300 deal with Iran is going ahead

In a report headed Russia has not delivered S-300 missile systems to Iran - source, the RIA Novosti agency makes it clear that the contract for the delivery has none the less been signed and is going ahead:

S-300 systems have not been yet delivered to Iran under the contract concluded two years ago. The contract itself, though, is being gradually executed," the source in the Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service told RIA Novosti.

The news comes just days after reports speculated that Russia might be reconsidering the deal, which if implemented would effectively preclude the chance of a negotiated settlement with Washington.

"Moderate Detente"

According to an article in today's Nezavisimaya Gazeta, President Dmitry Medvedev wants to introduce a policy of "moderate detente" in its relations with the West - especially with the United States.

The Kremlin does not intend to continue to escalate confrontation with the West in general and the U.S. in particular. In the near future a package of measures aimed at improving relations and the easing of tension in the dialogue between Russia and its key Western partners will be adopted. This is reported by several informed sources in the presidential administration and around it.

Dmitry Medvedev's decision to move to a policy of "moderate detente" in relations with the West is influenced by several factors. These include the very moderate reaction by the United States of America, and especially the European Union, to Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Following the example recently set by Belarus President Lukashenko, the "package of measures" is likely to include "the alleviation of the lot of a number of Russian citizens who in the West are considered to be political prisoners." However, the paper notes, this leniency, if it is implemented, is unlikely to apply to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Also, "under no circumstances will Russia reverse its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. and the deployment of military bases on the territory of these two new states". The article speculates on the future of Russian FM Sergei Lavrov, whose recent run-in with Britain's foreign secretary David Miliband drew attention to Lavrov's harsh and uncompromising attitudes and personality.

The Stockholm speech

It’s now starting to be time for all the Western commentators, the op-ed writers, journalists, political analysts, academics, businesspeople and sundry Kremlinologists who acclaimed the “New Russia” that supposedly emerged after the fall of Communism to publicly admit that they were wrong – that what really took place was a co-ordinated attempt at a gross deception intended  by a cynical post-Soviet elite to make the world believe in a manifest falsehood. There were reasons for this willingness to be duped. The liberated nations of Eastern Europe, the states of Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were genuinely liberated, able to begin the return to the democratic traditions of their pre-1939 existence, and many people in the West rightly greeted this with relief. In Russia, however, no such return took place, for the simple reason that there had never been any democratic traditions in Russia to begin with. A euphoric mood of “let’s make believe” took hold of many Western observers of the Russian political scene.

Yet if they took a closer look, they could see that in essence nothing had really changed in the halls of power within the Kremlin. Sixteen years ago, on December 14 1992, Andrei Kozyrev, the foreign minister of the newly-fledged Russian “successor state”, made a speech in Stockholm - in connection with the then newly developing Balkan crisis - which outlined the true nature of Russia’s foreign policy. Though Kozyrev treated his audience to a theatrical turnaround in which he claimed that his statement was a “rhetorical device”, intended to show the power of those who opposed the supposedly “liberal” tendency of the new government, experienced observers realized what was afoot. The speech went as follows:

I am obliged to introduce corrections in the general direction of Russian foreign policy. I wish to inform you briefly about these to the extent that they concern CSCE problems.

First: While fully maintaining the policy of entry into Europe, we clearly recognize that our traditions in many respects, if not fundamentally, lie in Asia, and this sets limits to our rapprochement with Western Europe.

We see that, despite a certain degree of evolution, the strategies of NATO and the WEU, which are drawing up plans to strengthen their military presence in the Baltic and other regions of the territory of the former Soviet Union and to interfere in Bosnia and the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, remain essentially unchanged.

Clearly, sanctions against the FRY were dictated by this policy. We demand that they be lifted, and if this does not happen, we reserve our right to take the necessary unilateral measures to defend our interests, especially since the sanctions cause us economic harm. In its struggle, the present Government of Serbia can count on the support of the great Russia.

Second: The space of the former Soviet Union cannot be regarded as a zone of full application of CSCE norms. In essence, this is a post-imperial space, in which Russia has to defend its interests using all available means, including military and economic ones. We shall strongly insist that the former USSR Republics join without delay the new Federation or Confederation, and there will be tough talks on this matter.

Third: All those who think that they can disregard these particularities and interests – that Russia will suffer the fate of the Soviet Union – should not forget that we are talking of a state that is capable of standing up for itself and its friends. We are, of course, ready to play a constructive part in the work of the CSCE Council, although we shall be very cautious in our approach to ideas leading to interference in internal affairs.

It’s time now to go back to the history of those early years of the Yeltsin government and to discover what really happened in them.

Missing the Point

Two-thirds of the way through an assessment of the U.S. missile defence shield as "Russia's Red Herring" in negotiations with a Washington administration that is sometimes seen as slow to put two and two together where foreign policy issues - particularly Russia-related ones - are concerned, Robert Amsterdam writes:

Washington's failure to respond positively to Putin's unprecedented security cooperation following 9/11 will go down as the greatest wasted opportunity in recent history.

One wonders whether Washington - or indeed any other Western government professing to uphold the values of democracy and human rights - could have responded positively to "security" initiatives by a regime that engendered the documented massacres committed by its armed forces in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, and - it now seems probable - the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia which killed several hundred innocent civilians and served as a pretext for the opening of the second Russian military campaign in Chechnya.