This Week in Europe, 21 January 2000
Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
Is Russia’s approach to international relations about to change? Has it begun to enunciate a new foreign policy, which will change the global balance of power?
Since the ending of the cold war, the US, together with Europe, Japan and the World’s leading industrialised nations, have taken the moral high ground. As victors in the battle against Communism, they have been able to declare policies led by a sometimes contradictory belief in human rights, the supremacy of the market, and rules-based organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They have done so in parallel to seeking international acceptance of an often fluid or ill-defined mix of ethical, humanitarian and political principles. Thus the Gulf war had full UN support but in the later Balkan war against Serbia humanitarian need took precedence over a UN sanctioned approach.
However, this may all be about to change if as seems likely, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s acting president, is confirmed at that nation’s new leader in elections to be held in March. Then the West will see the first serious challenge begin to develop to its present position of global leadership.
Last November, when President Yeltsin visited Beijing he held substantive discussions with the Chinese leadership. At their conclusion, the Russian President and his then Prime Minister, Mr Putin, made a joint statement with the Chinese. In it both nations refuted the prevailing US doctrine. Instead, Russia and China emphasised that for them the maintenance of sovereignty would always take precedence over human rights. Both nations further indicated that they reserved the right to act within their own borders using whatever means to defend national sovereignty. Since then, the rise and rise of Vladimir Putin, has put still more distance between Russia and the policies of the West. The last six weeks have seen the brutal prosecution of the war in Chechnya. They have also witnessed the very public deepening of Russian military and scientific co-operations with Iran, meaning agreement to transfer nuclear technology. Russia has also opposed the appointment of the individual nominated to head the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq. But of greater significance than initiatives relating to nations the US considers its principal enemies, has been the restatement of Russian policy on when it might use nuclear weapons.
Mr Putin’s first major policy statement as acting president has been to redefine Russia’s nuclear strategy. In a lengthy document he has effectively lowered the threshold of the use of nuclear weapons. The new Russian nuclear doctrine is based on a belief that there are two tendencies in the world. The first, according to Moscow, proceeds from the belief that Russia, together with India and China, should play a major role in global governance with the West. This not unreasonable assertion is set against a second tendency perceived by Russia. This is for the US to seek to dominate the world through military and economic might.
While some expert opinion believes that this only reflects Mr Putin’s desire to enhance his chances with the Russian electorate and is simply pre-election politics, others believe that Russia’s acting president is also setting the scene for his nation’s re-emergence on the world stage.
Mr Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin in an acting capacity on December 31. Almost all of what he has done since seeks to restore Moscow’s weight in the world and reassure the Russian people. His disturbing signals to the West may be meant to suggest that a new Russia is in the making. The more Mr Putin strengthens his rule from the centre using values very different from those prevailing in the West, the more he seems likely to appeal to many Russians. The years since the collapse of Communism have left the Russian people deeply unhappy. The non-payment of salaries, the collapse of common values, the loss of national pride, the rise of crime, and the inability of any Russian Government to make the economy work, has left ordinary Russians wanting to restore many, but not all, of the old certainties that existed in the form of the Soviet Union.
This is very different to the 1997 Russian approach, which suggested that the West was a strategic partner for Russia. But as analysts point out, there are reasons for this. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has embraced three of Russia’s previous military allies, thereby removing the buffer between Europe and Russia’s borders. The European Union (EU) has embarked on a process of enlargement aimed at incorporating, over time, almost all of Eastern Europe. Europe and the US bombed Serbia against Russian objections and without UN approval and the US continues to test, so far unsuccessfully, new high frontier missile technology.
In Russia itself, new alliances are forming which if the war in Chechnya remains popular with the Russian people, will sweep Mr Putin back into power on the basis of that alliance between the successful new pro-Kremlin Unity Party and the Communists.
In other words, within months the modernised Russian leadership still with economic difficulties, but owing much to many former Communists, the military, the Interior Ministry, and the Communist Party, may well be in power.
For Europe such a development may change the EU’s perceptions about Russia. For the Caribbean this may seem of little immediate consequence. The process of Caribbean economic integration into the Americas has begun and the region, though politically and economically vulnerable, is not subject to serious political tensions. For its part, Cuba has maintained its long-term economic relationship with Russia as well as its continuing political dialogue on matters of common concern. The relationship with Moscow remains significant for Havana. But it is clear that the steps Cuba has taken since the collapse of the Soviet Union to diversify its economic and other ties into the Caribbean region as well as with Latin America, Europe, and China offer Havana a better basis for security and independence.
For the Caribbean, the real significance of change in Russia may well be in international organisations such as the WTO and the UN. There a new Russian, China, India bloc seeking third world leadership as a counter to the US and EU may on certain issues enable the region to have its case for vulnerability and equity in trade better heard.