Russia in Global Affairs

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RSCI Scopus

No. 4

2012 October/December

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Contents

Our First Decade

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

Dimensions of Power

Russia in the 21st-Century World of Power

Sergei V. Lavrov

Keeping the Powder Dry

Sergei A. Karaganov

Konstantin Makienko

Shaky Stability

Sergey K. Dubinin

Nation-Building Challenges

Can Democracy Counteract Xenophobia?

Maria Suslova, Emil Pain

The Belavezha Accords Legacy

Sergey M. Markedonov

A Workable Past

Re-Exporting Values

Konstantin Kosachev

China-U.S.-Russia Configuration

A New Realism for the 21st Century

Igor A. Zevelev

Russia’s Three Roads to Asia

An Aggregate of Converging Interests

Vitaly Vorobyov

A Focus on Russia’s East

Continent Siberia

Vladimir Ryzhkov, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Ilya Ponomarev

Realism Instead of Utopia

Oleg N. Barabanov, Timofei V. Bordachev

The Middle East: Dim Prospects

The Middle East: a’la Versailles or a’la Westphalia?

Post-NATO Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security

Articles

Our First Decade

Russia and the United States are trying hard to assure each other of their commitment to common goals and values. A nascent democracy is emerging…

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

Russia in the 21st-Century World of Power

The independence of Russia’s foreign policy is our achievement, gained over the preceding centuries of historical development and through the experience of the last 20 years. Russia simply cannot exist as a subordinate country of a world leader.

Sergei V. Lavrov

Keeping the Powder Dry

With the global situation and Russia’s development vector as they are, the policy of military build-up is inevitable. The question is how and at what cost. It would be utterly wrong to spend lavishly, thereby ruining all development budgets.

Sergei A. Karaganov

The “anti-Western” arms markets are closing down one after another as a result of international embargoes or political reorientation of respective countries. So Russia will predictably lose its positions in favor of Europe (above all, France) and Israel, while remaining a key player on the market.

Konstantin Makienko

Shaky Stability

The Russian economy’s preparedness for the world economic growth slowdown cannot be rated on the basis of the reserves accumulated by the state. A reliable mechanism of generating savings and transforming them into investments and competitive projects in the national economy is a vital need.

Sergey K. Dubinin

Can Democracy Counteract Xenophobia?

Notwithstanding Russia’s specificity, it is high time to remove religion from federal authority and include religious communities in the system of institutions that constitute civil society.

Maria Suslova, Emil Pain

The Belavezha Accords Legacy

Post-Soviet Russia largely emerged as a separatist project, although it had not used this kind of rhetoric for its legitimization. Separatism was, in fact, embedded in the foundation of the post-Soviet Russian statehood.

Sergey M. Markedonov

A Workable Past

Political references to the past in the context of symbolic politics are aimed at (re)constructing the national idea of ‘We’ in Russian society. A reconsideration of the major narratives of the collective past is an important element in nation-building and it suggests a choice between different options for interpretation and evaluation.

Re-Exporting Values

Georgia has entered a new political era that will show how much the “rose revolutionaries” have managed to achieve. Have they laid the foundation for new developments that will endure in a new social environment or is their activity mere labeling and blowing bubbles? In any case, the experience will be instructive.

Konstantin Kosachev

A New Realism for the 21st Century

Maintaining a balance between the Euro-Atlantic vector and the Asian-Pacific vector of Russian foreign policy should not be a game of U-turns one way or the other, but should rather be characterized by flexibility and readiness to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Igor A. Zevelev

Russia’s Three Roads to Asia

Russia has a chance to position itself as a neutral force in the region, which can be capitalized into essential geopolitical and purely economic benefits in conditions of a standoff between two blocs, especially those that hypothetically are equal in strength.

An Aggregate of Converging Interests

China is determined to have its voice clearly heard on Central Asian affairs and to keep the SCO’s attention focused on the region, not diluted. This is evidenced by China’s firm stance on a number of pressing issues.

Vitaly Vorobyov

Continent Siberia

Siberia should re-evaluate its place and role, and start developing itself as an element of the global economy, similar to what the eastern U.S. states did several decades ago and China’s coastal provinces did recently.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Ilya Ponomarev

Realism Instead of Utopia

We should not shut ourselves off from China, but cooperate with it: to identify the competitive advantages of the Transbaikal and the Russian Far East; to find points and areas of complementarity of the two economies; and to work along those lines.

Oleg N. Barabanov, Timofei V. Bordachev

The Middle East: a’la Versailles or a’la Westphalia?

There are two principal scenarios for the development of the situation in the Middle East. The first scenario concerns postwar settlement ? la Versailles, specifically, the division of Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire, in which the lead was taken by external forces. The second scenario, ? la Westphalia, is a protracted and painful process of self-development of a democratic community of nation states.

Post-NATO Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security

The SCO, comprising Russia, China, and four of the five Central Asian states, is likely to grant India and Pakistan full membership, and has added Afghanistan as an observer and Turkey as a dialogue partner. It is indeed uniquely placed to provide a regional canopy under which India and Pakistan could work together.