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Russia is looking to Asia for new business partners and political allies. But Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in Washington, thinks this could pose a major problem because Asia may become not only the world’s greatest economic success but also its political, ideological and psychological leader.
If the money wave from Asia reaches Europe as predicted, there may come a day when we will have to admit that the things which irritated us in the West were a golden age of our civilization. Russia will face a big problem when the Asian political culture, customs, traditions, religion and way of life go west, because they will move across Russia, like the Mongolian hordes did in the long-forgotten past.
Will Russia become the first victim of the world’s easternization? Nikolai Zlobin in an interview with Yevgeny Shestakov, the host of Discussion Club, a joint project of Rossiyskaya Gazeta’s website and RIA Novosti’s Valdai Discussion Club.
Yevgeny Shestakov: China currently has second biggest GDP in the world after the United States. Given the speed of its economic development, it may overtake the U.S. economy by 2020. Therefore, I have two questions. First, will the United States look for allies to counterbalance the Chinese influence? And second, can Russia retain its independence and pursue an independent policy?
Nikolai Zlobin: I think there are several scenarios, none of which will necessarily materialize. Firstly, it is not a fact that GDP will determine a country’s influence in the next decade. I think qualitative characteristics may gradually take the upper hand over quantitative ones. We now have a very vague definition of a superpower; the definition changed several times in the last 20 or 30 years.
It was once believed that a nuclear superpower must have the world’s largest army to guarantee its influence. The United States was the first country to suffer from that belief: its army, the largest in the world, has not won a single war against countries with relatively modest defense budgets.
Then we thought that a superpower is a country leading the world in technology and innovation. That super-idea became Japan’s undoing. Japan invested heavily in innovation and high-tech development, ignoring all other aspects. The result was a grave disappointment it has not overcome to this day - it is not a superpower.
During the presidency of Bill Clinton, it was believed that a superpower is a country that offers the world a new financial product and becomes the world’s financial instrument. Americans were living very well at the time, but their illusions disintegrated when they were hit by the ongoing economic crisis, which was engendered by those same financial innovations.
Did anyone think an abundance of energy resources will make them a superpower in the early 21st century? No one did.
Nobody knows yet what the main criterion for assessing a country’s influence will be in 20, 30 or 40 years.
It could be a new form of energy, new technology or quality of life. I think the criterion could be the attractiveness of a government system that will also include the quality of life and human resources, rather than new technology, tanks or presence or absence of weapons in space.
I don’t know what place China will occupy in such ranking. I don’t buy the idea that China will suddenly become the world’s most influential country. I am not sure China’s economy and its huge GDP will become the accepted yardstick.
Today we are living in a world of losers. China is not a successful model, and neither is Russia or the United States. None of the existing models is successful, and so I think the prize will go a country that is the first to offer an effective way to resolve current problems. China has offered good solutions to the technological, financial, agricultural and some other problems. But I don’t think it will become the world’s most attractive country.
The United States never claimed the official title of the most influential economy. But people thought it was the most influential country and this was its strong point. Ronald Reagan said in the 1980s that you don’t have to be strong; you only need others to think you are, and that is your best protection.
Likewise, you don’t have to be influential, it is much more important that others think you are. So far, many people are skeptical about China’s ability to become the world’s most influential country.
Shestakov: Why then are U.S. presidents so obviously worried about China? President Barack Obama keeps speaking about China’s achievements in education and technology.
Zlobin: I may be wrong in my assessment. Maybe China will make a qualitative breakthrough at some stage and move to the forefront in the technology of human capital, life and political modernization. When Obama assumed office, he wanted America to remain the leader in terms of human capital, education, medicine and technology, the three cornerstones of his "revolution.” But Americans fear that they may lose to China in this respect. So, I don’t think it is China’s GDP that is the main threat to American leadership. China’s per capita GDP will never be the same as in the United States, but nobody can say definitely what will happen to the other parameters.
What should Russia do? Who should it side with and where should it invest? I recently attended a discussion on the possibility of shale gas undermining Russia’s economy. Should Poland or the United States invest in shale gas? Should we invest in alternative energy?
Today we take strategic decisions whose success or failure will become evident only 30 years from now. When taking such decisions, we proceed from current trends and from the assumption that these trends will persist in the next 50 years. But I haven’t heard any arguments proving that this will be the case. The Soviet Union has collapsed, although 50 years ago nobody believed that was possible. Nobody thought the decline of the United States would start in the early 21st century or that the European Union would be relatively well off.
Shestakov: But we will become completely disoriented without forecasts based on our past experience and modern statistical and mathematical models.
Zlobin: I think long-term forecasts have become highly unreliable in the 21st century. You could make such forecasts in the 19th century, when life changed very slowly. But now any technological solution, or any technical change or a change in political technologies can bolster or slow down a country’s development. A lost war or the appearance of another Bush could have the same effect. Obama’s presidency could not have been calculated based on American logic. Maybe a woman will become U.S. president in a few years. New groups of population enter the equation, and young people come to the fore. President Dmitry Medvedev is a young man, and Obama is young too.
The new generation has a completely different interpretation of such notions as GDP, global influence, superpower and a big army. I think we should review our understanding of these terms because all players, including the United States, China and the European Union, are in an intellectual deadlock. It can be described as the global elite’s intellectual impotence.
In the past, countries competed for a bigger GDP, more tanks and aircraft, and priority in placing weapons in space. We did it 50 and 40 years ago, but it doesn’t mean we should continue to gauge our achievements by the same yardstick. I don’t have a ready answer to the question about the dominant gauge in the 21st century. But I am sure that it will not be the same as in the 20th century, just as the main yardstick of the 19th century no longer applied in the 20th century.
History never stands still, and countries change. We see the development of a new political geography now. The last time it happened was after WWII. But it was a result of the war, with the winning countries dictating the evolution of a new political geography.
Today the new political geography is appearing more slowly because there are no apparent winners. Unlike the last time, this process can now take 20, 30 or even 40 years. Borders will change. Take China, a complicated country that, like the Soviet Union in the past, is kept together by several strong bands. Who knows what would happen there if those bands were broken? We cannot model the process.
I am not sure the countries’ achievements will remain the main yardstick in the next few decades. Marxists were right in that the state is disappearing; it is becoming eroded, at least in terms of the global economy, the global system of communications and the world order at large. Nobody can tell the meaning of sovereignty today. Where does sovereignty begin and where does it end? What is a national economy? I don’t know. I think that we are living in the age when national economies are becoming eroded and a global economy is appearing, when it is difficult to say where the Russian national interests begin and the Chinese or American national interests end.
When you invest in global corporations, you don’t know which country you are investing in and which country’s development you are financing. What does the national government manage in the economy? Money? But in the global financial system money moves here and there, we all depend on inflation, on global processes and on energy and other markets. Consequently, the national government has very little control of the financial systems.
Shestakov: Do you think national economies cannot be independent now?
Zlobin: I think that wars have become obsolete because you don’t know who you are fighting. You often find you are fighting yourself, like the dragon that bites its own tail. We are still guided by the 19th century mentality, or the 20th century at best. There are states, with their governments presumably pursuing national interests and presumably controlling the economy, the national territory and taxes. There are people from whom the authorities collect taxes and people who form the army to defend their country.
But I think this scheme has become grotesque, because Al Qaeda, which has no territory, army or government, still keeps the world on tenterhooks. Osama bin Laden promised to change the world, and he has changed it. We cannot defeat Al Qaeda because we are using 19th century rules to fight it, while the organization is fighting a 21st century war and it is doing it very primitively, without tanks.
In the 1990s, I lived in the city in the United States from which Stealth planes took off to bomb Kosovo. They came back home in the evening, and the pilots went for a drink in a local bar. They flew across half of the planet and nobody noticed them; they violated national borders and airspace, bombed their targets and flew back home. Can you speak about sovereignty after that? Are there such things as regional security and international regulations, in which I have never believed anyway?
This diplomatic landscape of the 19th century has become irrelevant. Therefore, comparisons of GDP and other political and economic indicators are relative and should be regarded with caution, because they are based on our understanding of history and our hope that everything will continue as before.
Shestakov: So, you think that national interests no longer exist as such?
Zlobin: I think that countries defined their national interests differently at different stages in history. National interests are a delicate substance. It is a historical notion that appeared when states were nations, which registered their political existence in the form of national states, and when religion supported that approach.
But when individuals become more global than a state, their interests cannot be limited to the place where they were born or where they live. Such global development suits us. We want the United States to be a successful country and the European Union to prosper. From the viewpoint of Russian citizens, we need a developed economy there so that Russians can travel, invest and make contacts with people there. But does this approach coincide with the position of the Russian state?
I think there is a very big problem with who formulates national interests and how he does it, and who is prepared to protect them. It is apparent that the military methods of protecting national interests have become highly ineffective, to put it mildly.
Shestakov: However, China has one of the world’s largest armies. Do you think it could become a military threat to Russia in the future?
Zlobin: No, I don’t think so.
Shestakov: And to the United States?
Zlobin: The possibility of a Chinese military threat is not a problem to the United States, which could use it to replenish its military budget. Ninety-nine percent of what politicians say about the global system is designed for the domestic audience and has no relation to the global system.
I once talked with a U.S. Senator who sharply criticized the new START Treaty, which Medvedev and Obama signed in Prague. I asked him: "Are you really against the treaty?” He said he was. "But it seems you like the treaty as such, don’t you?” He said he did, that he supported the new treaty and the new Russia, but opposed the treaty’s ratification just to spite Obama.
The golden rule of American politics is "All politics is local.” American politicians scrutinize every event to see if it will benefit or harm their state and constituency, if it will bring investment and create jobs or increase unemployment. A Senator who may not know the name of the Ukrainian president will be familiar with the name of each school teacher and policeman in his county, because he works with them, sends them greetings on holidays, because they are his electorate. As for Ukraine, it concerns him only to the extent that events there could influence the interests of his electorate.
Shestakov: Do you mean that the United States and Russia will no longer need to search for allies to protect their national interests?
Zlobin: I could be wrong, but I think this is the nascent trend. There are many unrecognized or semi-recognized states and supranational global corporations and movements that are seriously influencing the world. Non-formalized agencies are evolving within states, and they also influence politics. Such entities in different countries easily find common language with each other. The current situation is much more complicated that in the past, when we had formal sovereign states with governments controlling their economies and armies, and when it was clear how one should talk with one’s neighbors. The situation is so vague now that it is unclear where your interests end, how they could be formed and who should protect them.
As a child, you make friends with other children in your neighborhood. But when you grow up you understand that the world is bigger than your neighborhood, that there are other cities and countries, and it may turn out that your best friends live far away from you. Your interests are there, and the people you grew up with no longer concern you because they are either against you or are not interesting to you, or they have made friends with your enemies in a different part of the planet. This is why traditional diplomacy and traditional foreign policy are no longer effective.
At the same time, some obvious things still exist. The development of national interests implies a certain mechanism, which does not exist in modern Russia. You cannot stand up and say that you know what the national interests are and will explain them to everyone. This is not how it happens.
China does not have a normal mechanism for developing national interests either. But the United States is different; it has a civil society, the opposition and regular public debates. I think the United States has a relatively clear procedure for developing national interests, but I doubt that Americans look far into the future.
National interests are a clearly formulated national egotism. People always act in their own interests. There is no, and should be no, goodwill in foreign politics, as goodwill in this case amounts to betrayal of national interests. There can be no gifts in foreign policy either; I will gladly accept gifts from you but don’t expect anything in return. By and large, there is no country you can rely on because every state puts its own interests first. It would be senseless to try to develop long-term relations with anyone.
Shestakov: In other words, there can only be tactical agreements?
Zlobin: Yes, there can only be tactical alliances formed to meet specific objectives; this is what foreign policy has now become. You join forces to attain an objective, agree on ways to do it, attain your objective and part ways. Tomorrow you could meet over a different problem as enemies.
Therefore, I think it would be self-deception to sign a 40-year treaty of friendship with China. For example, Russia has signed an agreement to lease a land plot for a military base with Armenia. But can you tell me who could have imagined 50 years ago what would happen in 2010? Life has been moving at an increasingly fast pace, and you cannot forecast what will happen in 2060, and which tasks a military base in Armenia will face.
How can national egotism be formalized? This is a big question. National egotism must be prevented from deteriorating into nationalism; it must be a progressive egotism of the people living in their country.
I think we are living in an intellectual vacuum; we don’t understand the world we are living in. In my opinion, it is senseless to sign a serious treaty and promise to fulfill it two or three political generations from now. A politician who signs such a long-term treaty in fact binds the hands of his successors, who will have no freedom of action in a situation that may change very quickly.
In other words, there are many unknown quantities [in such long-term treaties], and so we should sign only tactical agreements. All those long-term forecasts, projects and the like, which we loved so much during the Soviet era, have fallen through. We cannot even create a union state with Belarus because we may agree with it today but not tomorrow. Despite its egotism, foreign policy must be flexible.
Personally, I am absolutely opposed to the idiotic idea that double standards are a bad thing. I think that double standards are a very good thing. I cannot imagine anyone living without double standards. One standard for all exists only in the Criminal Code: if you steal or kill, you go to prison.
You have a different attitude to different people, and this is normal. You can say: I love this person but not that one, or I am friends with him but not with that person. I keep telling this to my children, although I know that I would possibly tell something different to an adult. But anyway, I think that the government that is trying to live by one standard is driving itself into a corner. A flexible foreign policy, especially in this rapidly changing world, also implies the existence of double and even treble standards, provided they help national egotism to materialize.
There is no goodwill in politics; I’m a cynic in this respect. I think that national egotism must be preserved, or else you will be engulfed in the egotism of others. So, there should be different standards. Russia should have one policy for Ukraine and another for Tajikistan. This is as it should be, because Tajikistan also has one policy for Russia and another for China. That is normal.
Shestakov: Still, do you think the Russian government’s decision to intensify relations with Asia is correct, at least tactically?
Zlobin: As the Chinese say, the main advantage of tactics is that any step is the correct one when you don’t know where to go, so that you won’t find yourself in a strange place when you develop elements of a strategy.
I think that the current tactics should be first of all multifaceted. That means that it should not create obstacles to your movement in any direction or limitations for the future generations of politicians. [Formalizing such limitations] is a mistake that has often been made in post-Soviet countries. Politicians think that they are the founding fathers of their country and so they are driving the country into a dead-end from which the next generation of politicians will have to work hard to extricate it.
The current political regimes in post-Soviet countries are clearly temporary. Who could tell five years ago that Russia would have a well-functioning tandem? Nobody could even imagine it, yet this tandem is working successfully. In other words, all systems are transient and will eventually change. The borders will change, in particular in the post-Soviet space. Political systems will change. The same process has started in China, where a slow and gradual revolution is under way.
In my opinion, Russia has created an economy that is designed to serve other countries. It has created a filling station. By doing this, Russia has made itself economically dependent on other countries. When your economy depends on other countries, your foreign policy is also 100% reliant on them.
On the one hand, this is Russia’s problem - it must form an alliance with someone, or else it will be nothing more than a filling station where you refuel your car and move on, and the only thing you care about at the filling station is the price of gasoline. Unfortunately, today many countries see Russia only as an available filling station; the only thing they care about is that it sells fuel at an affordable price.
Secondly, Russia is a patriarchal bureaucracy. I have recently read on the Kremlin.ru website the minutes of a meeting held to discuss Medvedev’s decree on a 20% cut of the number of civil servants. Medvedev asked if anyone knows how many civil servants Russia needs to be an effective state. Nobody does. "And how many functions does the state have? Has anyone counted them? And do we need all of them?” the president asked. No answer.
The state is clearly inefficient. This is what the president has pinpointed. So, who would be interested in forming a union with such a state?
We are considering candidates for forming a union with, whereas a union, like love, requires reciprocity. We should first find those who want to form a union with Russia. It is pointless to talk about forming a union with China or the United States and then deciding which is more beneficial, because not many countries want to form a union with Russia. Everyone says they are ready to team up with Russia, but many are frightened off by Russia’s unpredictability. There is a golden rule which says that a predictable enemy is better than an unpredictable friend. Russia has been an unpredictable friend.
The Soviet Union was a predictable enemy; you could sign an agreement with it and be sure that it will be honored. It was the basic element of the system. But Russia’s most predictable feature is its unpredictability. Russia is a good country, with lots of gold and oil, but it is unpredictable. Therefore, the policy regarding it is to drop in, grab what you can and leave in a hurry.
I think the unipolar world has failed. The United States is not up to the challenge. And I don’t think a multipolar world will materialize either. There can be no single center of power capable of governing the world. We are living in a no-polar world without the boss, either a good or a bad one. This puts the roles of Russia, China and the United States in a completely different perspective.
There is no center that could determine global trends, which means that major powers are leaving the global political scene and that regional problems are becoming the core of global politics. We have seen examples of this: Kosovo, the Middle East, North Korea and Abkhazia. We have no solutions to these problems. Russia, China and the United States are not the political tune setters, and all other countries are not their hostages. Just the opposite, in fact: Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Beijing are becoming hostages to regional conflicts.
Shestakov: What do you mean?
Zlobin: Big powers are being drawn into others’ conflicts. Take U.S.-Russian relations: they are not bilateral relations; there is nothing bilateral in them, possibly apart from the new START treaty. All the talks Medvedev has held with Obama, just as Putin’s talks with Bush, focused on the same issues that were discussed by Brezhnev and Reagan: international security (read: terrorism), energy and nuclear non-proliferation. That’s it. We discussed these issues in the 1950s and the 1960s, and the agenda was the same in the 1970s and the 1980s. The Soviet Union no longer exists and the world has changed, it has become globalized, but the U.S.-Russian relationship still has very few truly bilateral issues. They are still discussing the problems of other countries.
We are living in the era of small countries. Big powers focused on the possibility of a global conflict, which has not happened and, I hope, will not happen. When the time of political neurosurgery came, the big powers with their big axes proved unable to do anything. We thought the world order would crack like a mirror, giving rise to two worlds. But the mirror has broken into small pieces which the big powers cannot glue back together. They don’t have the skill. We are still relying on the 20th century stereotypes. It’s like children’s clothes, which we may love but which we cannot wear when we grow up.
I think that modern Russia’s problem is that it has not found its place on the global map of civilizations. Frankly speaking, all these deliberations about Russia being between the East and the West drive me up the wall.
Shestakov: Why is that?
Zlobin: Because being "between” something is not a comfortable position. Ukraine now says it will be a transit country, a bridge country and a corridor. Have you ever lived in a flat shared by several families, and not in one of its rooms but in the hallway? Or on a bridge? God save us from living on a bridge. A bridge could be in use today and abandoned tomorrow. Bridges are used to cross from one side to the other and to move on.
In other words, a country that views itself as a link between other countries will never attain national fulfillment. You must never say that you are "between” something, as in this case you humbly accept the role of a servant. This is why I don’t like people saying that Russia will take the best from this civilization and the best from that one, and will help both civilizations in the process. You cannot be a bridge. It is offensive for the people.
Russia is a great power, a big country with an immense cultural heritage. Therefore, it must search for its place. Where could it be? This is a big question. I think the main thing is that this political quest must not be focused on searching for someone with whom to form a union, but on trying to understand where our place is and who would form a union with us when we find it. Searching the world for someone with whom to form a union in order to protect ourselves from someone else is defensive behavior. You must assert yourself and find your place, and then you will see who will want to be with you.
Russia will benefit greatly if it creates a system that will attract other countries to it. Nobody loves the United States, but there is a long line of countries wishing to be friends with it. This is probably why everybody criticizes the United States. Many people say good things about Russia, but I think everyone knows that it lacks self-determination.