_schw/myasnikov.html
`How to Reconstruct a Bankrupt World’
Academician Vladimir S. Myasnikov
The Strategic Triangle of Russia,
China, and India: the Eurasian Aspect
March 21-23, 2003
Conference Declaration
Contact The Schiller Institute
Academician Vladimir S. Myasnikov addresses March 21-23 Bad Schwalbach
Conference
Dr. Myasnikov is an Academician of the Institute of Far Eastern
Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His presentation to the
Schiller Institute International Conference at Bad Schwalbach, was
part of the March 22 panel on Eurasian development keynoted by Helga
Zepp-LaRouche. The speech is translated from the Russian by Tamara
Karganova; some subheads have been added.
A strange but probably logical recourse of events can be observed in
history. The advent of the 19th Century was marked by Napoleonic wars,
and the beginning of the 20th Century, by World War I. Now, at the
dawn of the 21st Century, we are witnessing the rapid lowering of the
security threshold for the whole world. Notwithstanding the clear
striving to peace manifested by a number of leading powers, the world
again finds itself at the brink of war. In his address of Jan. 28,
2003, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, one of the most highly reputed and honest
analysts, quite correctly noted that bombing of Iraq and making the
latter a theater of hostilities could trigger a new world war and a
new great depression. Lyndon LaRouche once again emphasized that the
world would face an economic crisis more severe than the crisis of
1928-1933. However, Iraq is not the only potential trigger.
A recent report by the RAND Corporation, which presents “Conclusions
on Russia’s Decline … and Consequences for the U.S. and Its Air
Force,” says that “degradation” of Russia would affect the
U.S. interests directly or indirectly, and therefore it should be
suggested that the U.S. armed forces might be asked to help, and then
would have to operate in Russian territory or in the adjacent
areas. Incidentally, U.S. interests in the Russian theater of
international politics seem to be pretty much the same as in Iraq. As
noted by authors of the RAND report, Russia is a major producer and
supplier of energy resources, and a route for transit of oil and gas
from the Caspian region, which is defined as a key area for
U.S. national security interests.1
Finally, in 2001, Gordon G. Chang, a Chinese American, published his
book on The Coming Collapse of China.2 With his 20-year experience as
a legal counselor for a big American company in Shanghai, Gordon Chang
predicted that the Chinese state would collapse in the near-term
future. His forecast was based on the perceived inefficiency of
state-run enterprises, weaknesses and shortcomings of the banking
system in the P.R.C., as well as on the P.R.C. leaders’ alleged
inability to build an open democratic society.
So, let us try to visualize the global political scene in the near
future: The United States is hit by financial crisis; Russia’s
degradation is at the point when U.S. military interference is
required; while collapse of continental China shakes Asia and the
world at large. This would be a most gloomy scenario of international
developments in the first half of the 21st Century. To what extent it
is realistic will become clear quite soon. In this presentation, I
would like to address only those trends of international relations,
which’should they gain momentum’might prevent realization of the above
scenario.
Russia, China, and India
Can Guarantee Stability in Asia
The need to accomplish their respective reforms properly predetermines
a certain line of international behavior, pursued by the leaders of
Russia, China, and India. “Peace and Development,” the logo of the
P.R.C. foreign policy, is being pursued in the form of active work for
stability in East, Central, and Southeast Asia. As Eurasian powers,
Russia and India are interested in sustained strategic stability in
the whole of Eurasia. Visits by the Russian Federation President
Vladimir V. Putin to China and India in December 2002 have manifested
the shared positions of the three great powers with regard to major
problems of contemporary international relations. The contents of
Russia’s relations of strategic partnership with China and India are
becoming ever more specific.
By the 16th Congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, the team
of leaders headed by Jiang Zemin reached impressive results in the
sphere of foreign policy. These results serve as a good foundation for
international activities of the new team led by Hu Jingtao.
Such attainments include, but are not limited by, the following:
Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation with
Russia; agreement on the free-trade zone with the ASEAN member-states;
normalization of relations with India; balanced condition of relations
with the United States and Japan; and, willingness to resolve border
issues with all neighbor countries within 20 years.
The new world environment offers opportunities for peaceful
coexistence and other universally recognized principles of
international law, which guarantee observation of national interests
to prevail in interstate relations. Exactly such principles serve as
the basis for the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship, and
Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic
of China, signed by Russian Federation President Vladimir V. Putin and
P.R.C. President Jiang Zemin in Moscow on July 16, 2001. This Treaty
is of substantial importance’not only for Russia’s relations with its
great neighbor in Asia, but also for the whole complex of
international relations in the world of the 21st Century.
What is the reason to qualify this “treaty of the century,” as the
P.R.C. President Jiang Zemin put it, in the above terms?
First, the Moscow treaty restored the international legal and treaty
platform of Russian-Chinese relations that had been in existence for
three-plus centuries. Second, such restoration took place on a
qualitatively new basis, in conformity with the principles of
good-neighborliness, friendship, cooperation, equal trustful
partnership, and strategic interaction between the states in the 21st
Century. In this sense, the Moscow treaty, having summed up the
previous decade of constructive progress in good-neighborly relations
between Russia and China, has also paved new ways for their further
enhancement and development in the long-term perspective.
Third, for a long time already, Russian-Chinese relations have been
responsible for the general climate of international life. In the
given case, the treaty has laid the bases for regional stability in
East and Central Asia. And, finally, this instrument is the first
treaty of such magnitude in the new century. Having signed this act,
Russia and China substantially contributed to construction of the new
system of international relations, which is taking shape these days.
Russian-Chinese Treaty
The Treaty, with its systemic and comprehensive nature, has
established that Russia and China build their relations in compliance
with the universally recognized principles and norms of international
law’i.e., principles of mutual respect of sovereignty and territorial
integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in one another’s
domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful
coexistence. In their mutual relations, the two parties would
repudiate the use of force or threat of force as well as other methods
of pressure, and would confirm their pledge of non-first use of
nuclear weapons and non-targeting strategic nuclear missiles against
one another. These commitments are especially meaningful in the new
circumstances, when the United States has seceded unilaterally from
the ABM Treaty.
With the proper respect of social, political, economic, and cultural
development of each party, Russia and China provide for long-term and
stable progress of relations between the two states. Based on their
respective national interests, Russia and China support one another in
issues pertaining to protection of the state unity and territorial
integrity for either party.
Article 6 in the Treaty is of exceptional importance, as it stipulates
that the Parties, “recording, with satisfaction, the absence of mutual
territorial claims, feel resolute to transform the border between them
into a border of eternal peace and friendship to be passed through
generations, and shall apply active efforts to this end.”
Russia and China are aware of the fact that arrogance of force in
international affairs could lead to irreparable
consequences. Therefore, they “stand in favor of strict observation of
universally recognized principles and norms of international law, and
against any actions, designed to exert force pressure or to interfere
in domestic affairs of sovereign states under any pretext whatsoever;
[they] intend to apply active efforts for consolidation of
international peace, stability, development and cooperation” (Article
11). As a follow-up of the Treaty provisions, Russian Federation
President Vladimir V. Putin set forth an initiative of building the
“arc of stability” in Eurasia.
Proceeding from this principal position, both states pledged to take
efforts in order “to enhance the central role of the UN as a most
highly-reputed and most universal international organization, formed
by sovereign states, in resolution of international affairs,
especially … in providing for the main responsibility of the UN
Security Council for sustaining international peace and security”
(Article 13).
The true democratization of international life suggests recognition of
the fact that a partner in international relations must be taken as
such, and that each state is entitled to select independently,
autonomously, and on the base of its specifics, the mode of
development without interference on the part of other states. With
this, differences in social systems, ideologies, and systems of values
must not impede development of normal state-to-state relations. All
countries, whether big or small, rich or poor, are equal members of
the international community, and none of them should seek hegemony,
purse a policy of force, and monopolize international affairs.
The new international order must not be imposed forcefully. More
generally, in order to establish the new comprehensive security
concept, it is necessary to eradicate the Cold War mentality and the
recidivisms of using some national armed forces beyond the national
territory.
As emphasized in Article 20 of the Moscow treaty, “the High
Contracting Parties, in compliance with their respective national laws
and international commitments, actively cooperate in the struggle
against terrorism, separatism and extremism, as well as in the
struggle against organized crime, illegal traffic of narcotic
substances, psychotropic substances and weapons, and other criminal
activities.” Certainly, struggle against international terrorism must
proceed most resolutely.
Action Against Terrorism
The context of terrorist acts that took place in several countries in
September and October 2002 serves as a basis for a conclusion that the
counter-terrorist operation, started in Afghanistan in 2001, did not
bring comfort to the world. On the contrary, terrorism building up its
muscles and attacking in various corners of the globe.
By all evidence, it is necessary to draw national programs of struggle
against international terrorism’for example, like the one developed by
Japan’s Prime Minister Koizumi in 2001. Further on, it might be
possible to draw regional programs for struggle against terrorism’like
the one tried by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
member-states. For Northeast, East, and South Asia, such programs
might consider the experience accumulated in drafting the regional
security systems’with the only reservation that terrorism, being
well-organized and actively operating, would give us no respite, no
chance for slow action, and no opportunity for years-long negotiations
on the matter. Government structures must be better organized and more
active, must operate preventively to frustrate any possible plans and
attacks on the part of terrorists.
Finally, it seems necessary to hold a special session of the UN in
order to develop a comprehensive international counter-terrorist
program of action that would take account of political, economic,
legal, social, and national aspects of such phenomena as
terrorism. Russia, China, and India, for whom counter-terrorist
struggle is not merely a part of the international campaign but rather
an urgent national task, seem to be able to put forward their joint
initiatives on this issue on the international scene.
It should be noted, however, that’as evidenced by the course of
history’no “witch-hunt” could ever serve a basis for religion. By the
same logic, the “international terrorist-hunt,” too, cannot serve a
basis for contemporary international relations. For normal interaction
of states on the world scene, their activities must be put on a
healthy, positive, and constructive basis.
New World Order
As Chinese experts emphasize, the P.R.C. pursues a pragmatic foreign
policy, which meets the national interests of China. National
interests and their priorities are defined in the modern world on the
basis of reasonable national egoism. They are tightly connected with
provision of the given nation’s actual rights to political,
territorial, cultural, and linguistic freedom and autonomy, as well as
to equal co-existence with other nations.3
At the present time, national interests are closely connected with a
most acute issue of world policy’i.e., construction of a New World
Order. As evidenced by analysis of the concepts developed in this
sphere, they have nothing to do with purely theoretical designs, which
are always in stock with fans of scholastic discussions at
international conferences. The problem of building a new structure of
international relations is connected with national interests of all
states of the contemporary world. What is the core of the problem?
Addressing the attitudes of Russia, China, and India in this regard,
Sherman Garnett, an American political scientist, at the same time
discloses the main line of differences. In his view, all three states
feel more or less suspicious about the phenomenon, which appears as
the world order dominated by the United States. Each of the three
actors prefers one or another version of what was qualified in the
Russian-Chinese declaration of April 27, 1997 as the “multi-polar
world”; and they see such a world as a world which would give more
room for their respective national interests.4
Indeed, Russia, China, and India stand in favor of building a
polycentric world; i.e., a new structure of international relations
taking shape in the context of objective development conditions in
individual countries. This concept is supported by many states on
various continents, because it is designed to create optimal
conditions for realization of their national interests, and to provide
a new historical environment for the life of mankind in the new
century. Being renovated today, the system of global political,
economic, and cultural ties must be built on the basis of democratic
elements and principles of the UN Charter, as well as the fundamental
principles of international law. Meanwhile, it would be necessary to
consider all value orientations of each civilization, the regional
interests as well as national interests of any international actor.
Would it be possible to build a polycentric system of international
relations? In the view of Russia and China’the most active promoters
of this concept’the answer is “yes.” Both states proceed from the
understanding that by the end of the 20th Century, the post-Cold War
international relations have undergone profound changes. The two-pole
confrontational system has disappeared, to be replaced by the positive
trend for construction of a polycentric world. Changes are taking
place in relations between and among major states, including the
former adversaries in the Cold War. A growing number of countries
shares the understanding that their national interests must be
provided by equality and mutual benefit in international affairs,
rather than by hegemony and policy of force; by dialogue and
cooperation, rather than by confrontation and conflicts. Regional
organizations of economic cooperation play an ever more active role in
building a new peaceful, stable, fair, and rational international
order. Broad international cooperation becomes an urgent requirement
for realization of national and state interests.
Russia and China coordinate their plans for realization of such grand
projects of the 20th Century, as development of Western China; the
East-West and North-South international transport corridors;
construction of pipelines for downstreaming of hydrocarbon resources
from Russia to China; and the Eurasian Transcontinental Economic
Bridge. All these projects are tied directly to the central regions of
Eurasia.
Events of Sept. 11, 2001 in the United States
The New York explosions have caused a tangible effect on the course of
international affairs. The international environment, where states
operate as sovereign actors, has been made much more complex. Russia,
China, and India actively joined the anti-terrorist coalition and
supported the U.S. military action against the Taliban movement in
Afghanistan. Such support was, as well, manifested by the fact that
base airfields in the Asian states of the Commonwealth of Independent
States were provided for the U.S. Air Force transports. For the first
time in history, the U.S. Air Force came to be stationed in the
immediate vicinity of Russia’s and China’s strategic rears. In this
context, the above-cited forecast by the RAND Corporations appears
even more ominous.
In order to sustain stability in central Eurasia, Russia and China
have been and are exercising strategic partnership with Central Asian
countries, republics of the former Soviet Union. In April 1996,
Russia, China, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan held their summit
in Shanghai and signed the Agreement on military confidence-building
measures in the border area. Thus the five powers, nicknamed as
“Shanghai Five,” started their cooperation. In 1997, at their summit
in Moscow, leaders of the Five signed the even bigger-scale Agreement
on mutual reduction of armed forces across the former Soviet-Chinese
border.
The summit meetings of the Shanghai Five, held in Almaty (1998) and
Bishkek (August 1999), proved that these powers could interact quite
productively’both in the political sphere (in order to sustain
stability and to deter aggressive assault on the part of Islamic
extremists and terrorists in Central Asia), as well as in trade and
economic affairs.
On June 15, 2001, the Shanghai Five, convened in session at the
Shangri-la Hotel in Shanghai, admitted Uzbekistan as a new member and
was institutionalized as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO). At the same time, the SCO decided to set up its anti-terrorist
center in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Finally, at its summit
meeting, held in St. Petersburg in July 2002, the SCO passed its
Declaration and Charter (the latter deemed as the organization’s
statute). The Secretariat of the SCO is headquartered in Beijing. The
organization is not closed, and offers the procedures for admission of
new participants in their capacity of attending observers or
full-fledged members.5
Mongolia, India, Iran, Pakistan, and even the United States express
certain interest in interaction with the SCO. In the view of Kazakstan
President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the SCO must become a body of
confidence and partnership among the member-countries, while Russia,
China, and India are to play a key role to this end.
At the signing of the SCO basic documents in St. Petersburg, President
Putin noted that requirements for admission of new members were
described in the statutory documents, and in principle, any country
that shared the principles of the SCO Charter could become a new
member. Moreover, Russia’s President said that India “was exploring
the possibility of a more detailed introduction in the SCO activities”
through Foreign Ministry channels. As noted by India’s Foreign
Minister Yashvant Sinha, “India believes that the SCO fulfills
important tasks, especially in the struggle against the threat of
terrorism. India is interested in joining the SCO and has notified
Russia and other member-states of her intention. Our membership in the
SCO does not depend on whether any other country is or is not going to
join this structure. We believe that India can contribute considerably
to the SCO activities. However, we realize as well that at the present
moment its admission regulations make it difficult to become a new
member. Nevertheless, we watch its activities attentively.”6
U.S. ‘Sole Superpower’
A most important strategic objective of the United States in the
continent of Eurasia is to prevent the growth of forces, which could
compete with American domination and therefore are qualified as
“hostile to the United States.” Such a force was represented, for
example, by the former Soviet Union. Now the United States sees a
threat to its interests in integration developments in the post-Soviet
space, as well as in the potential unpredictability of China’s policy
in case the latter is not “engaged” in the U.S.-tailored model of
international relations.
While addressing national interests, one cannot but devote some
attention to the new role of the United States in the contemporary
world.
Today the U.S. international strategy is based on the intention to
build a one-system’that is, actually, one-pole’world. In the given
case, one system means establishment of such regimes in the world as
would comply with the national security interests of the world’s
strongest military power. The old motto'”he who is not with us, is
against us”‘has been transformed into the notion of the “axis of
evil.”
Some experts (in particular, at the Schiller Institute) argue that the
United States has moved to build an empire by the model of ancient
Rome. This would mean division of the world into two parts, metropolis
and periphery. In order to sustain its domination, the metropolis
would keep the periphery in the condition of instability, leaving very
little, if any, room for strengthening either the entire periphery or
individual peripheral states. Those countries, which for one or
another reason cause concerns in the metropolis, would be subject to
preventive attacks by metropolitan armed forces.7
The U.S. military doctrine of such kind was elaborated as early as in
the early 1990s, right after the disintegration of the Soviet
Union. Today D. Rumsfeld, R. Cheney, and P. Wolfowitz, perceived as
active promoters of this doctrine, exert influence on President George
Bush along the relevant direction.
At the same time, however, experts from the Brookings Institution in
Washington argue that Sept. 11, 2001 opened a “post-post-Cold War
era,” in which the central role should belong to the “concert of
powers,” struggling against terrorism. In their view, the architecture
of the would-be system of international relations is not yet quite
clear, but it would hardly be the one-pole structure of the post-Cold
War period. However, in the nearest future the world would not be led
by a “global government,” represented, for example, by such an
international organization as the UNO. By all evidence, the concept of
a one-pole world is starting to lose support within the United
States’at least, at the experts’ level.8
>From the standpoint of Russia’s, China’s, and India’s national
interests, the most acceptable policy of the United States would be
one for the stabilization of international security. Such a policy
should not proceed from narrow self-interests of some group within
American ruling circles, but rather from true care about sustainable
peace that would correspond also to the U.S. national interests. In
this sense, the “concert of powers” theory may be considered as an
option of the “polycentric world” theory, which is accepted by the
three states as well.
New Silk Road Policy
As for the nations which the United States tries to make an object of
its policy, they, too, are not at all happy to play the offered
role. Along with active participation in the SCO, they are putting
forward broad initiatives for the system of international relations in
the 21st Century to be polycentric and aimed at economic reforms in a
peaceful environment. For example, in the Spring of 1999, Askar
Akayev, President of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, published his
manifesto entitled “Silk Route Diplomacy,” which says: “Building of a
nuclear weapon free zone in Central Asia, discontinuing the arms race,
and converting defense production, as well as providing proper
conditions for sustainable development of all countries along the
Great Silk Route without exception’all these would give a reason to
hope that in the beginning of the 3rd Millennium, the [Silk] Route
region, with its enormous potential and resources, would be one of the
most prosperous and wealthy in the world; because problems, connected
with interests of all countries, would be resolved jointly; and all
obstacles to free movement of goods, capitals, services, and labor in
the whole area of the Route would be eliminated.
“There are sufficient grounds to suggest that all countries of the
Great Silk Route would apply maximal efforts to the effect that in the
new millennium, only positive impulses of creativity, peace, progress,
and prosperity would be generated from the region of the Route, which
is a vast space crossing the whole mainland of Eurasia from East to
West, and which unites the rich diversity of cultures, traditions, and
historic destinies.”9
This approach is accepted by a number of Asian and European states
that are interested in the grand project of the 21st Century’the
Trans-Continental Economic Bridge. In China, for example, this project
has been adopted as a government program. The project means to build a
high-tech-based network of high-speed transport and communications
lines in the expanses of Eurasia, and thus to unite Asian and European
nations in a new type of association for development. The central
purpose of such an association would be to build, through joint
efforts, an integrated super-modern infrastructure for transport,
energy, and communications, that would extend from the Pacific through
to the Atlantic, and thus provide a basis for rapid economic
development of the whole mass of Eurasia in the 21st Century.
As noted in the comprehensive expert assessment of this project,
“Having lived through geopolitical manipulations, alienation and
conflicts, as well as the ‘Great Game’ of the colonial powers, peoples
of the greatest continent have approached the opportunity to overcome
the chronic backwardness of Eurasian ‘inland areas’ with the help of
advanced technologies. For the first time in history, Eurasia, as an
integrated unit, would arrive at a quite clear economic reality,
composed by sovereign states intensively cooperating with one
another.”10
Coming back to Russia’s current strategic partnership with China and
India, it should be said that an important strategic objective in the
central part of Eurasia is the need to create and to sustain favorable
international conditions for successful realization of planned
reforms. This is a point of coincidence among major national interests
of Russia, China, and India, which is multiplied by the existing long
traditions of friendly ties in the spheres of economy, culture,
science, and technology. Lyndon LaRouche highlighted exactly this
point in his presentation of Dec. 3, 2001 in New Delhi; and exactly
this point provides a real opportunity for interaction among the three
Eurasian giants. However, in practice, the opportunity alone would not
be sufficient for such interaction, because the latter could take
place only in a certain international environment, which we have to
create and for which we shall have to struggle.
In the environment which is taking shape under the influence of other
powers, favorable factors work together with quite many unfavorable
ones, which could complicate and even frustrate interaction among the
three powers, and which are not generated exclusively by bilateral
relations within the “triangle.” So, let us try to systematize the
main unfavorable factors, and to weigh the real extent to which such
factors could jeopardize attainment of our common strategic objective.
Old and New Aspects of International Security
The first group of factors is connected with international security,
as well as its old and new aspects. All strategic threats’or, in the
given case, unfavorable factors’are embedded in the changed state of
international security. The trends that have generated the change have
been accumulated implicitly. The main aspects of the old security
structure (in the 1960s-1980s) were represented by the willingness: to
avoid nuclear war at the level of the two superpowers; to prevent the
growth of local conflicts and wars into a universal holocaust; to
block the proliferation of nuclear weapons; to solve the ecological
problems of the planet; and, to regulate the demographic explosion.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union activated development of some
old trends and generated new ones, such as: 1) So far, the reduction
of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems does not guarantee
against a nuclear war; 2) The proliferation of nuclear weapons could
not be stopped, and now the task is not so much to make such weapons
unavailable to states, but rather to individual terrorist
organizations and groups; 3) Ecological problems are mounting’both in
connection with the U.S. refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and in
connection with global climate change and the growing number of
technology-generated catastrophes; 4) By all the evidence, demographic
problems will be growing until the mid-21st Century, which is defined
as the final point of demographic transition (i.e., a global
self-regulating demographic process); 5) By that time, China’s
population, for example, would reach the mark of 1.6 billion; 6) The
two-pole structure of the world in general, and international security
in particular, is being replaced by a multi-polar structure of both,
which is taking shape in the struggle against the trend towards a
U.S.-led one-pole world; 7) Hence, there is reason to discuss the
United States as playing a new role, of a “brake” on the development
of international relations; 8) In the resolution of international
problems, evident attempts are being taken to regard domestic
legislation as higher than the UN Charter; 9) The creation of the EU
and the role of united Europe carry both positive and negative
potentials for the new system of international relations; 10) China
and India have appeared in the position of major world powers, and
their role will be growing; 11) As proved by the financial crisis of
1997-1998, the economic security of nations is no less important than
security in the military and political spheres; 12) The role of such a
factor of world development as the Islamic Revolution is growing
rapidly; and 13) Finally, factors have appeared such as international
terrorism, the international drug business, corruption and crime in
many spheres of human activity, etc., all of which serve as a reason
to discuss the process of criminal globalization. The above list of
factors could be crowned by the appearance of a worldwide
anti-globalist movement.
The second group of factors is connected with a struggle within the
United Nations and for the United Nations. The UN was established as a
collective guarantor of international security. Nowadays, we hear the
widely disseminated view that the UN is somehow outdated and lagging
behind rapidly developing international relations. To some extent,
this view seems correct’especially in the context of several
substantial failures of the UN in the last several years. The failures
include: the Yugoslavian crisis of 1999, when NATO was placed over the
UN; the year 2001, announced by the UN as the Year of Dialogue Among
Civilizations, and “creamed” by the events of Sept. 11 in the United
States; and, the resolution by the U.S. Congress allowing the
U.S. President to attack Iraq at his own discretion, neglecting the UN
resolutions and inspections. Today, if one asks the question as to
“Who is interested in the UN?” the answer will be: “Nobody but,
probably, Taiwan, who wants to be back in there” However, to bury the
UN would be premature.
Along with the ever more frequent neglect of the UN on the part of the
United States and NATO, several objective factors, too, are
responsible for weakening the UN’s role.
First, apart from the five leading countries’being the UN founders and
permanent members of its Security Council’a group of other important
actors has appeared on the world scene, and hence in the UN. These
countries’India, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and Canada’seek to strengthen
their positions in the United Nations. Reorganization of the UN
structure has been on the agenda for several years already, but so
far, consensus on this issue seems to be quite distant from
now. Second, there are a number of new multinational associations
(European Union) and international organizations’both regional (for
example, APEC) and specialized (OPEC, WTO). Regular summit and
ministerial meetings within the framework of such organizations
somehow dissolve the need to delegate a number of problems to the
UN. At the same time, informal but regular summits of the G-8 or
Asia-Europe also remove many issues from the UN agenda.
It appears that along with reorganization of the UN structure, the
authority of this organization as the only world-scale forum to
address the problems of international security could be enhanced by
such measures, as: to conduct the G-8 summit at the UN’while resolving
global issues, the G-8 must not isolate itself from the rest of the
world, because otherwise it would place itself in confrontation with
many states and with many movements; to continue the Year of Dialogue
Among Civilizations and, to this end, to select the UN as the venue
for the Asia-Europe summit, Islamic Conference Summit, and Conference
on Islam and Europe (the latter planned to take place in Spain); to
conduct the APEC and OPEC summits within the framework of the UN; to
hold a special session of the UN General Assembly that would address
unification of all forces in the struggle against international
terrorism (as discussed above).
The UN could make all the above-listed summits more transparent for
the world public, and thus create an atmosphere of better confidence
in the world. Such Eurasian powers as Russia, China, and India are
interested, probably more than others, in the UN being again an
efficient instrument of peace for the world community, and this is one
of their shared positions, where they have started to apply
coordinated efforts.
Economic Crisis, New Bretton Woods
The third group of unfavorable factors is connected with the economic
aspects of international security. In the new system of international
relations at the dawn of this century, the economic component has
grown considerably. This growth has been predetermined by three
elements: 1) the objective course of globalization; 2) depletion of
world energy resources: and, 3) global ecology problems’such as the
shortage of freshwater and depletion of soils.
Apart from these rather obvious factors, there are factors, which are
not very visible for the broad public, but which could blow up all
economic ties in the world. By this, I mean the condition of global
finance.
The situation is presented most fully and clearly in the Resolution of
Sept. 25, 2002, passed by the Italian National Parliament, with regard
to authorizing the government to take measures that would help
Argentina to overcome the crisis. The Parliament proceeded from
recognition of the fact that escalation of the banking and financial
crisis, which started from crises of 1997 in Asia, Russia, and Latin
America, and has lasted through to the recent failure of the “new
economy” in the United States, the massive and, so far, lasting
banking collapse in Japan, and the bankruptcy of Argentina, cannot but
cause concern in all countries’among the population, ruling classes,
companies, investors, and depositors’because this is not some chance
string of events, but rather expresses the crisis of the entire
[global] financial system, marked by the staggering gap between the
volume of speculative capital’worth $400 trillion ($140 trillion of
which the United States accounts for)’and a world gross product worth
only $40 trillion.
This is exactly the delayed-action mine laid within the international
financial system. The authors of the above-cited parliamentary
resolution consider it necessary to convene a new Bretton Woods-like
international conference that would address the adaptation of IMF and
IBRR [World Bank] activities to the new conditions. The evident task
of such a conference would be to free European countries from the
dependence on the U.S. dollar, in connection with enactment of the
euro, and to try to provide the same international parity for the euro
as the one that was provided at Bretton Woods for the U.S. dollar. The
nearest future will show if these efforts help to save the world from
the so-called “vampire capital”‘i.e., the continuously growing
speculative capital, which is capable of causing damage not only to
individual national economies, but to entire regional economies,
too. So far, however, all countries should be prepared for a sudden
and painful attack on the part of that vampire.
Such preparations seem to be a reasonable element of interaction among
Russia, China, and India within the framework of their constructive
partnership. The prospects for interaction in the 21st Century among
such countries as Russia, China, other SCO member countries, and
India, Mongolia, Iran’i.e., the countries that historically are
connected with the center of Eurasia’are not at all exhausted by the
vectors addressed in this presentation. Certainly, interaction of all
these countries must be put on the solid platform of economic and
science-technology cooperation.
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Footnotes
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[1] This theory was voiced as early as July 1997, when the U.S. Senate
Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on Washington’s policy
vis-Ã -vis “eight new independent states of Caucasus and Central
Asia”‘i.e., Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. According to the main
conclusion of those hearings, these republics would form a sphere of
U.S. priority interests. Such a conclusion was predetermined, first
and foremost, by the extremely rich Caspian oil and gas deposits,
comparable to the hydrocarbon resources of the Persian Gulf. In the
Caspian, the United States considers Russia and Iran as its main
competitors, while Turkey is seen in Washington as a potential ally or
tool of its policy.
[2] Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse of China (New York: Random
House, 2001).
[3] V.S. Shevtsov, Gosudarstvennyi suverenitet’voprosy teorii (State
Sovereignty’Questions of Theory) (Moscow: 1979), pp. 167-168.
[4] Sherman Garnett, Influencing Transition States: Russia. China, and
India; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Project on “Foreign
and Security Policy Problems,” Program on Asian Security (Washington,
D.C.: July 1998), p. 3.
[5] For SCO documents, see: Far Eastern Affairs, 2002, No. 4.
[6] Vremya novostei, Feb. 19, 2003, p. 5. (As the original English
text of the speech by the Indian Foreign Minister was not available,
the above quotation is translated from Russian.)
[7] Such a U.S. strategy was outlined by Alexander Oslon, President of
the Obshchestvennoye mneniye (Public Opinion Foundation), in a book
published right after the events of Sept. 11, Amerika: vzglyad iz
Rossii, Do i posle 11 sentyabrya (America: View from Russia, Before
and After September 11) (Moscow: 2001), p. 14.
[8] Brookings Northeast Asia Survey: 2001-2002 (Washington, D.C.:
2002), p. 4.
[9] A. Akayev, Diplomatiya Shelkovogo Puti (Silk Route Diplomacy)
(Bishkek: 1999), pp. 1-3.
[10] V.S. Myasnikov, “Kontinentalnyi most’proyekt XXI veka”
(Continental Bridge: Project of the 21st Century), Metally
Evrazii. Natsionalnoye obozreniye, 1997, No. 3, p. 8
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/conf-iclc/2003/bd