International Affairs No. 4, 2015 – Table of Contents

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

DEAR VETERANS, esteemed colleagues, friends, …

ON MAY 9, 2015, Russia celebrated the 70th anniversary of Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War against fascist Germany; September 2, 2015 will mark the end of World War II.

So far, there have been two versions about the beginning of World War II; today, their number is increasing. …

THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War is a special day in Russia: “There is gladness, but with sadness in our eyes.” Time is increasing the distance between us and the memorable day in May 1945 yet the results and lessons of the war remain hugely important for the fate of the world and the system of international relations. Much has been written about the military-political lessons of World War II and the world development trends it started. Today, the developments on the European continent bring to mind certain very important lessons of this war.

The military alliance of the Soviet Union and its ideological opponents – the United States, Britain and France – took shape in the heat of battles. This was the first step toward the concept of peaceful coexistence and mutually advantageous cooperation of states with different social and political systems. The war revealed potentials and skills of our cooperation. Neither we nor our wartime allies used the unique chance created by the war to develop cooperation into peaceful coexistence. …

ATTEMPTS to falsify the history of the Great Patriotic War in order to erase the very name of that war and knowledge of its events and facts from the minds of whole generations, didn’t begin today or even yesterday.

During that war, there existed the so-called Goebbels propaganda, which was named after one of the top figures in Nazism and one of Hitler’s fellow genocide mongers, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who met a sticky end in 1945. Goebbels shamelessly used his boss’ principle, “The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” Today, this principle is followed by those who feel that recognizing the victory of the Soviet Union runs against their interests. And it is not only, and not even mainly, ideology or the former confrontation between the two systems that is behind this. The bottom line is a campaign against Russia as a state. …

DISINTEGRATION of the Soviet Union in 1991 started an unbridled campaign of mudslinging of the Soviet period in the history of the state and the nation. The media of Russia and the CIS competed in slandering the Soviet Armed Forces and the officer corps.

Russian imitators of Western falsifiers distorted the facts and figures related to the Great Patriotic War. They slandered the recent past and misrepresented, from the positions of NATO, Soviet achievements and Soviet victories in history textbooks for secondary and higher schools. …

VICTORY! Very much like in 1945 this proud word resounded all over the world and was heard in Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania at peace marches, antiwar demonstrations and pickets, international forums and scientific conferences. Political and public figures, academics from various countries deemed it necessary to remind mankind that it had paid dearly for the right to live and that the Soviet Union which had made the greatest contribution to the rout of Hitler Germany paid an inconceivably high price for the victory.

An international conference titled “The Soviet Union and Latin America during World War II and the Present” organized by the Instituto Bering-Bellingshausen para las Americas (IBBA), the Raul Roa Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI) and the Institute of Cuban History was one of the most impressive and memorable events. It was carried out on the eve of the Victory Day and the 55th anniversary of restored diplomatic relations between Russia and the Republic of Cuba. …

I AM OFTEN ASKED to name the most memorable moment of my three decades as a U.S. diplomat managing America’s relations with the Soviet Union and Russia, 1983-2013. My memories are many and vivid. I recall the bitter cold of Red Square in the winters of 1984 and 1985 when I accompanied Vice President George W. Bush to the state funerals of Soviet leaders Andropov and Chernenko. And I will never forget the unexpected warmth of the summit meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev that I helped prepare in 1988. I was deeply proud when Presidents Medvedev and Obama signed the START Treaty reducing strategic nuclear weapons, an achievement that brought immense satisfaction to all of my American and Russian colleagues who helped negotiate the agreement.

From a purely emotional point of view, though, nothing surpasses the moment on May 9, 2010 when, while serving as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, I rose from my seat on the grandstand in the shadow of the Kremlin and saluted the uniformed American soldiers marching through Red Square during the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the allied victory in World War II. …

IN RECENT DECADES, globalization processes have affected many spheres of human activity, including the nuclear sphere. Under the impact of globalization, the previously divided world, with nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, has transformed and turned into a global system of nuclear dependent states and non-state entities, with systemic properties such as the stability of international nuclear relations, resistance to the impact of destructive factors, nuclear security, and the solidarity of states in addressing global and regional nuclear problems. This global sociopolitical system is known as the “nuclear world.”

The evolution of the nuclear world has changed the structure of global nuclear threats. The previously dominant threat of the outbreak of a world nuclear war has significantly diminished, receding to a lower risk category. At present, center stage has been taken by nuclear threats that until recently were regarded as potential threats. These threats include: …

THE CONFRONTATION between Russia and the West sparked by the Ukrainian crisis has affected many aspects of their mutual relations, including those in the format of the Council of Europe.

At the same time, they overlook the fact that PACE is by no means the Council of Europe’s most important body, and that it is not PACE that calls the tune in the Council’s diverse activities. But in Russia, as a result of historical processes, PACE is seen as the image and voice of the Council of Europe. …

International Affairs: Mr. Bordyuzha, how do you assess the level of cooperation between CSTO states and the effectiveness of the organization’s activity in international affairs today?

An effective political cooperation mechanism has been created in the organization, which prioritizes political and democratic methods of ensuring collective security. The CSTO’s efforts in this area are focused on coordinating foreign policy interaction between member states, providing information and analytical support for the CSTO’s activity, developing partnership ties with states and international organizations, promoting inter-parliamentary cooperation, and developing the organization’s crisis response system. Relations with international organizations, such as the OSCE and the UN, on issues of mutual interest are developing in a constructive manner. Cooperation with Latin American countries and regional organizations has been highly dynamic recently. Our relations with the CIS and the SCO can be described as relations between allies. …

XI JINPING has been more successful than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, in consolidating China’s system of government. The domestic political agenda of the “Xi-Li rule” (Li Keqiang is prime minister and an ideologue of the “fifth generation”) with the institutions and mechanisms that it has brought into being has taken even less time to put together than observers generally expected. This is the result of Xi’s style of governance and new and more difficult challenges that have needed prompt reactions, chiefly internal Communist Party issues that had obviously been the new leader’s priorities until mid-2013 or even later.

Legacy of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao and Attempts to Revise It …

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, on June 25, 1950, the first salvoes of the Korean War were fired – a war that lasted for over three years and has become one of the most bloody and devastating military conflicts of the latter half of the twentieth century. Its disastrous effects are still being felt today.

The start of the Korean War was in many ways predetermined by the rise of the Cold War. From 1910 to 1945, Korea was Japan’s colony. Upon the Soviet Union’s entering into war against Japan in August 1945, two allied powers – the USSR and the United States – reached an agreement on dividing the territory of Korea along the 38th parallel. Such a dividing line was at first considered purely technical: to the north of that line, Japanese troops surrendered to the Soviet Army, and to the south – to American forces. Initially the idea was that following its liberation from Japan Korea would become a united and independent nation. However, in its actions designed to prepare for Korea’s independence, the Soviet party was relying on the left-wing forces which were on the rise following the country’s liberation from the Japanese colonial yoke, while the American side placed a bet on the rightist parties. …

INFORMATION has always played a key role in the life of people, society and the state. From ancient times, the powers that be realized that the possession of information gives an advantage over others, helps achieve a victory, enforce subjugation, and control everything. Today, only he who creates and controls information flows has real power.

Newspapers, radio and television are the media that have long been used in the struggle for global domination and they have a serious impact on the life of each member of society. During the years of their existence, a clear understanding has emerged in society about what the media are, how they work and what their responsibility is, and the relevant international regulations have been adopted. The Internet has become a new tool that is used to influence people. This technology has drastically changed our life and the rules of the game in the information world. …

IT WAS NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago that the process of postwar settlement was completed in Europe which turned defeated Germany into a “political dwarf.” Having spent these seven decades to become Europe’s strongest socially-oriented market economy and a donor for its “small states,” as well as Europe’s main integration force, Germany can hardly claim the key role in international relations. It has no independent foreign policy course, the fact reconfirmed by its position on the Ukrainian crisis manufactured by the United States.

In 2014, Germany housed the biggest contingent of American troops outside U.S. territory (42,450 American military).¹ There are also about 16,000 British, French, Dutch, Belgian, and Canadian military stationed in Germany. The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan called Resolute Support and launched on January 1, 2015 relies on 6,839 …

INTERNATIONAL TRADE has been marked by dramatic dynamics in the years after the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The 23% plunge in global exports – in monetary terms – was followed by a nearly “mirror-like” increase in 2010 and 2011, by 22% and 20% respectively. However, in 2012, international trade stagnated, showing effectively zero growth, and 2013 saw a mere 2% increase (see Table 1).

It was no accident that, on December 7, 2013, the Ninth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) made a desperate attempt to revitalize international trade by approving the so-called Bali Package, a set of urgent measures. …

THE GLOBAL ATTENTION to the reforms of the architect of Singapore’s “economic miracle” is easily explained by the country’s socio-economic successes. Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, is an iconic figure in the modern world. In many developing and industrial countries, he is regarded as a true economic and political guru. His book, From Third World to First. The Singapore Story: 1965-2000,¹ has deservedly become a handbook for many state leaders.* What kind of a country is Singapore today and why does the experience of this small nation attract the attention of state leaders faced with questions of modernization and successful competition in the global market?

With a population of 5.4 million (116th place in the world), Singapore tops the World Bank rankings on the ease of doing business.² It also tops the list of countries with the lowest level of crime and is among the world’s three busiest container ports and largest gambling centers, as well as the fourth largest financial center after London, New York and Hong Kong.³ …

THEIR RELATIONSHIPS have been and remain very special. Jordan has never left its anti-Zionist course but was invariably guided by practical considerations: Israel’s geographic proximity, the pro-Western orientation of King Hussein and very modest territorial aspirations. The state of war between them which had begun in 1948 ended much later with a peace treaty of July 25, 1994.

At first, the population of Transjordan was about 300,000, half of the total being nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. Twenty-five thousand Christians and 10 thousand Circassians lived side by side with Muslim Arabs. Bedouins and Circassians constituted the bulk of the famous Arab Legion which by 1948, with active British support, had become the best trained and the most battle-worthy army in the Middle East. …

MATTERS RELATED TO LANGUAGE use go beyond the framework of philological disciplines and in some way or other impact various aspects of public life. Language and culture are recognized within the international community as principal “soft power” tools for promoting a country’s positive image abroad. In addition to various aspects of language policy in Russia, the joint meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations and the Council on the Russian Language, chaired by Russian President V.V. Putin, on May 19, 2015, stressed repeatedly the special role of the Russian language in expanding Russia’s spiritual and intellectual influence abroad and in the preservation and development of the Russian World. In this context, it is equally important to counter the attempts of certain politicians who build their careers in their home countries on Russophobia, casting the Russian World as a “foreign policy project” of today’s Russia, not as an objectively developed form of civilization that should be preserved.

Being the mother tongue of many Russian compatriots living abroad, the Russian language remains an important unifying factor in the evolution of integration processes in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The consolidating role of the Russian language in the Commonwealth member countries and in the broader cultural and civilizational context of the Russian World brings into focus the attempts by certain forces to deny it the status of a language of international communication and to downgrade it in their countries to the language of an ethnic group. Such trends can also be observed in the Republic of Moldova. The search for a solution to problems related to the division and the need for the integration of Moldovan society, among other things, under the …

FOR MANY CENTURIES, the term “diplomacy” was limited to the official sphere of interstate relations: talks and exchange of official documents such as notes, charters and other instruments. Put in a nutshell, traditional diplomacy is “the management of international relations by negotiation; the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys; the business or art of the diplomatist.”¹

The age of information has replaced traditional diplomacy with public one, the term itself coined in 1965 by Edmund Gullion, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.² It deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies³ and is a product of several interconnected factors: globalization, communication technologies and a greater role of society in international relations of states. Today, actors of public diplomacy – individuals, groups, TNCs, and institutes involved in cultural and communication exchange which affects the relationships between two or even more states – have joined states and diplomats. The newcomers’ impact on international relations is on the rise. …

A CONSULATE of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs operating in Aland is the only such agency endowed with a special status. Both its history and legal status are extraordinary not only in terms of Russian but also foreign consular practices.

This is largely explained by the fact that the Aland Islands have a status of a demilitarized zone; Russia’s consulate is thus essentially an element of the international instrument which allows securing the archipelago’s special political and legal status in the Baltics within the framework of the international legal relations. …

RUSSIAN-TURKISH diplomatic relations marked their 95th anniversary on June 3, 2015. Russia and Turkey, each of which is situated partially in Europe and partially in Asia and possesses a rich cultural and historical heritage, are, in a sense, bridges between East and West.

Starting Point – June 3, 1920 …

THE YEAR 1960 has come to be known as the Year of Africa as 17 states of the Black Continent became independent that year, throwing off the chains of colonialism. Among them was the Belgian Congo, the then name of today’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), the world’s most populated Francophone country and, in terms of area, the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Belgian Congo became independent on June 30, 1960. Today, June 30 is DR Congo’s main national holiday.

A week after this Central African country was declared independent, the Soviet Union recognized it and established diplomatic relations with it at ambassadorial level. …

THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the Victory over Nazism in the Great Patriotic War and World War II, which we celebrated this year, is the most important event for the entire international community. The titanic efforts of the Red Army and the Soviet people and the military victories of the allied forces saved the world from the Nazi plague and ensured firm guarantees of stable democratic development for the majority of modern states.

Nevertheless, the current situation in Europe, as well as across the world, has started to resemble the situation prevailing in the late 1930s. Furthermore, in spite of our efforts, unfortunately, now, as then, we are failing to stop the negative processes. …

International Affairs: In June 2015, we marked the 200th anniversary of the end of the Congress of Vienna. Opened in fall 1814, it changed the European (read: world) order in less than a year and ended a long epoch of Napoleonic wars. Today, it is perceived by many as another event of the distant past, a dim echo of what we learned at school and university. What do you think about the Congress: Is it just a simple chapter in our history textbooks or an event which has preserved its topicality?

Other decisions were likewise of historic importance: The Congress banned slave trade and unified diplomatic ranks. …

A NEW ADDITION to the library of works by Academician Yevgeny Primakov is a book with a pointed title that adequately reflects the current stage of history – Russia: Hopes and Fears.*

The book deals with many of today’s most important topics. Among these are the essence of Russian neoliberalism; the relationship between the central authorities and Russia’s diverse regions; the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s position; the ideologization of American policy; certain questions concerning Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization; problems of Eurasian Economic Union; the possible evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the prospects for developing the Arctic; the fate of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the attitude toward Stalin, and the essence of the “Islamic State” and the threat emanating from it. …

THE ARAB SPRING has been one of the most sensitive issues in the world for more than two years now – hence a nonstop flood of information, chronicles and analyses. Standing apart from them is a recently published monograph by Eldar Kasaev, a well-known expert on the Middle East, “Qatar in the 21st Century: Current Trends and Economic Development Forecasts.”*

As the publishing house says in its annotation, it is a unique publication, being “the first work in Russian and other countries’ academic research entirely dedicated to the contemporary Qatar economy.” …

A long-term trend in Russia’s strategic turn to the East has already surfaced some time ago, but it has only recently become a tangible reality. The 2014 foreign policy developments have given the trend an additional impetus. According to Russia’s leadership, the world has become increasingly more polycentric, and this is the fact that should be reckoned with.

It is generally known that the center of gravity in world politics and economy has been shifting to the Asia-Pacific Region. How should Russia position itself for the new realities of the twenty-first century? Which countries are its strategic partners now? Against the backdrop of Russia’s geopolitical confrontation with the West, the Korean Peninsula may be regarded as one of the major platforms for implementing this country’s efforts to strengthen its positions in the dynamically developing Asia-Pacific Region. It will be very difficult to solve not only regional security problems in Northeast Asia but also various global issues, such as, for example, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, without Russia’s participation. …