International Affairs No. 2, 2017 – Table of Contents

Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation

THE YEAR 2016 was quite fruitful in terms of our country’s relations with Asian countries: Russia’s policy in this rapidly developing part of the world is bringing substantial dividends, laying the groundwork for expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in the interest of regional stability and overall growth. …

MORE THAN 26 YEARS have passed since the reunification of Germany, and this is a good reason to assess how much the country has increased its economic power and raised its status as a European and global political player. Naturally, studies and debates normally focus on the social and economic perceptions of citizens of united Germany, on negative trends, on risks and challenges facing the country’s political class and electorate, and on suggested mechanisms for dealing with problems. Analyses of the path traversed by Russian-German relations since Germany again became a single state chiefly have the goals of finding a solution to the crisis that they are in today, salvaging positive experience that has been accumulated and detecting sore points.

Closer associates of former chancellor Helmut Kohl argue that, besides enlarging Germany’s territory, the reunification has been responsible for the country’s achieving a leading political role in Europe. The returns of a 2015 survey suggest that 67% of the population of what used to be West Germany and 72% of the people of the former East Germany approve of the reunification.¹ The combined intellectual resources of the two parts of Germany, its favorable geographical position, and its advanced economic model made the economy of the reunited country the largest in Europe and the fourth-largest worldwide after the economies of the United States, China, and Japan. …

I WOULD START with the analysis of a topic that we could consider crucial: what is happening along the borders of Italy’s southern coast? Analysts who spoke of “world disorder” with reference to the events, which are currently taking place in the Mediterranean region, probably used the most appropriate definition. If we think that last year we celebrated the anniversary of the Yalta Treaty – the 1945 conference that gave rise to a new “world order” – and that after seventy years, with the explosion of different trouble spots all over the world, we should almost go back to talking of “disorder,” that idea makes me smile. That scenario was evoked several times, even in the Holy Father’s words, when a few years ago, returning from a mission to South Korea, he said: “We entered the Third World War: only it is being fought in pieces, in chapters.”

Those crises and wars are fought mainly in the Mediterranean countries: that has therefore become the area from which a solution or even a tightening of the current crises will have to start: from the political, economic and security point of view. Those crises impact on the entire international politics, not only on the neighborhood. …

IN JUNE 2015, which marked the third month of the war in Yemen, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the situation in this country as a “ticking time bomb” and called on all parties involved to take prompt action as quickly as possible to halt the killings, of which over 50 per cent were civilians. He referred to the military intervention of the Saudi coalition in Yemen. This regional conflict can hardly be called a civil war, because a multitude of foreign actors are involved in it, all of them having interests of their own, which often contradict each other.

The United Nations and governments of many leading countries have long condemned a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, which has negatively influenced the image of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its strategic partners on the international arena. A political split in Yemen along the North-South line first surfaced back in 2009, but in the conditions of warfare and blockade it has assumed ugly forms because of accelerated erosion of government institutions of the Yemeni South and the strengthening of unofficial political groupings there, including the terrorist structures of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS, both banned in Russia. The foreign intervention has exacerbated all ethnic and cultural problems of the highly fragmented Yemeni society, enhancing its identity crisis. …

International Affairs: Dr. Akhtar, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) deals with a wide range of problems, but since the purpose of your visit to Moscow is to participate in the third session of the Ministerial Conference on Transport, it would be natural if we started by talking about transport. What effect does the process of unification of the transport networks of Asia-Pacific countries have on trade in the region and on economic and other ties in it?

In my view, the main achievement of ESCAP is the single regional action program for sustainable transport connectivity that was adopted in the middle of the last century. According to the concept underlying it, this program consists of three components – highways, a trans-Asian rail network, and quite recently the ESCAP Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports came into force – with Russian support, by the way, – and we hope to make increasing use of it. …

ONE OF TODAY’S KEY GLOBAL PROBLEMS is a risk of malevolent or hostile political use of information and communication technology (ICT) by some states with consequent threats to international peace and security. This risk has been addressed by the Russian president,¹ the leaders of other nations,² and the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (GGE).³

The GGE, in its report of 2013, said that international law “is applicable and is essential to maintaining peace and stability and promoting an open, secure, peaceful and accessible ICT environment.”⁴ In its next report, released in 2015, the GGE said in part: “State sovereignty and international norms and principles that flow from sovereignty apply to the conduct by States of ICT-related activities and to their jurisdiction over ICT infrastructure within their territory…. In considering the application of international law to State use of ICTs, the Group identified as of central importance the commitments of States to the following principles of the Charter and other international law: sovereign equality; the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered; refraining in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations; respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.”⁵ …

HOW WILL RUSSIAN-U.S. RELATIONS develop in 2017? So far, from all indications, not according to the best-case scenario. Literally on New Year’s Eve, the U.S. introduced further sanctions against Russia, including the eviction of 35 Russian diplomats. In early January, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham hastily prepared a package of sanctions, which were supposed to strike at “the softest spots”: the financial and energy sectors of the Russian economy.

Groundless accusations continue to be made against Moscow, including its alleged involvement in hacking attacks and interference in the U.S. election process. Russia’s role in fighting ISIS, a terrorist organization banned in Russia, is belittled. Furthermore, as former U.S. secretary of defense Ashton Carter said, Russia “only risks escalating the civil war in Syria.” And then former CIA director Michael Morell called for covertly killing Russians in Syria. Meanwhile, the NATO armed forces are stepping up their activity near our western borders. …

THIS ARTICLE is a logical continuation of my previous essay, “Barack Obama: Preliminary Results of Presidency”¹ that I ended with: “Obama has several months to go down to history not as the president of numerous conflicts and the state of international relations close to the Cold War but as the president who gave the world a slim hope of positive changes.” Today, we can say that he has missed his chance to be remembered as a peacemaker and a realistically minded president who knew how to defuse international tension rather than fan it to worldwide dimensions. Indeed, he did all he could to leave behind a wasteland of American-Russian relations and not the slightest hope of positive changes any time soon.

His last press conference as the president of the United States with less than two days in office, however, did not exclude that in future we might hear from him more balanced and reasonable statements. Indeed, not infrequently, political retirees, normally described as “former,” acquire more pragmatic ideas about the world and about what they have done when in office. In practical terms, it is unimportant whether Obama will show more pragmatism or will remain convinced that he was absolutely right. He showed his true colors at the wheel of the American ship; the rest, at best, belongs to memoirs. Time has come to say Finita la commedia! and drop the curtain. …

IT SEEMS that the West is gradually turning to conservatism. At least this is how Donald Trump’s victory at the 2016 presidential elections can be interpreted together with Brexit and the much stronger positions of the right-wing parties in Europe. The left liberal forces that fell into the trap of their own ideology and propaganda proved unable to adequately assess the developments in their own countries and elsewhere in the world.

Amid the failure of the multicultural ideological model, a product of the widely propagandized liberal “end of history” born by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the ruling elites are trailing behind the changing sentiments of the masses that want to revive the values of national sovereignty and the traditional interpretations of morals. …

I ARRIVED IN HAVANA three days after Fidel Castro’s funeral. The city was returning to its normal life except that on the streets there were numerous pictures of the Comandante.

There were the usual slogans around – Hasta la victoria siempre! (“Always to victory!”) and Hasta siempre! (“You are with us forever!”) – but there was one more, Yo soy Fidel! (“I am Fidel!”). I bought a T-shirt with this slogan written on it – words that expressed what the Cubans had in their hearts in those days. …

HAVING WON in the second round the primaries of the French Left. Benoit Hamon became the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, an unexpected or even sensational victory that perfectly fits, however, the latest election trends in the West.

Irrationality as a Rational Choice …

AT FIRST SIGHT, Russia and South Africa are located so far from each other and are so different from each other, and yet they have much in common, including their immense, boundless spaces, a rich cultural diversity of different regions, and the thorny historical paths. What we know today as the Republic of South Africa, at different times included, among others, the Cape Colony (first Dutch, and then British), the Orange Free State and Transvaal Boer republics (established by descendants of Dutch immigrants calling themselves Afrikaners), as well as the Zulu Kingdom.

From 1910 to 1961, these territories were part of the Union of South Africa, which was a British Empire dominion. Citizens of South Africa with good reason presently call themselves a “rainbow nation” – a “multicolored,” multiracial society that symbolizes a great diversity of ethnic and cultural identities, as well as a historical heritage of the country’s inhabitants. …

THE START of the 21st century can with good reason be considered a landmark in the development of Russian public diplomacy. After the difficult and unpredictable 1990s, the Russian leadership began to pay serious attention to creating a positive international image for Russia.

Building such an image, informing foreign audiences and Russians about the country’s foreign policy, and establishing close contacts with citizens and elites in foreign countries have been the main areas of activity in Russian public diplomacy. Its main tasks are recorded in the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation adopted in 2013. They are “improving the application of ‘soft power’ …. molding tools to better [Russia’s] perception throughout the world …. strengthening the position of the Russian language in the world …. disseminating information on the achievements of the peoples of Russia and consolidating the Russian diaspora abroad.”¹ …

THE ELEVENTH OF JANUARY of this year was the 100th anniversary of the death of the Russian Empire’s last ambassador to the United Kingdom, Count Alexander Benckendorff, who is buried inside the Westminster Cathedral in London, the main Catholic church of England and Wales. This anniversary was, in a sense, a reminder of a mission that Benckendorff had in London, where he arrived in 1903, but was unable to fulfill. What was that mission, and why its failure still affects us today?

When the threat of a pan-European war loomed large and all principal European nations were tirelessly building military and political alliances, a critical question occupied the minds of those involved in that race – what position Britain would take in that emerging geopolitical setup. …

IN SUMMER 2012, a delegation of the Faculty of Global Processes of Moscow State University established cooperation with the London Academy of Diplomacy. The following year, the honorary director of the academy, Professor Joseph Mifsud, took part in the Globalistics 2013 international congress at Moscow University, and, during his stay in the Russian capital, suggested that our faculty join a project to reform Link Campus University in Rome to give it the nature of a genuinely international educational institution.

Everyone knows that there are a lot of universities in Italy. The University of Bologna, which has existed since 1088 and is the oldest university in the world, laid the foundations for European education. It was the venue for the signature on June 19, 1999 of the Bologna declaration, a document that launched the Bologna Process, a series of meetings and agreements on the harmonization of the higher education systems of European countries. Other famous Italian universities are the Sapienza University of Rome, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, which is Europe’s largest private university, the University of Urbino, which was founded in 1506, and the universities of Genoa, Siena and Turin. However, it was largely an unusual and pioneering project to reform Link, which was an international university in terms of its curriculum and had students and lecturers from various countries. …

POST-IMPERIAL and post-Soviet Russia has just started its quest for self-identity. This is neither good nor bad: its new state hypostasis is only twenty-five years old which makes it not an easy task to send “urbi et orbi” a clear and convincing message about its essence and the optimal ways of its realization.

Each U-turn of its foreign policy, however, adds urgency to the questions: What is Russia’s message to the world? What does it think about itself in the world of immediate future and its mission in this world? To which extent is this desired role compatible with the basic interests of all other important world powers and where does it obviously and dangerously contradict their interests and aims? Is it at all possible to balance out the long-term strategic interests or will the world be threatened by a ghost of redistribution of roles by force either in the “cold” or “hot” variants? …

Conference opening

Armen Oganesyan, Editor-in-Chief of the journal International Affairs (Russia) …

WHAT WAS THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE in the early twentieth century? As a great power it was a rival of other powers – Germany, the UK, France, the North American United States (the USA), and Austria-Hungary. It was not the most developed country industrially and financially; its population was not well educated and was not rich; its elite were no longer close-knit. Its potential, however, was huge; development rates were fast, military might colossal, domestic market vast, cultural and scientific achievements unrivalled, the business circles passionary, and the intelligentsia unselfish, politically active and opposed to the crown.

Power belonged to a narrow circle of the ruling class headed by the monarch, an inevitable arrangement explained by the civilizational and geographic specifics of the country that should have been kept united. Emperor Nicholas I referred to the climate and the vastness of his country when he summed up the specifics of governance of Russia: “The distances are the curse of Russia.”¹ …

BY ITS ATTACK at the Soviet Union fascist Germany destroyed the international balance of power. The documents of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR (NKID SSSR) said that “on the strength of circumstances the Soviet Union and England became comrades-in-arms, that is, if not formal then the de facto allies at the time of war.”¹ On June 22, 1941, the day when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Foreign Secretary of the UK Anthony Eden said to Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain Ivan Maysky that the declared war had not changed Britain’s policies and that it would pour even more efforts into its struggle with Germany.² On the same day, Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill said in his broadcasted address: “Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe…. That is our policy and that is our declaration. It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people.”³

These two statements, one made in a private talk, the other over the radio, showed that confronted by the fact of fascist aggression the British Cabinet revised its relations with the Soviet Union. The diplomatic and other missions of the United Kingdom in other countries were instructed to promptly revive or establish direct contacts with the embassies and permanent missions of the Soviet Union in their countries. The British Embassy in Kabul responded immediately. On the next day, June 23, 1941, British Ambassador to Afghanistan William Fraser-Tytler instructed intelligence officer in Afghanistan Major Fletcher (accredited as the press attaché with the rank of First Secretary of the British mission) to …

IN PLANNING the setting up of the International Military Tribunal and an international trial of the main Nazi war criminals, the powers of the anti-Hitler coalition were guided by the principles of inevitable liability and punishment for all the Nazi criminals guilty of mass atrocities.

The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg set a precedent in the prosecution of state-level crimes, when state and government officials (top political and military leaders), who had made an entire state with its institutions, agencies, punitive bodies, ideology and its propaganda machine a tool of their heinous crimes, were put on trial. …