International Affairs No. 3, 2018 – Table of Contents

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Chavdar Minchev, Editor-in-Chief, Mezhdunarodni otnosheniya (Bulgaria): This year it will be 140 years since the end of the Russian-Turkish Liberation War (1877-1878) and the restoration of the Bulgarian state. How do you assess the role of these events in the new history of the Balkans and Europe? Do these events as part of general historical processes have any relevance today? …

IN TODAY’S WORLD, many countries – and the international community as a whole – are facing the growing threats of terrorism and extremism. These are two dangerous phenomena that fuel each other in many areas of global life.

If terrorism was satisfactorily defined long ago, and described in international law and world practice in countering this evil, extremism is still interpreted in many ways and essentially has no exact, agreed upon definition. This interferes with, among other things, effectively dealing with the activities of extremist groups and overcoming extremism on both the national and international levels. …

TODAY, there is a more or less commonly accepted opinion that globalization is closely connected with the processes unfolding in the American economy. Let’s have a closer look at the mutual influences of economic processes going on in the United States and the world.

If we proceed from the most general definition of globalization as a process that is transforming the world economy into a single market of goods, services and capital, then the role of the United States in this process can be described as weighty or even decisive in many respects. …

THE SKRIPAL CASE is a mind-boggling example of how a state tried to sort out its problems at the expense of civilian lives. It was the UK that in a burst of political temper tried to distract the nation’s attention from cutting free school meals eligibility and from the Brexit conditions; to undermine the Nord Stream-2 project; to improve the dangerously low ratings of Theresa May and her Cabinet, etc.

In the context of issues related to chemical weapons, Syria was probably the most obvious target. For a long time, the West has been trying, without much success, to take a firmer grip on everything going on in this country only to be confronted with Russia’s highly successful policy in the region. The West, however, never desisted: armed with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism set up under UNSC Resolution 2235 as one of the instruments, it consistently accused Assad’s government of using chemical weapons, the most barbaric type of weapons of mass destruction.¹ Unlike the OPCW, this structure was mandated by the UN to identify the users of chemical weapons. Having studied six cases in which chemical weapons had been used, the Joint Mechanism assigned the responsibility for four of them to Syria and for the other two, to the so-called Islamic State. Russia, dissatisfied with the unacceptably low level of reports supplied by the Joint Mechanism and its hardly substantiated conclusions (especially doubtful in the four cases related to Syria), vetoed the proposal to extend its mandate. …

ON MARCH 29, 2017, the talks on Great Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union began in full conformity with the results of the national referendum of June 23, 2016 when the country had officially informed Brussels about its intention to withdraw from the EU under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

This unprecedented decision was prompted by many, mainly internal, factors: the mentality of the island nation, a long history of self-sufficiency up to and including imperial experience, the FRG Chancellor Merkel’s unilateral and hasty decision to open the EU borders to a huge wave of migrants from Syria and the Middle East coming from the Turkish territory. Many in the EU perceived this as a dual migrant/terrorist threat; that was enough, without exaggeration, to predetermine the results of the British referendum. The anti-migrant sentiments in Great Britain were not a new or unexpected phenomenon. Generated by the freedom of movement within the EU, they became even more obvious under the pressure of migrant workers from the “newcomer countries” (Central and Eastern Europe) which coincided with the shoots of a crisis in Western economies better described as the reverse side of globalization.¹ …

TUNISIA had gone through a long period as an independent state while its relations with Israel were shaping up.

The first contacts between the two countries date back to the early 1950s, when Tunisian representatives met with the Israeli delegation and Israeli labor leaders. At that time, Tunisia was seeking independence and was looking for Israeli support to achieve it. Habib Bourguiba, who was appointed prime minister of Tunisia after the country became independent in 1956 and was its president from 1957 to 1987, took what overall was a peaceful attitude toward Israel and to the region as a whole. In 1956, Bourguiba met with the Israeli ambassador to France, Jacob Tsur, and then Tsur met with the Tunisian finance minister, who sought Israeli assistance in building cooperative agricultural settlements.¹ …

IN LIGHT OF his immense constitutional authority and the post he holds in the structure of the American government, the personality of any U.S. president has always been considered exceptionally important, even if it does not entirely correspond to the high moral and political criteria the voters – and moreover, the international community – attribute to him. The President of the United States is both head of the Federal government and commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces. In addition to being the country’s top government official, he is also head of one of its two leading political parties, with enormous responsibilities for taking political and moral action on behalf of the entire nation – and the world community as well.

Throughout the period of his constitutional authority as President of the United States, America and the world see him on television, and reads and hear about him almost every day. He is a trendsetter in official male fashion and human behavior in public and private, and a conduit of good will and justice. How successful he is in this is another question, but it is beyond doubt that the world community is following his actions, words, and behavior, and either likes him or, on the contrary, criticizes and disagrees with him. …

ACCORDING to official information from the UN, Global Agenda 2018 includes over 80 national election campaigns (elections and referen-dums). For every state without exception, such an event is an important sovereignty factor defining, above all, the essence and functions of domestic institutions of power. At the same time, it impacts a country’s international legal personality, its international policy. So, the world community’s attention to what is going on in the international and national electoral environment is quite natural. The Russian presidential election on March 18, 2018 is an example of such focused attention – notably, in various formats (from systemic to episodic) and with colliding motives (from friendly and partner-like to aggressive and Russophobic).

Throughout the entire election campaign, including its final stage, an international factor was not simply present in Russia’s electoral fundamentals and technologies (in the entirety of its components and elements – political, legal, geographical, cultural, etc.) but was effectively integrated into them. Its effective conduct, along with other factors (the highly organized election process, providing conditions for the exercise of the active and passive electoral rights as stipulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, modern technological developments, intensive and targeted media coverage, and naturally, appropriate legislation) ensured the political and functional legitimization of the election, as a result of which V.V. Putin was declared the newly elected president of the Russian Federation. This objectively underscored the country’s achievements in search of identity in the face of the challenges of the 21st century, developing as an influential international legal personality and, finally, forging modern electoral diplomacy. …

THE WORLD expert and academic community has been and remains very much interested in the prospects of social development of the countries united by the post-Soviet space.

By his assumption about the global nature of democratic transition. Samuel Huntington moved the discourse about its realization into the field of strategy designed to reproduce in the post-Communist states the liberal-democratic order “tested by Western experience.” …

HYBRID and information warfare, public diplomacy and soft power have a special role to play today. They form an extensive arsenal of means of pressure and influence that do not involve use of force but have proven to be much more effective than traditional military methods.

One of the main users of this arsenal is the United States. Now that the Cold War is over, globalization and information technology (IT) progress enable that country to convert its information resources into an effective means of coercion and lobbying. The United States began to test new IT in international conflicts in the 1990s such as Operation Desert Storm and the air war against the former Yugoslavia. Today, the Americans possess some of the most advanced information weapons and make wide-scale use of them. …

WITH TODAY’S international relations across the world being in a permanent state of turmoil and countries increasingly turning to “hybrid” tactics, the soft power concept acquires primary importance in foreign policy.

Over the past decade, Russia has established itself as an independent player in putting together global agendas, a player with its own distinctive identity. This independent role of Russia in setting routes for principal global processes is a source of anxiety for Western nations, which are not in the habit of paying any attention to anyone else’s recipes for dealing with global and regional problems and are used to doing what they want without seeking anyone’s approval. …

A. Dubinskaya: Ms. Rekolainen, our Finnish partners, with whom we have implemented hundreds of signature projects in the history of our cooperation, continue to take a constructive approach even at the height of our current differences with the West. So, having marked the 100th anniversary of independence in December 2017, our northern neighbor and trade-economic partner is perfecting its strategy of mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia in every area.

However, after the imposition of sanctions in 2014, the record-high trade turnover between Russia and Finland fell by 33%. Although this drop, according to the Russian Trade Mission in Finland, has already been overcome, the previous level has not yet been reached. What do Finnish firms expect from business in Russia, and how do they assess the prospects for an improvement in the Russian investment climate? …

International Affairs: Yury Petrovich, the Principality of Andorra had for years seen very few visits by Russian citizens. It is only in the past decade that the country began to open up to Russians, primarily for tourists, skiers. Have many of our compatriots settled down there?

Let me quote an excerpt from Voloshin’s poem Tannhduser that was inspired by Andorra’s unique natural scenery: …

International Affairs: Your Excellency, the Principality of Andorra is traditionally associated with tourism and trade. How is your state developing nowadays?

In addition, the principality is surrounded by the Pyrenees and our Andorran mentality has always been considered somewhat closed, conservative. But mentality also needs to be gradually changed. Step by step, we began to transition to a new stage in our history and build a modern, more open and diversified economy. Of course, tourism and commerce remain our basic sectors, our development engines. After all, on average up to 8 million foreign guests a year visit our country. Andorra has the reputation of a stable and calm country. We hope that this will be so also in the future. Stability and security coupled with beautiful nature and beautiful scenery attract many tourists to our country. …

International Affairs: In 2018, we will mark the 190th anniversary of Russian-Greek diplomatic relations. What is it like for Russian diplomats to work in Greece, and are there any nuances in interaction between the Russian Embassy and the Greek government?

Q: This year will see one more anniversary – it will be 25 years since Russia and Greece signed their Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. What is the role of this treaty in Russian-Greek relations, and how is it being implemented? …

December 14, 2017

Welcoming remarks by Oleg Khramov, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the RF Security Council Interagency Commission for Information Security, to conference organizers and guests …

THE HISTORY OF TIES between Russia and Serbia included two milestone dates in February 2018 – the 180th anniversary of consular relations and the 140th anniversary of full-scale diplomatic relations between the two countries. In February of this year, the Russian Foreign Ministry marked those events with an exhibition of copies of some of the documents from the Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Empire.

The Archives, which is a division of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of History and Records, stores a large number of documents on diplomatic, economic, cultural, and religious relations between Russia and Serbia that span the period from the 18th to the early 20th century. The exhibition, held in the Foreign Ministry building, was a selection of some of the most interesting and important of them, documents dealing with various events from the First Serbian Uprising of 1804-1813 to World War I. …

A CURIOUS DOG first leapt out of the bushes. It sniffed everything around it. Then it ran on. There was its mistress. The high boots that in England are called Wellingtons. Khaki jodhpurs. A green oilcloth jacket with a brown velvet collar. And the woman herself was a blonde with a distinctive (if not characteristic) bump in her nose, clearly passed down from her Norman ancestors.

Both of us, the Russian and British coauthors of this article, gave a whistle. Before us stood the archetype of an English aristocrat. Things are different here, where the counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire meet. The local landlady and countess is the wife of the last hereditary lord. The strange woman before us was probably a relative of hers or a guest. A typical English plot development – as unsophisticated as they get. …

HISTORICAL EVENTS frequently have consequences that their architects would never have predicted. It is paradoxical, but thanks to the revolutionary events of October 1917 and the subsequent dispersion of Russians around the world, the Russian reader has now acquired a most interesting collection of diaries, memoirs, and correspondence – a unique worldwide emigre archive library.

Last year saw the publication of the diaries of the diplomat Prince Lev Vladimirovich Urusov* (1877-1933), an event of great interest not only to academics but to anyone interested in history.* The RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its Department of History and Records, and the Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Empire deliberately timed the work’s release to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Prince Urusov’s diaries cover the period of 1914-1917 and, in the words of a professional diplomat and a keenly observant man of the times, recount the historical events that turned out to be monumental for Russia. …

ALEXEY VASILIEV, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), who has spent his entire professional and academic life studying the Near and Middle East, has published a new book. Over the years, he has traveled extensively in this vast region of the world, first as a correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Pravda and then as director of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has had numerous meetings with both representatives of Middle Eastern countries and leading Russian Arabists and Orientalists. His latest book is the product of this endeavor.

Vasiliev’s monograph includes a wide range of historical materials, numerous conversations with well-known foreign affairs experts, and a detailed account, in a kind of reportage style, of the tensest moments in the history of the Middle East witnessed by the author as a journalist in the last few decades. His personal impressions and assessments are intertwined with the views of politicians, diplomats, historians, and business-people. …

ETHNIC POLICY is one of the main conditions for strengthening Russia’s statehood and a key domestic stability and security factor for the country. Russia’s successful development in the 21st century depends on whether it pursues an effective ethnic policy at home and firmly asserts its national interests in the international arena. Ways of ethnic policy optimization are discussed at government level and at scholarly and political forums. There are heated debates on ethnic issues in the media and on the Internet.

Professor Yury Bulatov, D. Sc. (Hist.), dean of the School of International Relations of the MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been making comments on ethnic policy on Radio of Russia that aroused great interest among listeners. Bulatov, who is a well-known expert on international relations, spoke on complicated ethnic policy issues in the radio station’s “Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn” (International Life) program in a simple and understandable but profoundly substantiated way. The popularity of his broadcasts has motivated him to summarize them in his book “Thoughts on Russia’s Ethnic Policy,”* supplementing his points with theoretical reflections and academic assessments. …