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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 11/98
Russia’s New Geopolitics
Edited and Translated by Richard Weitz
July 1998
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Table of Contents
This monograph is part of a series of publications of the “Whither Russia?” project of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, based at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The goal of the “Whither Russia?” project is to illuminate for the international community the ongoing debate in Russia about the country’s identity, security, and interests. Our central question is: what will emerge as the dominant conception of Russian identity, Russian security, and Russian greatness? More specifically, we hope this project can help clarify: competing images of Russia across the political spectrum; how these competing images are reflected in policy; the shape of the debate in specific arenas; the views of the political elite and the public about the debate; differences between views in the regions and those at the center; common threads in the competing images of Russia; and, based on the conclusions drawn, Russia’s fundamental geopolitical and national interests.
As part of the project, we are publishing important works by leading Russian policymakers and academics addressing a set of three broad questions:
- Who are the Russians? Authors are examining competing ideas and components of the Russian nation, Russian nationalism, and Russian national identity.
- What is the nature of the Russian state? Monographs are analyzing competing images of the state, Russia’s status as a “Great Power,” and Russia’s national interests.
- What is Russia’s Mission? Looking at Russia’s relations with the outside world— specifically with the Newly Independent States, the coalition of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the West—and its orientation toward action, including its stated foreign policy and general international conduct.
The author of this monograph is Alexei Mitrofanov. Mitrofanov serves as the Chairman of the Committee on Geopolitics in the Russian State Duma and is perhaps the leading international relations expert of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, headed by Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky.
This essay begins with Mitrofanov’s brief reflections on the meaning of “the Russian idea” in the contemporary world. He maintains that, with respect to Russian foreign policy, the idea of “Russian national egoism” should determine Russia’s approach to the outside world. He argues that other countries base their policies on the principle of national egoism, and believes that Russia’s adherence to such a doctrine would lead to its political, economic, and spiritual renewal.
Mitrofanov calls for drastic changes in Russia’s geopolitical approach towards the countries of the so-called “Near Abroad” (the other former Soviet republics). He places little faith in the value of a multilateral approach focused on the institution of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Instead, he advocates allocating increased attention to Russia’s bilateral ties with these countries in the context of a foreign policy based on maintaining normal relations of equality and the doctrine and ideology of Russian national egoism. Mitrofanov urges the Russian state to devote more attention to the defense of the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities in the other CIS states. He also sets as a priority the withdrawal of Russian troops and border guards deployed outside the territory of the Russian Federation. With respect to Russia’s borders, he advocates the rapid incorporation of Belarus, northern Kazakhstan, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia into the Russian Federation.
From an American perspective, Mitrofanov’s reflections on Russia’s relations with those countries that have never been part of the Soviet Union are perhaps even more interesting. He compares Russia’s contemporary geopolitical situation to that of the Soviet Union in 1942, and says that the country confronts a geopolitical Stalingrad. He explicitly identifies the United States and its allies as Russia’s contemporary adversaries, claiming that they aspire to limit Russia’s role in world affairs, exploit its natural resources, and at the extreme promote its disintegration.
Mitrofanov outlines the geopolitical strategy he believes Russia should employ to meet this perceived challenge. He severely criticizes what he sees as the pro-Americanism of Russia’s foreign policy during the past decade, arguing that its architects blindly accommodated American preferences and disregarded Russia’s own national interests. He asserts that the essence of Russia’s new geopolitical approach must be to form a united Eurasian bloc based on a core Germany–Russia–Japan axis in tight cooperation with China and India. Outside of Eurasia, according to him, Russia should unite with the other oppressed peoples of the world against the United States, Great Britain, Turkey, and Russia’s other adversaries. He even outlines a policy aimed at promoting the disintegration of the United States in retaliation for what he sees as Washington’s efforts to promote divisions between Russians and their natural Slavic allies.
Although American readers will not agree with many of the policies Mitrofanov advocates, these ideas merit their attention as they are representative of the views of a segment of the Russian foreign policy elite.
Richard Weitz, a Fellow in BCSIA’s International Security Program, composed this monograph for Alexei Mitrofanov by editing and translating several of Mitrofanov’s publications. The bulk of the text derives from the English and Russian language versions of the author’s 1997 book on the same topic and the author’s Russian-language monograph, “Anti-NATO: A New Idea of Russian Geopolitics: Tactics and Strategy at the Present Stage.” Funding for the “Whither Russia?” project has been provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The opinions expressed in this monograph are those of the author and do not represent the views of Harvard University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the translator, or the editor.
The Russian idea, which has been discussed by generations of Russian philosophers beginning with the Metropolitan Illarion, has been the cornerstone that has supported the existence of the Russian people. Over the course of the many centuries that this question has been subjected to examination, numerous recipes for state-national construction have been offered. In its “pure” aspect, this discussion has reflected the Russian people’s subjective examination of concrete historical events. Even Stalin in the tragic year of 1942 had to abandon the dominant Marxist approach to history, with its dogmatic emphasis on class struggle, for a resurrected Orthodox paradigm. Prehistory had bound up the Russian consciousness with the religious cult of Orthodoxy. At that crucial moment in the history of our motherland, the return to the religious tradition revived the vital force and spirit of the Russian people, which stopped the enemy’s onslaught. Substituting the Orthodox religious paradigm, with its innate appeal to the three main branches of the Russian people (Great Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian), for the cosmopolitan Marxist one revived those forces that in turn helped revive in the Russian people an ethnic consciousness of such outstanding intensity that it successfully won over the spiritual force and faith of the Germans and broke their well-organized and mighty war machine. Stalin’s “wise” decision to return to the Russian people its ethnic consciousness saved the regime from defeat.
During the modern stage of history, where the main consolidating force of society is the state, the national idea is often viewed as a state idea. It results from the nature and functions of the state organism. It is important to understand, however, that the state is one of the main elements of the political system of a society. Hence it follows that the state ideal is not adequate to the social one. The latter is immanent in such modern values as freedom and democracy. Yet, no matter what kind of political regime a state possesses, the state enjoys the monopoly of coercion over its population, for example, with respect to the paying of taxes or issuing laws. The national idea of the present period is the state idea. Russia’s rebirth depends completely on its people’s material and spiritual life—which are a direct responsibility of the state. There exists a tight connection between the Russian people and their state. Only through their mutual progress can one build a society in which freedom and democracy can be attained.
The concept of the Russian people, the American people, etc., is purely relative. These conceptions have no real physical nature. The people as an object of nature or a physical object must have a national consciousness and a self-consciousness; a special, relatively stable psychological character; an inner stereotype of behavior (a national character), etc. It goes without saying that a Russian (ethnic), a Scotsman, or a Chukchi has these features. But an American or a Russian citizen is a subject of civil law, not natural law. An American is a combined image of the ethnic diversity that characterizes the United States. It is an abstract image of a virtually reality named the American nation. However, such a nation does not really exist because there exists a deep difference in the contents and form of those ethnic features that determine a representative of any ethnos. Afro-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Latino-Americans, etc. radically differ from each other in every ethnic feature determining a people.
II. Democracy, National Egoism, and Geopolitical Security
The main tactic and strategy of Russian policy, both at home and abroad, must consist of the consistent putting into practice of the idea of Russian national egoism. Every people as a social organism have the right to self-preservation. No society can exist without unifying ideas, without proper principles and values. Every community tries to preserve its existence, territorial integrity, civil rights, and independence. The principle of self-preservation includes such fundamental social and natural phenomenon as reproduction, raising children, employment, housing, and developing science. If a society solves these problems it lives and develops; if not, it dies. Egoism involves a choice between life and death.
To be engaged in the development of other nations means to commit crimes against the Russian people. It deprives them at a crucial moment of means that could promote their development into a vital and energetic nation. We are now national egoists: all our actions must benefit the Russian nation. It was this very national egoism that produced a great power. At the time of the dissolution of the USSR, many peoples were carrying out an energetic policy of national egoism. Nobody then spoke about a just division of its territory or its public property, or about the need for one nation to compensate another. All this has been considered and is still being considered as normal. But when the Russian people raise the issue of their own share, it is perceived as a global tragedy, as a return to the idea of empire. The Russian people do not claim what belongs to others—but they must receive what belongs to it. Like any people, they are concerned about the fate of their lands and the graves of their ancestors.
The policy of Russian national egoism is good in that it orients the Russian people to real, concrete tasks. In realizing them we can rely on our own forces rather than in mystical forces that pledge to create a paradise on earth. That is why we are trusted. That is why anti-Americanism is so widespread.
Adhering to the ideology of national egoism as a guiding system of Russian foreign policy presupposes a rather moderate involvement in the world geopolitical process. The leadership of Russian foreign policy of the previous period were not guided in their activity the elementary correlation between strategy and interests, and also made a number of serious mistakes. We must correct immediately the consequences of those mistakes, the most serious of which was and is the blind pro-American orientation of Russia’s leaders, most salient in 1991–93 but still playing a concealed role today. Russian politicians still refuse to believe that, having attained its main goal of the Cold War (the USSR’s collapse), the United States has lost geopolitical interest in the post-Soviet space and, for lack of a better strategy, has continued to adhere to their bipolar Cold War geopolitical doctrine.
The principle of national egoism does not exclude democracy. We face the task of preserving the Russian state and society when it is experiencing the influx of a lot of people without any cultural consciousness. Democracy allows for the existence of national minorities without their consent or their desire to form their own sovereign states. For any democracy is a consensus of the majority aimed at preserving the state within the framework of fixed historic and ethnic boundaries. Thus, the national egoism of the Russian people is embodied in a democratic state in which a Russian minority coexists with a minority that has no right to carry out its desire to form its own state. This is a democracy in the modern interpretation of the word, i.e., when the majority determines its future in a democratic way even to the detriment of the minority’s understanding of the future. The democratic ideology only proclaims the freedom and equality of all citizens. Democracy would exist in Russia even if the Russian people, exercising their sovereignty over all Russia, were to eliminate all other national sovereignties. In real democracies the national sovereignty of the major nation is carried out. That is why the modern paradigm of the principle of national egoism requires the elimination of all national sovereignties over Russian territory except that of the Russian people. This will lead to a strengthening of the Russian state, and the flourishing of all the peoples inhabiting Russia—not just the Russians. Equal civil rights will be ensured for all of Russia’s citizens, including those of the ethnic Russians. In this case the historical name of our country—Russia—will be brought into line with political reality.
Russian national egoism must defend Russia from ethnic cleansing and keep the Russian people part of the political, cultural, and scientific vanguard of world. The societies of Russia, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation are examples of societies open for ethnic and social assimilation, having the highest spirit of humanity and democracy. In each case the Russian people have been the main catalyst in the formation of a high level of culture. One can contrast this with the ethnoses of modern America, whose secluded ethnocracies arose during 200–300 years on the basis of the country’s divided religious-ethnic ground. Academic data shows that the American “melting pot” has stopped operating. Ethnic and religious antagonisms have been growing. The Anglo-Saxon culture has made an incomparably weaker contribution to raising other peoples’ culture than have the Russian people. During all its cultural history nobody accused the Russian people of ill intentions or the unilateral implementation of the principle of national egoism. The Russian people will adhere to the same principle today as well. It is the Europeans, not we Russians, who should be ashamed. They were the ones who installed the Bolsheviks in power in Russia and then supported them.
Effective national-state building requires the strengthening of the constructively important element of the state structure: first the Russians, then the other ethoses. Small people will receive their fair share after the Russian people are satisfied. This is normal. The opposite approach has been attempted with little success. Since October 1917 Eurasia’s small nations have lived at the expense of the Russian people, but nobody has been satiated. Now it is time to experiment with a new approach.
This is what national egoism is about. This very national egoism develops backward regions and creates great powers. Who dares reproach us for such egoism?
III. The Military and Economic Bases of Geopolitical Security
Russia today is at a turning point in its history. To put it mildly, the internal and international situation of the country leaves much to be desired. The notion of military confrontation has disappeared from the lexicon of Russian politicians, who seem to believe that democratic values should be defended by some other means. Meanwhile, the United States adheres to “the old thinking,” which posits that a country’s security depends on military strength. However, the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91 seems to show that even the United States, for all its military-economic potential, is incapable of waging a full-scale war for more than 90 days. A more protracted conflict would lead to irreversible or hard-to-control processes in the American economy.
The need for Russia to safeguard its vital interests—combined with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which is bound to continue—means that Russia must retain an effective nuclear force. The principle of geopolitical relativity requires that Russia and the West have equally effective nuclear deterrents. This in turn requires that both superpowers not reduce their forces to the 1,000–2,000 warhead level proposed by some for START III. Russia is in no financial position to purchase the new delivery systems and related facilities that such a drastic restructuring of our nuclear arsenal would entail. Such low levels would approach the nuclear potential of third countries, making geopolitics more unpredictable. A stronger nuclear force is also required to ensure the destruction of the enemy. Preemptive nuclear strikes are absolutely out-of-the question as regards superpowers. The strike has to be final! Serious discussion of such low force levels promotes the naive idea that local nuclear conflicts can break out without the superpowers needing to be concerned with their consequences. Finally, it is much harder to defend against 5,000–6,000 nuclear warheads than 1,000, a consideration that will discourage some American plans to discard the ABM Treaty and develop a nationwide ballistic missile defense.
The market system of economic management, as a consumer showcase for demonstrating the possibilities of satisfying the population’s demands for goods and services, meets popular requirements quite successfully. Nevertheless, the market does not establish harmonious proportions between the country’s military strategic interests and its inner material resources. The example of China, with its population of more than a billion people, shows that “the golden mean” lays in a pluralistic approach to the methods of economic management. Centralized planning and the free market should be integrated with adjustments made in light of the basic conditions of the specific economic-geographic region. The very variety of styles in the methods of management is determined by the character of national thinking and the existing socio-geographic conditions. Modern conditions of macroeconomic development create favorable prerequisites for the development of a state through the activity of transnational corporations (TNC’s). In this respect its would be correct to connect economic efficiency with the development of a market system. Global, national, and sub-national systems of planning retain their significance but without attaching the status of a form of state regulation to them. The old forms of state capitalism characteristic of both parts of the bipolar world are evolving into a more dynamic, flexible structure, which allows them to take into account the national-state interests of a country as well as the international division of labor. The state sector has a considerable share in the material production of European countries, but does not exceed 10–15% of its total output.
On the other hand, any economic policy is the state’s prerogative. The state determines the extent to which an economy is market driven. The world has never seen a purely market or a purely state economy. Capitalist Japan is a classic example. The Japanese government promotes the merging and rationalization of production of seven key industries: steel, automobile, ship-building, machine-building, electronics, petrochemistry, and synthetic fiber. The state has identified these branches as priority areas which represent the vanguard of technical progress at present and will become the most promising spheres in the near future.
The USSR failed to make comparable progress in these areas, which reflected the new sophisticated weapons and information technologies that had begun to dominate the world economy by the mid-1980s. Raw materials production and traditional metal-consuming industries had ceased to be a factor of state power in contemporary geopolitics. The USSR’s leaders had lost control of the state’s geopolitical destiny.
The attempt to change the style of management in the USSR led to its collapse. The foundation of the USSR was strict centralization. As soon as the country started to transition to a market economy, the natural inequality between the republics and the corresponding unwillingness to share with the weak was revealed. However, the last General Secretary did not understand the new situation and went on banging his fist on the table and making intrigues in the old way. While the General Secretary was preoccupied with these petty intrigues, life moved on and the country collapsed. The General Secretary was left with neither his party portfolio nor his state post.
The agriculture sector of production remains aloof from the rest of the economy. World practice shows that small farms are ineffective in this sphere as compared with the role of small and medium enterprises in the other spheres of the economy. The specific features of agricultural production result in the widespread adoption of protectionist measures to defend this sphere of the national economy. All countries recognize the importance, for reasons of national security and other considerations, of maintaining an adequate level of food production. In recent years capitalist countries have experienced the constant pressure of “price scissors” on agricultural production caused by the discrepancy between big supply and small demand—leading to a drastic decrease in the profitability of farming. Russian farmers do not enjoy the favorable natural conditions of their American and Canadian counterparts. That is why intensive agriculture in Russia demands objectively more materials and financial investments per unit of output. If in France a hector of arable land requires an annual investment of 3,000–4,000 dollars, then the more severe conditions of Russia demand no less an investment. This requirement significantly limits Russia’s agricultural competitiveness on the world market, though Russia does enjoy some natural monopolies with respect to some technical crops such as hemp, long-fiber flax, and rye.
IV. Russia’s Geopolitical Opportunities in the Near Abroad
One of the main components of a new Russian geopolitical policy must be a drastic change in Russia’s policies toward the countries of the so-called “Near Abroad.” During its short existence the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has consistently shown itself to be useless, incapable, and in many respects harmful for our country. The present-day elites of the former Soviet republics have long since turned to the United States, NATO, Turkey, South Korea, and so forth for concrete assistance with their priorities. The former members of the great Soviet family of peoples use the CIS as a means to coordinate their efforts to acquire information about Russia and extort money from the modest Russian treasury. A way out for Russia would be to end its participation in the CIS, and instead transition to building a system of bilateral ties with the former Soviet republics. Yet, we must take into account the fact that after a definite interval of time a new generation of CIS leaders will develop who will end their blind worship of American cigarettes and cheap Turkish clothes, and the idea of a commonwealth of former Soviet peoples will again become timely—then such a structure and such close multilateral cooperation with the republics will again become profitable to Russia. Our strategic task is to create all the conditions necessary for the appearance of such people in the leaderships of the former Soviet republics as soon as possible. This will cost significantly less than the current attempts to retain these countries in Russia’s orbit.
Until that time the interests of Russia would be met by maintaining its distance from these “friends,” and suspending the wholesale transfer of our financial and material resources to Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. We must suspend the naturalization of Asian and Caucasian criminals. With the exception of Belarus, we must reject proposals to establish a visa-free regime within the CIS. Again, with the exception of Belarus, we must categorically rule out the use of any kind of “special” approaches in our relations with the newly-independent states: no privileges, no preferences, no debt write-offs. Our policy must consist in maintaining normal relations of equality while steadily carrying out the doctrine and ideology of Russian national egoism. We must stress the defense of the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities. A convinced Russian nationalist must occupy the post of Russian Minister for CIS Affairs. He must put at end to the misconceptions that have arisen concerning our Slavonic brothers. There is no Slavdom. There does exist three branches of the Russian people: Great Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian. Nicholas II, for no national interest of Russia, defended the Serbs in 1914 and lost his empire and his life. Russia experienced tremendous losses because of his mistaken policy: Russia became a xenophobic state that became isolated from world civilization.
Another important priority is to end in the shortest time possible the killing of Russian soldiers deployed outside Russia. We must immediately withdraw our troops (including border guards) from Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. What kinds of regimes are we defending there? These are absolutely anti-Russian regimes. Let our “friends” there sort out their problems among themselves. The struggle will start, and they will run to Russia for help.
It is imperative to undertake immediate and effective measures in cases (and this concerns not only the countries of the CIS) when the rights of Russians are violated, when anti-Russian actions and utterances are allowed, or when any state or its leaders form a bloc with anti-Russian forces on the international arena or with separatist movements on Russian territory. These measures must be comprehensive, and must include all the means accepted in international practice: an economic blockade, the reduction or full cancellation of humanitarian cooperation, and even military action when it is justified. But we should employ unmanned technologies. We must not lose a single soldier! We say “NO” to the loss of Russian blood! To be included in Russia’s sphere of influence, a region must be able to maintain order within its territory by means of its own resources and forces. If we cannot get the competing national elites to fight each other, then we should carry out a preemptive strike aimed at the forces and bases of a particular anti-Russian group or its foreign instigators. And let engineers of human souls and environments have no worries: the nuclear warhead will destroy only a military target, causing no damage to the environment. For example, it may be possible under some scenarios to destroy point blank the Lithuanian Parliament while it is in session. The environmental damage would be minimal: the windows in the neighboring houses will remain intact, but the instigator of Chechnya and the Russians will never know about it!
We must not be reticent about pursuing Russia’s territorial claims against the other former Soviet republics. If Latvia and Estonia dare to have territorial claims against Russia, then who can deprive us of this right. We must reject the territorial claims of the Baltic states, who welcomed the disintegration of the USSR despite the fact that Soviet Russia gave the cities of Pskov and Pechory to Estonia and the Pytalovo district of the Pskov region to Latvia. We also demand the return of primordial Russian lands in northeastern Kazakhstan. Russia should divide that unsustainable country with China, thereby stimulating China’s geopolitical interests in expanding further to the west.
As for the Transcaucasus, we must recognize that the only partner here worthy of long-term cooperation is Armenia. It controls the strategically important Lachinshy corridor and the Megrinsky isthmus. We must support this country in every way possible, and even consider delivering heavy weapons to its anti-Turkey regime. Russia should aim to restore a Great Armenia that would include Armenians’ historic lands around Van lake, and which would extend to the Mediterranean Sea (at the expense of the Turkish aggressor). Russia must also advocate the transfer of Karabakh to Armenia, or the founding of a federation between these entities.
With respect to Chechnya, Russia should either transfer it to Persia, rule over the territory jointly with the Persians, or just let Chechnya quietly leave the Russian Federation. Russia would benefit from Chechnya’s quasi-independence. Chechnya is a real military power in the Caucasus. Russia should convert Chechnya into its Caucasian “gendarme.” In return for money, the Chechens will carry out tasks set before them by Russia.
In Central Asia, Russia is supporting regimes that favor the United States, not Russia. This strengthens the American-Turkish presence in Central Asia, and violates existing geopolitical norms, according to which the Caspian regime has always been considered an inner lake of the claims against the other former Soviet republics. If Latvia aRussian and Persian empires. The granting of access to the West’s oil cartel to the region by Azerbaidjan’s and Kazakhstan’s disrupts geopolitical stability. Iran has correctly suggested that all five Caspian states should organize their own cartel. We should support the desires of the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to reunite with Russia. Besides the strategic Daryal tunnel, Russia will acquire two first-class military bases: the naval base at Gudauta and the air base at Sukhumi. Ossetia is Russia’s faithfully ally against Chechnya, and permitting North and South Ossetia to reunite will solve that territorial sore point. Georgia is an unreliable partner, and in the future will be a source of discord between Turkey and Iran. Russia has no reason to pay with Russian blood for the power-hungry ambitions of the present Georgian elite, and should support Iran for reasons of Russia’s national interests. Squeezing Azerbaijan between Russian geopolitical allies (Iran and Armenia) will discourage it from pursuing any pro-Turkey actions.
Our relations with Belarus must occupy a separate, special place in the hierarchy of priorities of Russian foreign policy. Our main task and goal must be the most rapid and complete unification of the two branches of our one Slavic peoples. The union should ideally proceed according to the German variant: i.e., no confederations or imperial annexations; the Belorussian regions must simply join Russia. President Alexander Lukashenko and the other Belorussian presidents should receive important positions within the Russian political system. This issue must be treated as a question of principle. We are brothers, we must live together.
Besides economic advantages, Russia would receive important geopolitical benefits from unification with Belarus. The acquisition of Belarus would secure for Russia reliable communications along the vast Eurasian space from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic via the Brest strategic terminal. In addition, Russia would ensure reliable communications with the Russian enclave in the Baltic region via the Grodno–Suwalki–Kaliningrad belt road (rather than depending on the unreliable Baltic states). It would also remove the threat of the creation of a second “cordon sanitaire” along Russia’s western borders—Turkey and the Baltic states are especially interested in this idea. Finally, unification with Belarus would directly strengthen the unity and cohesion of the Russian Federation itself. Russia must therefore support Lukashenko in every way possible since the idea of this union is both politically and dialectically (philosophically) connected with the idea of Russian unification!
As far as Russia’s relations with Ukraine are concerned, we must understand that Russian–Ukrainian clashes benefit Turkey and the United States, not either of our two states. The Crimean Tatars and the Turks have turned Sevastopol into a Turkish enclave. We must deal with Ukraine but without aggravating tensions. Russian politicians must avoid trips to Sevastopol in which they shout “This is our city!” Ukrainian leaders must be persuaded not to promote the Crimean Tatar community as a counterbalance to the Crimean Russians. They fail to understand that their preoccupation with Russia’s so-called imperial ambitions will only lead to Ukraine’s political and economic dependence on Turkey. Ukraine’s historical reality has been shaped by the confrontation between Poland and Turkey. If it had not been for Russia’s support, these two aggressors would have divided Ukraine and assimilated its population. Russian and Ukrainian leaders must agree on joint actions in the Crimea, which is actually a Turkish bridgehead in Eastern Europe. Russian–Belorussian initiatives have practically neutralized Ukraine’s geopolitical card and its hope of playing the role of a transport corridor between the West and the East. Without Russia’s participation, Ukraine’s huge military-industrial complex and its economy as a whole will lack orders and raw materials, which will lead to mass unemployment, social tensions, and the break-up of Ukraine into three or four states, including a Turkish–Crimean Tatar state with Bakhchisaray as its center.
In this context, Russia cannot help but worry about the fate of the 11 million Russians living in Ukraine. But Ukrainian politicians should not overreact when they hear the attacks of Russian Duma members against Ukraine. These attacks result from the fact that the Russia Duma, like parliaments everywhere, is a kind of social rostrum reflecting the same passions that boil within Russian society. The Russian government, as the executive power, makes its own foreign policy.
Some may see these policies as signs of Russian imperial expansion. Far from it! What kind of expansionism is it when we are talking about the natural territories of the Russian people, territories also mentioned by Solzhenytsin: Ukraine, Belarus, and northern Kazakhstan. We are not forcing anyone to incorporate with us. If someone joins us, they do so after years of begging. This is a natural process. The Abkhazians are running away from Georgia. Where can they go? To Russia.
V. Russia’s Geopolitical Opponents
Russia’s contemporary geopolitical position is comparable to that which it experienced during the critical year of 1942—that is, during the most dangerous period of modern Russian history, when the question of Russia’s very existence as an independent state was on the agenda. If we analyze the relationship of the Russian Federation with its neighbors, and Russia’s position vis-à-vis the leading world powers and international organizations, we must acknowledge that we confront a geopolitical Stalingrad. On our efforts alone depend the answer to the question: can we survive our ordeal and throw the enemy back, or will the enemy force us back beyond the Volga? The issue concerns the isolation of Russia from Europe, the creation along its perimeter of a quarantine zone consisting of unfriendly states united in military blocs with the United States and its closest allies, the further weakening of our country, and the development of centrifugal tendencies leading to Russia’s disintegration.
The continuing fragmentation of the territory and peoples of the former USSR does not favor democracy but Russia’s enemies. If this process continues for only two to three generations, then an inner explosion will occur along the Albanian 1997 pattern. Our rivals will profit from the chaos to dispatch an international police force to Russian territory. Their goal: Russia’s enormous reserves of resources, including energy resources and fresh water, and the achievement of world dominance according to the principle, “he who possesses the Heartland rules the world.” The foreign policy of the United States and its allies proceeds from the Atlanticists traditional objective of seizing and controlling Eurasia. Their immediate goals are to isolate and weaken Russia, and to create centrifugal tendencies that will lead to Russia’s disintegration and its replacement by ten to fifteen mutually hostile satellite states that are wholly dependent on foreign powers.
Although the Atlanticists under the pretext of democracy call on Russia to abandon its policy of expansion and empire, they really are seeking to eliminate a dangerous geopolitical opponent. All their high-flown Atlantic demagogy conceals their adherence to the old geopolitical approach, which postulates a precarious divided world in which military conflict can only be prevented by a wise policy of “balance of forces.” “If you want peace, prepare for war” is the main foundation of this approach. Yet this thesis of Roman military doctrine, embodied today in the theory of deterrence, is a thesis of out-of-date geopoliticians. Nuclear Deterrence should be used as a last resort and not threatened on every trifling occasion.
In accord with its own interests of preserving the pro-American “world order” characteristic of the epoch of Soviet–American confrontation, the United States often insists on the presence of mythical dangers to global security. The world has been developing into a multi-level and multi-polar structure for a long time, but U.S. politicians do not wish to think about the undermining of American “superiority.” U.S. theorists reach the point of absurdity when they interpret any geopolitical changes as threats to America’s survival. How does the stationing of Russian S–300’s in Cyprus endanger the USA’s survival?
Washington finds it very difficult to abandon its role as world policeman. U.S. leaders believe that until 2010, no other country will be able to challenge their country’s preeminent military-economic status. Their gibberish about “the United States’ unique position in the world,” about the fact that the USA is a force for change and global peace, about its being “a bastion of freedom and democracy” in a world of chaos and evil empires are quasi-political obsessions based on self-hallucinations and subjectivist wishes.
Americans have assumed for themselves the honorable responsibility of explaining on behalf of the civilized world the values of our time to the “second-rate” nations and states. U.S. leaders without doubt or reproach condescendingly inform the rest of the world about the decisions of the G–7. Playing off the member countries against each other, the Yankees pursue above all the aim of ensuring their superiority in the world. This anachronistic policy has become an obstacle to the development of a truly just and prosperous world. The G–7 countries are impatiently looking forward to the time when they are able to throw the decrepit leader of the free world off its pedestal. The United States’ attempt to unite its West European military allies under its leadership reflects nothing more than an American realization that the time of singles has gone, and only group hunting can secure big dividends.
The world saw the cost of such a policy in the war in Somalia. The Somali people, divided by civil war, nevertheless were able to teach the U.S. military a painful lesson. As always, the latter pursued its improper policies there under the guise of the United Nations—using the organization as a screen for its attempt to secure a strategic bridgehead on the African Horn. It was like this in Iraq in 1992, and in the former Yugoslavia in 1992–1995. American leaders have been compensating for the weakening position of the United States in the military and economic spheres by relying increasingly on international organizations as mechanisms to safeguard a favorable world order.
American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War demonstrates escapism from the demands of the real external world. This is a quite dangerous situation for the rest of the world. The decreased nuclear giant is worse than the Republican elephant in the world china-shop. The “Democratic” donkey with a nuclear stick is able to do far worse things. Russia must not blindly accept Washington’s definition of global priorities. To overcome our abnormal, and highly harmful for Russia, pro-Americanism, it is necessary to tell ourselves and the rest of the world the truth: under present historical conditions, the United States is our country’s main adversary. All our actions with respect to the United States must proceed precisely from this postulate.
We must know who are our opponents and not fear to identify them. Today, besides the United States, we must also recognize that Great Britain, which long ago forgot the meaning of an independent foreign policy and is dolefully following Washington’s lead, is our country’s opponent too. So too is Turkey and the aggressive NATO bloc. To struggle against our adversaries and turn them into our allies by any means possible, and simultaneously to cherish our friends, is the essence of our new foreign policy doctrine.
All Russia’s economic hardships are connected with America’s hostile policy towards our country. U.S. policy towards Russia reflects nothing but aggression under modern conditions. Adhering to the policy of “divide and rule,” the United States seeks to confine Russia’s role to that of a regional superpower. In this framework, Russia will be nothing more than a source of raw materials and an unbounded market for American goods and services. Russia is supposed to cringe before the United States and help it maintain its status as the sole global superpower.
At present, the United States is using its monetary power to buy the support of other countries and institutions for decisions it believes affect its vital interests. The purchasing of the recent election of the new UN Secretary General graphically testifies to the fact that Washington possesses unlimited resources to secure the acceptance of such favorable outcomes. Practically all international organizations, including the United Nations, are now financially (and hence fully) dependent on the United States. For example, in the major international financial institutions, the United States and its faithful ally Great Britain control the voting. Americans can use these institutions to obtain vital economic information about their competitors. The International Monetary Fund directs the national economies of Third World countries, and hence their foreign and domestic policies, in the interests of the developed countries. Our participation in international organizations, notwithstanding claims that this is justified since Russia receives a prominent “international tribune” to express its points of view, in the final account only serves American interests. This participation only conceals the real state of affairs, which is that Russia’s vote is equal to that of Guatemala, which in effect means it is equal to nothing.
Americans rely on monetary instruments of international influence precisely because they lack the will to fight or send troops to places even when it is in their own interests. The Vietnam Syndrome will remain with them forever. Since Vietnam, they have adopted Nixon’s thesis and made it more meaningful: “to kill the Vietnamese with the hands of the Vietnamese people themselves.” All an enemy of the United States has to do is kill two American soldiers, and Washington will immediately withdraw its troops from any country. The U.S. Army has become accustomed to receiving hot coffee, not fighting wars in mountains and jungles. The pilot who earns $1500 a month does not want to bomb the enemy; he wants to go dancing with his girl. If Russia defends its vital interests and shows its readiness to employ thermonuclear weapons against the United States and its allies, mutual understanding will immediately arise and common topics for discussion will be found. Dealing with the United States requires healthy realism and pragmatism. They must know that if they are stubborn, we can strike!
So what should Russia do with respect to these international organizations, which not only do not express the interests of Russia, but also interfere in our internal affairs (recall their financing of the Chechnya elections) and exert unprecedented and unconcealed pressure on us (e.g., the requirement that we abolish the death penalty)? Russia should suspend its participation in hostile international organizations. It would not even be so terrible if Russia and other countries were to leave the United Nations if this organization continues its policy of slavish groveling before the United States. Britain and the United States did not fear to leave UNESCO in the early 1980s until “their man” was elected its chairman. To remain in the United Nations, Russia must insist on its complete overhaul. The membership of the UN Security Council must be significantly widened to include Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, the Arab League, and Israel. The United States share of the UN budget should shrink from 25% to 10% or perhaps even 5%. The members must carry out the long-delayed but urgent revision of the UN Charter, which was adopted over 50 years ago. They should transfer the headquarters of the United Nations from New York to Europe (preferably Germany). Most of the other existing international institutions cannot be reformed and will hardly become the spokespersons for the interests of all the countries and the peoples of the world. History shows that they will be destroyed—as were their analogues in previous epochs: the Congress of Vienna and the League of Nations. It is necessary to set about forming new, genuinely democratic and impartial international organizations that will express and defend the interests of nations, not financial centers.
Paradoxically, today the East European countries, including Russia, are making a greater effort for the steady development of democracy than the developed countries of the West. The West is unable to support the democratic regimes in Eastern Europe to the extent that West Germany is able to provide eastern Germany with economic assistance. Instead, the Atlanticists have substituted NATO expansion for their earlier promises of NATO’s disarmament. The Atlanticist jackal aims to establish a sanitary cordon along the old Curzon line separating Western Europe from Eurasia—exposing himself as a mental caveman. The Atlanticists’ xenophobic attempt to partition off the rest of the world, while relying on their atomic stick and loudly proclaiming the construction of a new civil and social world community while they rob other countries, is nothing more than an example of extreme sanctimony and hypocrisy. Fortunately, the geopolitical arrow of the Moscow–Minsk union, which is pointed directly at the intended Curzon wall from the Baltic states to the Black Sea, sternly reminds the Altanticists of the fact that caveman passions have gone.
VI. A Geopolitical Action Program
The essence of the New Russian Geopolitics is that Russia must become the driving force behind the formation of a new united continental bloc in Eurasia. In essence, we must replace the bipolar world of capitalism and socialism with a bipolar division between Eurasia and North America.
The Atlanticists constantly harp on the USSR’s former aggressiveness. But we are speaking about Russia, not the USSR. Russia fights only against U.S. hegemony as a source of military violence throughout the world. A unipolar world is unacceptable even philosophically. The whole world is based on competition. The Americans in principle advocate competition, the free market, and democratic values, but are communists on foreign policy. The idea that the world has to be directed from one center is characteristic of the communist spirit. In a world based on competition, one country cannot have a monopoly on solving every issue. The equal development of states benefits everyone but the United States. Russia has its own vital interests that it cannot give up without losing not only its political face but its very existence as a sovereign state. Russia and the West must observe the principle of geopolitical relativity. Russia’s and NATO’s security requirements are not so mutually exclusive as to not allow a broad space for beneficial cooperation. By respecting the principle of geopolitical relativity, politicians will make the world more sociable and stable.
We must regard the expansion of NATO as a completed fact. The Clinton Administration’s policy of NATO expansion aims to establish a defensive zone against China, which is becoming stronger relative to the West. The United States and Europe hope to move their strategic borders further east in order to be out of range of Chinese strategic missiles. Our attempts to object or lay down conditions for our participation in that anti-Russian organization look pathetic and unnatural. Nobody in the West listens to Russia’s views on this subject. Russian diplomats wasted a lot of time and words on ineffective petty intrigues against this decision. When Stalin spoke about something, his words had weight—everyone knew that his words would be followed by significant deeds. We must say to the leaders of NATO: “Yes, it is your right to expand, but we reserve the right to respond as we consider necessary.”
We could respond in a number of ways. To begin with, the State Duma ought to officially through legislation define NATO as a hostile military-political bloc. This is our right and our duty. Russia would gain the legal right to treat NATO members as hostile states, which would naturally concern Poland and those other countries eager to join the alliance as new members. The next step should be the official rejection and denunciation of all agreements defining and securing the postwar borders of Europe and Asia. In this manner we would recognize in law that which has already occurred de facto. Another method would be to rely more on “selective diplomacy.” The West should no longer be viewed as a whole, as an indivisible Atlantic community. Like other regional communities, the West consists of separate, completely different countries that have their own interests and priorities.
Pursuing a strategic alliance with Germany, Russia’s traditional approach to the West, would represent an excellent example of such “selective diplomacy.” Russia and Germany have a long history of economic and geopolitical ties. A geopolitical partnership with Germany, which currently has Europe’s most powerful economy, would allow Russia to drastically change its geopolitical status. Germany’s position in central Europe is isolated, and the country’s postwar borders are curbing its free and full geopolitical development. To restore the position in world affairs that Germany lost in the course of its postwar national humiliation, it is necessary first of all to end the American military presence in Europe. We also call on the German people to reject their disgraceful constitution, which limits that great country’s freedom at home and abroad. It was our common tragedy that the forces of the world Atlantic conspiracy managed to separate our countries and in 1941 direct the entire strength of the German Wehrmacht not against the real enemy of the German people, the international financial oligarchy, but against the Soviet Union, its natural ally. Today, as equal partners, Russia and Germany must pursue their own vital interests and the inalienable rights of our peoples to a Europe free of foreign influence. It is doubtful the Germany will willingly remain within its present territorial framework. Why should it stop at the former German Democratic Republic? The Germans will digest it and move on. Against those who would raise objections, it must be noted that Germany and Russia have always divided Europe, so it is doubtful that the Germans feel more attached to the idea of Atlanticism than they do to the idea of national rebirth. Since the ideas of Atlanticism and continental cooperation are incompatible, a Russian–German strategic partnership will result in NATO’s collapse and Europe’s liberation from Americans and Americanism. That is why Russia should promote the expansion of German influence eastward and support Germany’s position concerning its “Eastern problem”—including with respect to the issue of German autonomy and Kaliningrad.
In this regard it must be remembered that the Second World War broke out first in Poland, and the main strike against the USSR was inflicted from Polish territory. All Poland’s territorial acquisitions at the Potsdam conference in 1945 were conditioned by the necessity of that country’s establishing and maintaining friendly relations with the Soviet Union, whose legal successor is Russia. The new, pro-Atlantic Poland, which is hostile to Russia, is obliged to return immediately all the German (including a part of East Prussia) and Belorussian lands that it acquired after World War II. (It would also be logical for Russia to begin negotiations with Germany about settling the issue of the Russian part of East Prussia.) This will leave a Poland with 40% of its current territory—which will correspond to its true ethnographic boundaries. Our own relations with our Polish neighbor will be finally settled after missiles and other types of weapons deemed necessary by the unified Russian–Belarussian military command have been returned to Belarussian territory (after its unification with Russia).
A multi-party conference with the participation of all interested parties must correct the other territorial dimensions of the Potsdam agreement so that the territories of Europe better accord with modern conditions. For example, the Baltic states will need to return territory to Germany and Russia.
Japan represents another country with which Russia should form a strategic alliance. Like Germany, Japan’s contemporary political role in the world does not at all correspond to its economic might. The postwar national humiliation of the Japanese people, after they had actively developed the Asian-Pacific region for a century, aggravates this situation. Under current conditions Japan is still in fact an occupied country with a disgraceful constitution that was imposed by U.S. military power. All these political factors limit the country’s freedom in formulating its own domestic and foreign policy. The transformation of regional political centers into continental ones is a major contemporary trend. Japan tried to pursue such a policy prematurely fifty years ago, but could not do so in the face of Anglo-Saxon resistance because it was separated from its natural ally, Germany, by the vast Eurasian land mass. Since then Japan has become a major world economic power. The United States has yielded to Japan first place not only in the volume of consumer goods production, but also with respect to their quality and price. With the help of Russian raw materials and energy resources, the Japanese economy will become even more competitive. The uniting of Japan’s achievements in the field of electronics with Russia’s skills in mathematics will allow both countries to overcome U.S. military superiority in the information and computer software sphere and to achieve a technological breakthrough in the sphere of nuclear and conventional strategic weapons.
A necessary step in this direction is for Japan to cast off its American-instigated and legally-dubious constitution. We also need to settle our territorial dispute over the four South Kurile islands. Initially we should establish joint administration for this territory, limiting the Japanese population to those who lived there before 1945. The shelf of the islands should belong exclusively to Russia. The return of the islands themselves could be linked with Japan’s support for Russia’s territorial claims in Central Asia (such as our demands for the return of the primordial Russian lands in north and east Kazakhstan). For its part, Russia will support Japan’s becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Russia, as an Asian country, in alliance with Japan and in close cooperation with China and India, will inflict a final blow against the Anglo-Saxons’ policy of dividing and plundering Asia. Not a single American military base should remain in the enormous Asian-Pacific region.
Russia also has strong incentives to improve its relations with China. For centuries our relations developed without conflict. Our destructive internecine battle over communist orthodoxy, for which the Kremlin elite after Stalin was largely responsible, is over. We share a common understanding that, as Mao observed, anti-Americanism provides a modern basis for the mutual prosperity of our peoples. The alliance of both countries under Stalin’s leadership turned Eurasia into a global world island where, excluding the Islamic periphery, Anglo-Saxon influence was reduced to nil. Today, we share a common interest in combating Anglo-Saxon and Islamic influences. The United States, adhering to the principle of “divide and rule,” wants a divided China. America’s rulers constantly proclaim the need for “two China’s,” “one-and-half Chinas,” etc. China and the United States—having recently clashed over trade, Taiwan, and other matters—have already entered into a “cold war.” Anti-Americanism provides the ground for a non-ideological rapprochement between our two countries. Russia must do its utmost to strengthen China’s military might by selling arms to China. Russia must also remove all impediments to China’s expansion westward and help restore China’s sovereignty over the whole of Turkestan, including south Kazakhstan. This development will strengthen geopolitical stability in the region and provide Russia with a secure basis to develop its communications to the south. It will also bring all of Western Europe under the range of China’s nuclear missiles. Russia should also restore China’s right to Outer Mongolia. The acquisition of Mongolia will reassure China of the peacefulness of its northern frontiers and will soften its position regarding Taiwan. It would also significantly contribute to the reduction of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia must try to soften Beijing’s position with respect to Taiwan, which would allow Russia to establish economic and cultural ties with that island (whose investors could contribute significantly to the development of the Russian economy). Japan’s interest in economic and technical cooperation with Japan establish a political foundation for a Russia–China–Japan alliance that will significantly change the character of relations among the countries of the Asian-Pacific region and strengthen stability there.
China and Russia share an interest in resolving the Korean dispute because a unified Korea will contribute to Asian solidarity against the United States. At present, the Americans use the alleged threat to South Korea from the north as a pretext to maintain its considerable military presence in Asia. Korean unification would free the Asian continent of this Atlanticist presence. China and Russia should help Japan define its position towards Korea on the basis of the principles of democracy and the free choice of the Korean peoples rather than on the wishes of the United States’ proxies there. We should not exclude the fact that, for the sake of achieving the unity of Eurasia by removing the last seat of Atlanticist influence on the Asian continent, North Korea will enter into a war with the North American occupiers of South Korea.
The Russian and Indian people have traditionally had friendly feelings toward each other. The Indian people fondly remember the enormous efforts Russia made in securing India’s independence. It is necessary to develop this mutual attachment and transform it into a close allied relationship. Russia supports India’s aspirations to assume a leading role in south Asia. A Russia–China–India alliance, which would prevent U.S. interference on the subcontinent, would best promote this. The bloc would draw strength from the anti-American feeling in South Asia, the unprovoked U.S. military presence in the Indian Ocean, and the air base on the island of Diego–Garcia. All three states have suffered from the provocative and subversive actions of Islamic forces acting under U.S. control. The United States has been continuing Britain’s policy of sabotage in South Asia and the Middle East, and persistently promotes with money and weapons separatism and ethno-extremism in the region. India has experienced these subversive actions to a greater degree than the other states of the region. The division of Great India into two separate states, India and Pakistan, reflected not historical reality but Britain’s imperial policy of “divide and rule.” The United States has continued this divisive policy by supporting Pakistan against India in every way—even preventing Pakistan’s liquidation during its military conflict with India in December 1971. A Russia–China–India bloc would prevent such aggressive external interference in the future. It will assist the great Asian civilizations of China and India to peacefully recover their primordial lands which have been annexed by the Islamic hirelings of the Anglo-Saxon Empire. Through our countries’ joint efforts, and with the assistance of the very anti-American Vietnamese, we will also destroy the last bastions of Anglo-Saxon influence in Indochina.
Russia must inevitably choose Iran as a strategic partner in the Middle East. Russia has enjoyed relatively stable relations with Iran for hundreds of years. Russia must employ all its strength and resources to bring about the restoration of a Greater Persia that will unite modern Iran, north Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. All these territories are inhabited by Farsi-speaking peoples who are spiritually united in the great Tajik–Persian civilization. British intrigues divided Great Persia into three parts: an independent Persian state, a Russian-controlled part, and a part under the British Empire. Their evident desire to unite into a single state, which would benefit world culture and civilization as a whole, is obvious. Their unification would provide stability along our southern borders, curb U.S. interference in Middle Eastern affairs, and turn this region into a zone of security for the peoples living there. Russia would receive reliable access to the south seas thanks to a friendly Iran that has acquired new territories. Given Persia’s previous sovereignty over all of the Caucasus, including Chechnya, Russia must be prepared to either hand over to Great Persia the Caucasus region except for Armenia and the lands north of the line formed by the Terek–Sunzha rivers, or establish a joint condominium over the region with it. Russia, Iran, and Armenia should together eliminate Turkey as a serious geopolitical rival. Turkey is Russia’s adversary in the Middle East. Since January 1924 Turkey has been unremittingly hostile toward Russia, waging a campaign of sabotage against it. The Turks should be confined to the continental regions of the Asia Minor peninsula near modern Ankara.
Russia should also support the just struggle of the Kurdish people for their national rights. The aim should be the formation of a Kurdish–Turkish federation in which the 40 million Kurds would be guaranteed a national and spiritual center. If required, we should render the same amount of assistance to the Kurds in their struggle with Turkey as Turkey renders to separatist movements within Russia (i.e., weapons, military-technical training, financial resources, etc.). The formation by force of a Kurdish state, which will join the Berlin–Moscow–Tokyo axis, will drastically strengthen Russia’s role in the Middle East. The Kurds are Russia’s strongest trump card against Turkey. For example, we could use the Kurdish card to deter the Turkish parliament from ratifying NATO’s expansion.
Iraq is another natural ally of Russia in the Near East. Besides its pronounced anti-American position, which is the basis of our relationship, Russia and Iraq have multi-dimensional economic and cultural ties. Iraq has a glorious history as a successor of ancient Arab culture, and Iraq’s territory encompasses the lands of our planet’s earliest civilizations. Russia would also benefit from Iraq’s agricultural and oil production, and its advantageous geographic position. Saddam Hussein is a political pragmatist who understands the benefits of cooperating with Russia. We must not abandon our faithful partners in their hour of need. The Iraqi people are Russia’s reliable allies in the Middle East.
Russia should not be shy about employing all the means at its disposal to counter the United States policy of weakening Russia. In our policies with the rest of the world, we must not follow any racial, party, or ideological aims. It is all the same to us. We base our policy on pragmatism in the purest sense of the word, i.e., on the principle of reasonable egoism. For example, we should seek to deepen U.S.–European disputes over trade resulting from the emergence of NAFTA. The natural anti-Americanism in Latin America establishes the necessary foundation for Russia’s influence in this geopolitical region. The highly influential Russian community in Argentina and Uruguay will undoubtedly support are efforts in this regard. Cuba’s strategic location 90 miles off Florida could allow that country to become America’s Chechnya. Russia should also take advantage of the strength of nationalism in French Quebec, which can disrupt the close alliance between the United States and Canada.
Having been ruthlessly exploited by American capital, Africa is becoming a powerful fortress of anti-Americanism. The Americans have been deliberately trying to slow down Africa’s social-economic development. Extracting enormous profits out of Africa’s economy, the “scorched earth” tactics of U.S. transnational corporations have left poverty and destroyed landscapes in their wake. Russia can use the widespread anti-American sentiment in Africa to establish mutually beneficial relations with many of the countries of the continent, including Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Liberia.
Washington has done everything it can to divide Ukraine from Russia, those two inseparable parts of a single great nation, and is covertly encouraging separatist and anti-constitutional forces in the Russian Federation; we should not be shy about pursuing measures aimed at the disintegration of the United States. We need not be squeamish about the means we choose in support of those regional, religious, and ethnic movements in the United States that oppose the American constitution. We will enjoy moral superiority since we will be supporting the rights of oppressed and divided peoples. The Spanish Basques, the Irish Catholics, the French Corsicans, and other struggling nations will support us fully. Russia and world public opinion have the right to demand that the United States grant independence to its colonies in Micronesia, the Pacific Ocean (the Hawaiian and Aleutian islands), and the West Indies (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands). Russia must encourage the intentions of African–Americans to establish a “Black Republic” within U.S. territory, as well as promote the efforts of the black lobby to influence U.S. policy. The ancestors of modern blacks created the United States through their labor and defended by blood its market system and territorial integrity during the U.S. Civil War. The modern United States would not exist today were it not for the efforts of its blacks, who have a right to realize their national values even if they demand the United States’ dismemberment.
Russia can also exploit the discontent of Asian-Americans. Japanese Americans, for example, cannot forget the terrorist measures that were committed against them in 1941, when 200,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were forced into concentration camps, where many died of starvation and cold. In commemoration of those victims of the American regime, and for the restoration of national justice, we should help Japanese- and Chinese-Americans in every way possible to establish a Chinese-Japanese autonomous state in northern California, with San Francisco as its capital. The descendants of the Russian settlers in North America warrant similar status in the form of a Russian-Aleut autonomous state with New Archangel as its center. The genocide against the North American Indians must be condemned and stopped, and for these crimes against humanity American leaders should be ostracized by the world community. The biggest ethnic unions of the Indians must receive national-state autonomy within the United States. A nation having such a record of murderous deeds has no right to lead humanity’s struggle for social progress and freedom. What are the rights of the United States as a state compared with the rights of the oppressed American blacks, Indians, Micronesians, and Latin Americans.
The United States must also sooner or later realize that simple justice requires it to meet the territorial claims of those states whose territory the United States seized by means of military pressure. It is impossible to consider the question of the former Russian territories in North America as closed. Alexander II, influenced by the growth of American power, decided to “sell” the North American holdings of the Russian-American trading company. Had he any judicial right to sell this private property (which of course contained a state share)? At that time, the United States rejected de facto the Czarist autocracy. When the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, visited the United States, the American mass media repeatedly expressed great concern about the reopening of this issue. This was no accident. It reflected a recognition of the extreme injustice of the current disposition of this issue.
Although astonishing, it is true that if the United States were to vanish instantly from the annals of history, the world community and world civilization would either take no notice or rejoice. The best way to undermine the foundation of the American military threat would be to paralyze its economy. Free from the demands of the contemptuous U.S. diktat, the world economy would meet the needs of the world’s countries and regions instead of benefiting the U.S. military-industrial complexes and the American “way of life.”
Information processes represent an important dimension of contemporary international relations. The old thesis—“Who controls information, controls the world” —has acquired concrete technological dimensions. The USSR’s defeat in its informational war with the West was probably the decisive factor that led to the country’s break-up. Soviet leaders did not understand the role of television and video in state management. They let the enormous opportunities of the scientific and technological revolution (STR) of the second half of the twentieth century pass them by. This was manifested in their narrow, unidimensional application of the STR to the military-industrial sphere, where they focused on further developing its traditional metal-intensive basis. The social dimension of the STR—its application to cinema, television, and computer and information processing—was overlooked. The West was able to exploit its audio-visual and mass media superiority over the USSR to smuggle competitive and antagonistic values into the Soviet Union. Russia must now assume a leading role in developing and applying the fruits of the information revolution—including the new world of virtual reality created by the Internet.
The demands of the approaching new millennium are leading states to combine into continental and intercontinental structures. The formation of a political and economic union between North and South America by the United States, through an expansion of the North American free trade zone to the south, with the evident intention to organize a military-political bloc of both Americas, should be interpreted as the first step in this direction. The formation by the Eurasian countries of their own community, the Assembly of Eurasia, in response would be a humane, pragmatic alternative. Eurasia’s political unification in the framework of the Eurasian Assembly would be a constructive element of the global political structure; it would serve as a balancing element to the global Atlanticist structure.
An analysis of the geopolitical situation that has arisen in the world on the brink of the new century and new millennium persuasively testifies to the fact that Germany and Japan are our natural strategic allies. In recent years Germany and Japan have become powerful centers of attraction, not only regionally but also globally. Today they are approaching the limits of purely peaceful, economic expansion. Their further development is constrained by their lack of raw materials or modern military technology, and by international agreements that have lost their significance (and which we will renounce). The postwar national humiliation of the Germans and Japanese is intensified by the maintenance of an American military presence on their soil. Their conflicts with the United States will inevitably become more sharp.
An old Oriental saying holds that the problems of peace and security lie on the east-west axis, and the problems of economics on the north-south axis. The joining together of the planned regional centers of cooperation in Eurasia—i.e., the German-Russian and the Russian-Japanese strategic alliances—will create an enormous geopolitical field without inner obstacles and with enormous potential for development. The Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo axis will provide the core of this geopolitical field. Supplemented by a Russia-China-India bloc, it will represent a unique entity in the economic realm—possessing half the population of the planet, all kinds of mineral and energy resources, a powerful agricultural sector, etc.—capable of functioning as an independent system. Russia will serve as a constructive force of the geopolitical process, uniting the entire Eurasian continent. The better Russia’s ties with Germany and Japan, the more stable Eurasia will be.
The four Eurasian superpowers—Russia, Germany, China, and Japan—have an opportunity to enter the new millennium with new force under the rubric of an Assembly of Eurasia. Unlike the Arab League, the European Economic Union, or the former Warsaw Treaty Organization, the Assembly of Eurasia would unite peoples not on the basis of their national, ideological, or regional identification, but according to the most important principle—the principle of a common house. Their vast material, intellectual, financial, and raw material resources enable them to form a united continental geopolitical space with unique geopolitical possibilities. Understanding this, our enemies (the United States, Great Britain, and Turkey) are actively hindering the coming together of Eurasia’s four great powers. They promote our disputes over such issues as the Kurile Islands, German autonomy in the Volga region, and China’s borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzia, and Tajikistan. We must effectively counter their policies.
These new geopolitical formations—representing civilizations, not states—correspond to the human striving for security and dignity. From them could arise a sort of League of World Civilizations, which would promote both the diversity and the survival of the whole human species in a common home. The necessity of the League proceeds from the necessity of the new political order on the planet. Recognizing that the improvement of the world lies in the improvement of its inhabitants themselves, the League of World Civilizations will create the external conditions for the preservation and cooperation of every national religious formation of the human family. Such a League would necessarily aim at balancing the interests of civilizations, leveling up the quality of peoples’ lives on the various continents, and the mutual enrichment of cultures. Such a truly transnational organization would be absolutely different from the cosmopolitan assimilation found in the U.S. “melting pot.” Within the framework of such a League, it might be possible to remove the contradiction that is inherent in the structure of the United Nations between the rights of the individual and the rights of nations. It might also be possible to construct a more effective system of collective security, which would be based on the time-proven (over the course of many centuries) values of civilizations. In this true empire of humanity, the largest world civilizations (the European, the Slavic, the Japanese, the India, and the Chinese) as well as those cultures that have no more than a hundred people, will coexist in a geopolitical field that, owing to its cultural and ethnic diversity, will be powerful and dynamic.
The proclaimed decisions of the “world community” today actually reflects the diktat of the United States and its paid agents. The overwhelming majority of the nations of the world lack economic prospects or an opportunity to express their opinion freely on political issues for fear of being subjected to sanctions on the part of the world gendarme. The United States is safeguarding a world order that benefits only itself. This order has produced a vacuum of concrete political initiatives to change the world, and has made social outcasts of whole peoples, states, and even civilizations.
To overcome the existing deformed geopolitical situation, Russia proposes to all those states interested in universal national and global development the following concrete initiatives:
- Denunciation of the entire system of postwar agreements and treaties and the creation of a new legal-treaty basis to govern international relations
- Withdrawal of Russia from the CIS and unification with Belarus
- Creation of strategic bloc between “Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo” and “Russia-China-India”
- Re-division of spheres of influence in Europe, South-East Asia, Africa, and Latin America
- Re-division of the world on a peaceful, nonviolent, genuinely-democratic basis, taking into account the opinions of all nations and proceeding from the necessity of returning to Russia all its historic lands
- Withdrawal of Russia from hostile international organizations and the creation of new associations of states along continental lines
- Establishment of the Charter and Assembly of Eurasia, with the German-Russia-Japan and the Russia-China-India axes as their founders
- Formation of a new world order with its principles based on the Charter and its structure in the form of a League of World Civilizations
In order to secure this constructive program of actions, and proceeding from the principle of the healthy national egoism of the Russian nation, we believe that Russia should take practical steps to first settle its relations with China, Germany, and Japan. These steps and the program itself must be carried out very skillfully and relatively quickly in order that our adversaries and the policemen of the old world not unite and undertake countermeasures. We have good prospects of restoring to Russia a worthy place in the modern world, but we have very little time to implement the above program. The continuation of the basic tendencies of our current domestic and foreign policies for five or six more years will lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation. Yeltsin is pursuing the correct policies—for example, his attempt to develop a dialogue with Germany and France to counterbalance the United States—but he is acting very weakly, very slowly, and very uncertainty. He seems to believe he has another forty years to go.
Russia is a land, people, and an idea with such inexhaustible internal spiritual and material forces that only we and not others can destroy it. It is a vast and influential country. Russians are still fighting for their progress with legitimate methods and for the legitimate aim of ensuring that no foreign policy decision can be decided without Russia’s participation. Russia still has some time, but we must recognize that time is against us.
We must act!
