Two quasi-ideologies have to a large extent brough...

2008-11-25T12:00:00.000Z

Two quasi-ideologies have to a large extent brought about a new world scene: 1. the neo-conservative unipolar seeking "Project for a New American Century" which got us "Iraq",
and 2. "free market absolutism" which got us the financial meltdown.

The US of course remains the only superpower, but so serious has been the decline of American power (soft and hard) due to the worldwide consequences of "Iraq" and of the "meltdown" that an alternative way of looking at it could be that the US is now by far the dominant giant power in a world of dwarf great powers.

Putin's little noted 2 October 2007 Munich speech in effect notes that "unipolarism" is no longer achievable and offers Russian cooperation if the US abandons that vision. (Russia's sincerity does not appear to have been tested. Instead President Bush opened 2008 with pressure to admit the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO).

With an Obama adminstration apparently ready to concede this, albeit tacitly, Sergei Lavrov's European outlook makes sense. Russia, rather than standing alone, would have more influence cooperating with an EU that has a unified voice on today's major issues, and on the great problems that face the world.

It will be hard for Obama to re-route America towards cooperation and away from Bushian confrontation. The EU could greatly help over that. It is in Russia's interest to support the EU in this.

The problem, of course, is to achieve such a unified
voice for the EU, even though so essential for Europe, America and the world.

Lavrov's recognition that Russia is fundamentally European in the widest sense, (and that Russians largely feel European) is a welcome start in seeking greater cooperation and less confrontation by West and Russia alike.

There are idealists in the US and Europe who refuse to see Russia as a partner because of its return to Czarist style absolutism. But to make progress towards cooperation it will be neccessary to take the Russians as they are hoping for a "softening" in the future partly through greater contact with the EU countries.

Ultimately, Russia does not want to leave the West...

2008-07-04T18:39:00.000Z

Ultimately, Russia does not want to leave the West so much as to redefine it. The ‘new West’, as envisaged in Moscow, would not be dominated by the United States (abetted by the United Kingdom), but by the major continental European powers – Germany, France and Russia.

I wonder if this was the thinking around 2003 when the Paris-Berlin-Moscow alliance rallied against the U.S. push in Iraq. By now however, the "new West" seems to be defined more globally.

For example, Dmitri Trenin's 2007 book "Getting Russia Right" argues that the new West is made up of the BRIC countries, and a handful of others.

Your conference visit however indicates otherwise. In the end, this contradiction may actually support the argument of this post - that Moscow's embracing of multipolarity is just that - a myth.

Comments on Centre for European Reform: Russia and the multipolar myth

Two quasi-ideologies have to a large extent brough...

Ultimately, Russia does not want to leave the West...