The Arab Spring has shifted the balance in the Middle East, highlighting new problems and challenges for Russia and other regional and extra-regional powers.
Russia’s Sochi played host to the Valdai Discussion Club Middle East section’s conference “Transformation in the Arab World and Russia’s Interests” on February 17-18, 2012.
The Valdai International Discussion Club held the Moscow-Astana videoconference “Elections in Kazakhstan and the outlook for Eurasian integration” at the RIA Novosti press center.
The theses contained in the report “Russia should not miss its chance: Development scenarios” were prepared by the working group comprising Russian and international experts ahead of the VIII annual Valdai Discussion Club meeting, themed “2011-2012 Elections and the Future of Russia. Development Scenarios for the Next 5-8 Years”.
The Valdai Index represents the combined opinion of leading world experts that participated in Valdai Club conferences with respect to Russia’s development in the political, economic, social, cultural and international spheres. Download Russia Development Index 2010-2011 in Russian (PDF)
The report examines how the Russia’s and United States` ties with the countries in post-Soviet Eurasia affect the bilateral relationship. The authors argue that despite the initial successes of the “reset” in Russia-U.S. relations, disputes relating to post-Soviet Eurasia represent “a ‘landmine’ in Russia -U.S. relations that could ‘detonate’ at any time and seriously complicate cooperation on other issues.
The clash of Putin’s ‘constructive’ with Bush’s ‘negative’ had an almost fatal outcome. But it drew a line under the dangerous escalation and since then Russia and the West have gradually entered a different stage, the contours of which are as yet impossible to define.
Stopping the U.S. missile defense program is a top priority for Moscow. The disagreements over it add to the friction between the two countries. Close Russian ties with Iran and China forced analysts in Washington to caution that information sharing on missile defense may reach wrong hands in Beijing and Teheran rather easily.
Syria is just another shipwreck resulting from Obama’s reset policy hitting the reefs. The conflicting Russian and U.S. interests in the Middle East are coming to the fore. From the Kremlin’s perspective, the practically inevitable collapse of the Assad regime would constitute a net loss.
Vladimir Putin has announced that the foreign policy priority for his next term as President will be to create a Eurasian Economic Union, building on the structures of the current Customs Union. The institutional structures of this proposed Union have yet to be clarified, so it is premature to assess how feasible this enterprise is.
Rather than a future in which Chinese hegemony will replace that of the United States, we seem to be rapidly entering a world in which no country will exercise anything resembling true world leadership. This bears a sinister resemblance to the 1920s, when the United States replaced Britain as the world’s leading economic power, but was wholly unwilling to shoulder additional burdens of global leadership.
Since the 1990s many Russians have harbored an aversion toward toward American participation in managing Russian affairs either directly or through U.S. political and economic advisers. Regardless of his alleged authoring of the “Reset” policy, McFaul is famous in both the United States and Russia as a supporter of the American policy on democracy promotion worldwide.
The international situation in 2011 was extremely turbulent, it was a year of fundamental geopolitical, geoeconomic and popular shifts in the Middle East. Like the rest of the world, Russia tried to adapt itself to the situation, at least to minimize the damage. For Russia it was necessary to react, and fortunately not to participate directly.
Seen from Moscow, the Middle East lies on its very doorstep. With 20 million Muslims in the Northern Caucasus, Russia feels that its domestic stability is linked to developments in the Arab world, especially to the rise of Islamist parties. After a long absence, Russia is now demanding a seat for itself at the top table of Middle East affairs.
The creation of a contact group for Syria similar to the League of Friends of the Syrian Opposition, whose mission is military intervention in a sovereign state, is entirely inconsistent with international law and the UN Charter
Army-General Nikolai Makarov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff launched an apparently scathing attack on the domestic defense industry. His comments provoked public controversy with the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. However, as the Russian media focused on Makarov’s statements, it appears to have missed an important point. No other general supported the views offered by the Chief of the General Staff; their silence is deafening.
What will shape Medvedev’s legacy? The reset with the US which culminated in the ratification of a new Start treaty and Russian accession to the WTO?
