Part Two: Russia’s Strategy: A Course Toward Multipolarity
Chapter V: Official Doctrines and Concepts
Preliminary Conclusions
The failures in the formulation of the official National Security Concept are due to the absence of methodical skills in the preparation of this type of political document. The concept of national security is a phenomenon of American political science, not the Russian one. It was developed after World War II by such scholars as H. Morgenthau, G. Kennan, A. Wolfers, S. Hoffman, and others. Even before the idea of national security started acquiring doctrinal forms, American scholars of international affairs had intense discussions over such key terms of foreign policy as “national interests,” “vital interests,” “fundamental interests,” “national security,” the category of “goal” in its different nuances (goal, aim, objective), as well as the complex category of “national power and strength,” trying to define the differences between phenomena expressed by different term-words: might, power, force, capability, strength, etc. Even though debates on these topics continue to this day,79 U.S. political science has nonetheless developed a general understanding of the basic categories of foreign policy and international relations. This simplifies the task of formulating well-structured political documents with a more or less clear concept apparatus.80
At the same time, Russian political scientists, having borrowed the very idea of national security from Americans, still remain embroiled in the confusion of unfamiliar terms and are not even clear about the difference in the scientific content of the words “term,” “notion,” and “category.” Clearly testifying to this fact are discussions around the concept of “national interests.”81
The other problem in developing the Concept of national security has to do less with methodology than with the developers’ world outlook. It is perfectly obvious that the content of concepts or doctrines depends on the developers’ views. In this case, I consciously avoid using the “class approach.” But even in the milieu of one class—say, the ruling bourgeois class—there exist different views of Russia’s foreign policy. It is perfectly obvious that those developers who are paid by compradors will talk about the necessity to join the “world marketplace” in close union with the West, while those developers who are tied to the national bourgeoisie will promote protection of “genuinely Russian state interests” that must be defended from “the predators of world capitalism,” and also promote greater orientation toward “Asian countries,” primarily China and India. There is nothing surprising about this, considering that in the USA, too, the general strategies of foreign policy are outlined differently, depending on which group of capitalists is currently in power. A number of international affairs scholars in the USA are working on the theoretical foundations of this set of problems; most prominent among them is Charles E. Snare, who even invented untranslatable terms for the two groups of writers I mentioned above. He calls the intermediaries “Developmental,” and advocates of the national state “Active Independent.”82
In light of everything said above, it must be clear how difficult it is to formulate a national security or foreign policy concept for Russia. An analysis of the works of leading Russian experts on foreign policy and international relations will show us where these difficulties lie.
79 See, for example, J. Brian Atwood, “Towards A New Definition Of National Security,” Vital Speeches of the Day (December 15, 1995), 135-138.
80 See Contemporary U.S. foreign policy: documents and commentary, compiled and edited by Elmer Plishke (Greenwood Press, 1991), 33-56.
81 See “The Concept of National Interests: General Parameters and Russian Specific Character,” MEMO, no.7-9 (1996).
82 Charles E. Snare, “Defining Others and Situations: Peace, Conflict, and Cooperation,” Peace and Conflict Studies 1, no. 1 (December 1994).
The 21st Century: The World Without Russia
(Philosophical-sociological Essay)