Part Two: Russia’s Strategy: A Course Toward Multipolarity
Chapter VI: Russian Scholars: In the World of “If-onlyism,”
or How to Take a “Worthy Place” in the World
Very few Russian scholars work on the level of notions. This is not surprising at all, considering that the Russian type of thinking is from the outset irrational, feminine, intuitive, and steeped in mysticism. For anyone who is not Russian it is practically impossible to understand what Russian scholars mean when they write of a “worthy place” in the world for their country, of integration into the world economy, of world globalization, of Russia as a great power. Attempts to find out what all this means induce in Russian scholars incomprehension or accusations that one is trying, with evil intent, to “stretch” the discussion and get it “bogged down in arguments over concepts that cannot be defined in principle.” (A. M. Salmin)83
In one of my books, I attempted to show, in a provocative form, the difference between the concepts “integration” and “internationalization,” to prove that the “Asia-Pacific region” does not exist as an economic or political integrity. The readers of this book and even those reviewers who gave positive reviews did not respond in any way to the theoretical chapter; they either considered it unworthy of their attention.
It should be clear by now what the consequences of inattention to the concept apparatus are from what was said above. The rare exception is perhaps the term “national interests”; the discussion about it was published in the magazine World Economy and International Relations (1996, No. 7-9). Although some debaters (e.g., B. G. Kapustin and D.E. Furmanov) attempted to demonstrate that this concept is impossible to define or is “heuristically low-productive,” others (in particular, A.A. Galkin, Yu. A. Krasin, and A. P. Logunov) gave important and clear definitions. One may agree or disagree with them, but one can work with them.
Russian scholars of international affairs concentrate in their discussions on some key topics, the most popular of which are globalization, the structure of international relations (unipolarity vs. multipolarity), and whether Russia is a great power.
Let’s examine each of these topics in turn.
83 Memo, no. 9 (1996), 77.
The 21st Century: The World Without Russia
(Philosophical-sociological Essay)