The New Russian Paradigm does make a lot of sense

Even as New Delhi is abuzz with reports of likely changes in the central government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears to be more relaxed than he was a month ago. He has begun to pay more serious attention to foreign policy issues, particularly after Libya’s regime change and the real or imaginary war cloud over Iran. Three years ago, he was seen to be sacrificing long standing friendly ties with Iran when he staked his prime ministership over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Russia looked then as an old, but a little distanced friend.

But the geopolitical situation has changed so radically in three years, that Singh perhaps realises the need to revisit Indo-Russian ties. Perhaps he is responding to Russian Prime Minister Vlamidir Putin’s call for a ‘Eurasian Union’. The Soviet Union was at once part of Europe and Asia. Indeed, that was why the US deployed all its diplomatic and military might to contain it.

The Eurasian Union wants to avoid the pitfalls of the European Union. Indeed, it wants to emerge as the counter power centre to the EU. Singh’s attention to the Russian initiative, and that too on the eve of a presidential election there, acquires significance in a rapidly changing geopolitical climate.

It was exactly 20 years ago that the Soviet Union disintegrated. For a few years there was utter chaos in the old Eastern Bloc. But on the eve of the 21st century, with Vlamdimir Putin taking over, Russia began to emphasise on participating in multilateral regional unions like the East Asia Summit, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Asia Cooperation Dialogue, ASEAN-Russia partnership and Russia-India-China format collaboration.

Within the framework of these structures Russian Federation officials focus their active work on ensuring multilateral efforts to form an open, transparent and equitable security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. They base essentially on collective, non-bloc basis, norms and principles of international law, considering the legitimate interests of all the countries min the region. Utilising its full potential, Russia strictly follows the goals of strengthening stability in the region.

Currently all sensitive international political issues involve the direct participation of the Russian Federation. Mostly, it’s due to the Russian foreign policy. There is growing response to Russia’s uninfluenced agenda, adoption of measures in a balanced way and its exceptional commitment to peaceful solution of all international problems. With the credibility of the US and Europe in crisis, there seems to be more interest in the Russian approach. But Russia actually does not want to confront the West or take advantage of their credibility gap.

In interviews to the national and foreign media, top ranking Russian officials, including the head of the foreign affairs ministry, have repeatedly stated compliance to a course of deeper integration into the political and economic processes in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region using the EAC for dialogue and interaction in terms of regional security and cooperation. Russia will seek to get the US and its allies also involved in this dialogue, thereby burdening Washington to strengthen its own military and political alliances with this regional countries.

The Russian energy complex can form a fundamental basis for energy security in the region. Russia is ready to promote its high-tech products in Asian markets in civil nuclear energy, including nuclear power plants construction, export of services to enrich uranium and reprocessing spent fuel, renewable energy, hydropower, power engineering, peaceful space exploration, telecommunications, emergency response, medicine and biotechnology, including viral infections control.

To implement economic projects and development of trade relations with the countries of the region, Russia is an active EAS supporter of building a “comprehensive economic partnership” in East Asia, which offers prospective implementation of measures to liberalise regional trade with a possible solution for free trade zone creation on APR scale.

Apparently, Russia seems to want to play a global role again, without projecting itself either as a superpower or as a challenger to the West. That is the new paradigm for sure.

The writer is editor-in-chief, Divya Marathi, DNA’s sister publication