countrymen; it was also a definition of the only real option open to Russia: “Our current domestic, financial, and technological capabilities are not sufficient for a qualitative improvement in the quality of life. We need money and technology from Europe, America, and Asia. In turn, these countries need the opportunities that Russia offers. We are very interested in the rapprochement and interpenetration of our culture and economies.”
A partnership both stimulated and facilitated by Russia’s political modernization offers the best hope for genuine collaboration. That is more likely to happen if the West also sustains its transatlantic unity and on that basis pursues a long-term policy characterized by strategic clarity and historic outreach to Russia. Strategic clarity means nothing less than a realistic assessment as to what kind of Russia would enhance—and not divide—the West. Historic outreach means that the process of the West and of Russia growing together has to be pursued both patiently and persistently if it is to become truly enduring. The cardinal principle of a strategically minded and historically prudent policy has to be that only a Europe linked to America can confidently reach eastward to embrace Russia in a historically binding relationship.
A congruence of external interests and a commitment to shared values within the framework of a constitutional democracy between the West and Russia are both required. A progressive adoption by Russia of universal democratic standards (pursued through the “interpenetration”—to use Medvedev’s word—of a common culture) would entail a gradually deepening transformation of Russia’s internal political arrangements over time. And externally, it would facilitate a steady expansion of social, economic, and eventually political ties with the West. A free trade zone, freedom of travel throughout Europe, and, eventually, open opportunities for personal resettlement whenever a legitimate economic interest beckons, could catalyze changes within Russia compatible with deeper political and security links to the West.
In order to speculate how long it would take Russia to evolve into a seamless part of the West, it is useful to bear in mind the dramatic transformation of global geopolitical realities that has occurred in just the last forty years and the fact that we live in a time characterized by the dramatic acceleration of history. (Figure 4.2 provides a highly capsulated summary of the sweeping geopolitical changes that have occurred in the course of only forty years, between 1970 and 2010.)
A systematically nurtured closer relationship between Russia and the Atlantic West (economically with the EU, and in security matters with NATO and with the United States more generally) could be hastened by gradual Russian acceptance of a truly independent Ukraine, which desires more urgently than Russia to be close to Europe and eventually to be a member of the European Union. Hence the EU was wise in November 2010 to grant Ukraine access to its programs, pointing toward a formal association agreement in 2011. A Ukraine not hostile to Russia but somewhat ahead of it in its access to the West actually helps to encourage Russia’s movement Westward toward a potentially rewarding European future. On the other hand, a Ukraine isolated from the West and increasingly politically subordinated to Russia would encourage Russia’s unwise choice in favor of its imperial past.
The precise nature of the more formal and binding institutional ties between the West and Russia that could evolve over the next several decades is, unavoidably at this stage, a matter largely of speculation. To the extent possible such a process should move forward in a balanced fashion simultaneously on social and economic as well as political and security levels. One can envisage expanding arrangements for social interactions, increasingly similar legal and constitutional arrangements, joint security exercises between NATO and the Russian military, as well as the development of new coordinating policy institutions within such an evolving larger West, all resulting in Russia’s increasing readiness for eventual membership in the EU.
FIGURE 4.2 THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF HISTORICAL DISCOUNTINUITY FROM 1970 TO 2010
But even short of Russia’s actual membership in the EU, the emerging geopolitical community of interest between the United States, Europe, and Russia (from Vancouver eastward to Vladivostok) could in the meantime lead to a formal framework for ongoing consultations regarding common policies. Since any Westward gravitation by Russia would likely be accompanied (or even preceded) by a similar accommodation with Ukraine, the institutional seat of such a collective consultative organ (or perhaps in the meantime the Council of Europe) could be located in Kyiv (the ancient capital of the Kyivan Rus’, which a thousand years ago had regal ties with the West). Its location in Europe’s current east, and just north of Turkey, would symbolize the West’s renewed vitality and enlarging territorial scope.
Looking beyond 2025, it is therefore not unrealistic to conceive of a larger configuration of the West. Turkey could by then already be a full member of the EU, perhaps having moved to that stage by some intermediary arrangements regarding the more difficult requirements of EU membership. But with Europe and America guided by an intelligent and strategically deliberate vision of a larger West, the process of Turkey’s inclusion in Europe should be sustainable even if not rapidly consummated in the short term. It is also reasonable to assume that in the course of the next two or more decades a genuinely cooperative and binding arrangement between the West and Russia could be attained—under optimal circumstances resulting eventually even in Russia’s membership in both the EU and NATO—if in the meantime Russia does embark on a truly comprehensive law-based democratic transformation compatible with EU as well as NATO standards.
For all concerned, that would be a win-win outcome. It would be in keeping with the underlying pressures of history, social change, and modernization. For Turkey, and for Russia more specifically, it would firmly cement their places in the modern democratic world, while Ukraine’s inclusion would ensure its national independence. For today’s Europe, it would offer tempting new vistas of opportunity and adventure. Attracted by open spaces and new entrepreneurial opportunities, Europe’s young would be challenged “to go east,” be it to northeast Siberia or to eastern Anatolia. The uninhibited movement of people and the availability of new challenges could give a lift to Europe’s current vision, which is presently so focused inward on matters pertaining to social security. Modern highways and high-speed rail crisscrossing trans-Eurasia would encourage population shifts, with the declining Russian presence in the Far East reinvigorated by an economically and demographically dynamic inflow from the West. Within a few years, an increasingly cosmopolitan Vladivostok could become a European city without ceasing to be part of Russia.
A larger European framework that involves in varying ways Turkey and Russia would mean that Europe, still allied with America, could become in effect a globally critical player. The resulting bigger West—sharing a common space and common principles—would be better positioned to offset the tendencies in some parts of Eurasia toward religious intolerance, political fanaticism, or rising nationalistic hostility by offering a more attractive economic and political alternative.
However, a larger and more vital West needs to be more than a renewal of historical confidence in the universal relevance of Western democratic values. It must be the result of a deliberate effort by both America and Europe to embrace more formally Turkey as well as Russia in a larger framework of cooperation based on such shared values and on their genuine democratic commitment. Getting there will take time, perseverance, and—in the more complicated and thus more difficult case of Russia—coolheaded realism. It would represent in any case a giant step forward in the historical progression of a continent that in the last century has been the locale for history’s greatest mass slaughters, for debilitating and destructive wars, and for the most organized expressions of mankind’s capacity for cruelty to itself. Considering how dramatically global politics have changed in the course of the last forty years (see Figure 4.2), in the age of historical acceleration such a vision of a geopolitically larger and a more vital West becoming a reality during the second quarter of the twenty-first century could actually turn out to be an overly cautious glimpse into the future.
MAP 4.1 BEYOND 2025: A LARGER WEST—THE CORE OF GLOBAL STABILITY
3: A STABLE AND COOPERATIVE NEW EAST
Given the ongoing shift of global power from the West to the East, will the new Asia of the twenty-first century become like the old Europe of the twentieth, obsessed with interstate rivalry and eventually the victim of
