Munich Security Conference - Russian FM Lavrov: "the post-Cold War order, i.e. the "liberal world order," has come to an end". (MEMRI).
Russian FM Lavrov's Call For A New World Order To Counter U.S. Influence In Europe.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's speech at the 53rd Munich Security Conference contained the elements of a new political ideology that Russian President Vladimir Putin is striving to build. The Soviet Union was erected on the foundation of a cohesive communist ideology.
However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia remained without an ideology to counter the "liberal world order" and, most importantly, the U.S. influence in Western and Eastern Europe.
As pro-Kremlin philosopher Alexander Dugin wrote: "All of Russian history is a dialectical argument with the West and Western culture, a battle for the assertion (sometimes grasped only intuitively) of its own Russian truth."[1]
Now, Putin does not yet have this "Russian truth," as he is still trying to outline the basis of a new ideology. However, it clearly appears that the new,
not-yet-shaped ideology is based on the rejection of the "liberal world
order."
In order to reject it, Russia has to stop the U.S./West from
exporting liberal values by establishing the concept of "pragmatism" in
foreign policy. Pragmatism is a tool to protect its sovereignty and avoid color revolutions, and by extension, U.S. influence.
Director General Of Russian Government-Funded Think Tank, RIAC Andrey Kortunov stated that the Kremlin's emphasis on "sovereignty" displays
"the evident fear of foreign ideologies penetrating Russia rather than
an intention to promote another universalist ideology abroad."[2]
However, as mentioned earlier, the emphasis with sovereignty can be
interpreted as the basic principle for the rejection of the liberal
order in actual policies, especially regarding Western and Eastern
Europe; and, contrary to Kortunov, Dugin
considers that disagreement with liberalism is far from being a bad
foundation for a new ideology.
Lavrov: 'The Post-Cold War Order Has Come To An End'
Ten
years later, Lavrov declared that this post-Cold War order "has come to
an end," since Cold War institutions, NATO being one of them, failed to
adapt to new realities. Stressing the fact that NATO became an
anachronistic institution, Lavrov stated that NATO expansion created "a
level of tension in Europe unseen in the last thirty years."
He then
added: "It is said that wars start in people's heads, but according to
this logic, it is also in people's heads that they should end. This is
not the case yet with the Cold War. Some statements by politicians in
Europe and the United States seem to confirm this particularly clearly."
In
his speech, Lavrov also refuted the allegations that Russia is
attempting to undermine the so-called "liberal world order," that won
over communism after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, at the
same time, he stressed that Russia rejects the 'liberal world order,'
which he defined as a model that ended up being merely "an instrument
for ensuring the growth of an elite club of countries and its domination
over everyone else." (It worth noting, as mentioned above, that Lavrov
opened his speech, stating that the post-Cold War order, i.e. the
"liberal world order," has come to an end).
He then called up leaders
with "a sense of responsibility" to choose "a post-West world order," in
which each country develops its own "sovereignty" within the framework
of international law, with respect for each country's identity. Read the full story here.
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