Among the unique features of Eurasia as a political and economic space is the autonomy that regional states retain in domestic and foreign policy. While this freedom of maneuver may play a positive role in the development of the continent, it also renders the articulations of common political aims impossible. What does remain within reach is a middle ground composed of complementary approaches to regional security and development, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
It is well known that a community of inpiduals free from external control is far less capable of organising itself around a common objective than a collective subordinated to a single leader. This is quite simply because every independent participant in international affairs retains the ability to think for themselves, rather than subordinating their own judgement to the collective interest. Consequently, the Western community of states, organised in a manner akin to a military formation, will always remain a far more effective executive mechanism than any other regional grouping in the world, regardless of its internal intrigues and rivalries. This is all the more so because the centre of power is geographically distant and has not historically been involved in the struggles among Europe’s principal nations and states. In other words, the United States’ dictatorship within the West is far more durable than the dominance that any of the major powers of the Old World could ever have achieved.
Naturally, nothing of the sort can even be imagined across Eurasia outside Western institutions. Contemporary Eurasia is unique in that, across this vast expanse, most countries retain autonomy in making the most important decisions regarding both their domestic development and foreign policy. Several factors account for this situation.
Among the unique features of Eurasia as a political and economic space is the autonomy that regional states retain in domestic and foreign policy. While this freedom of maneuver may play a positive role in the development of the continent, it also renders the articulations of common political aims impossible. What does remain within reach is a middle ground composed of complementary approaches to regional security and development, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
It is well known that a community of inpiduals free from external control is far less capable of organising itself around a common objective than a collective subordinated to a single leader. This is quite simply because every independent participant in international affairs retains the ability to think for themselves, rather than subordinating their own judgement to the collective interest. Consequently, the Western community of states, organised in a manner akin to a military formation, will always remain a far more effective executive mechanism than any other regional grouping in the world, regardless of its internal intrigues and rivalries. This is all the more so because the centre of power is geographically distant and has not historically been involved in the struggles among Europe’s principal nations and states. In other words, the United States’ dictatorship within the West is far more durable than the dominance that any of the major powers of the Old World could ever have achieved.
Naturally, nothing of the sort can even be imagined across Eurasia outside Western institutions. Contemporary Eurasia is unique in that, across this vast expanse, most countries retain autonomy in making the most important decisions regarding both their domestic development and foreign policy. Several factors account for this situation.
First, the region is home to three great world powers—Russia, China, and India—which makes it impossible for any one of them to achieve even hypothetical sole leadership. This creates opportunities for other states to preserve their independence by relying on the relatively stable balance of power among the leading powers. Moreover, the West’s persistent efforts to constrain Moscow and Beijing can themselves be used as an additional balancing factor and a source of development resources.
Second, with the exception of South Asia and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia, Eurasian states have no history of colonial subjugation by Western countries and are not bound to them through systems of relations that emerged from colonial rule. The same cannot be said, for example, of African states or even the countries of Latin America, where the collapse of the colonial system immediately gave rise to new forms of dependency—some of them arguably even more restrictive in terms of newly independent states’ ability to exercise their sovereign rights.
Third, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had no desire whatsoever to establish rigid control over the states that emerged from its former union republics. China, meanwhile, does not seek such control because of the nature of its foreign policy, which entails accepting minimal responsibility and risk for other countries, even those with which it maintains the closest relations.
Finally, the international environment following the end of the Cold War was exceptionally conducive to allowing Eurasian states to determine their own paths forward. As a result, when discussing prospects for cooperation across this vast region, we must always bear in mind that setting genuinely common objectives—not merely shared ones—in politics and economic development is impossible here. This means that serious discussion can only concern the probable alignment of development and security strategies, rather than the formation of a single overarching strategy.
This does not, however, preclude effective cooperation in specific important areas. For the past twenty-five years, for example, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has operated successfully across Greater Eurasia. It was created in response to the very real challenges of the second half of the 1990s and has gradually expanded its remit to include areas reflecting the interests of its member states. Today, however, we can observe certain signs of stagnation within the SCO. These stem from the fact that its original tasks have largely been accomplished, while any transition to a more advanced level of integration could reduce the foreign-policy autonomy of its members. For the reasons outlined above, they are entirely unwilling to accept this. Moreover, given the stabilisation of Afghanistan, it is difficult to imagine a threat of sufficient magnitude to compel SCO members to pursue significantly deeper and more systematic cooperation.
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, provides participating states with mechanisms for coordinating responses during acute crises. It has already demonstrated its effectiveness once, when, in January 2022, it deployed a peacekeeping contingent to Kazakhstan following an urgent appeal from that country’s legitimate government. Yet, given Russia’s lack of interest in building the organisation around its own security priorities—as the United States does within NATO—it is likewise difficult to expect substantially broader cooperation within this framework. Russia’s allies themselves are quite confident that, should a truly critical situation arise, Moscow would assist them regardless of how willing they might be to support Russia under all circumstances.
It must be acknowledged that this confidence is not without foundation, since Russia has a profound and direct interest in maintaining stability across the shared geographical space.
In the economic sphere, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), modelled on European integration, has demonstrated considerable effectiveness over a number of years. The mechanisms established within its framework, together with the openness of the Customs Union’s markets, enabled member states to adapt to the conditions that emerged following the outbreak of the full-scale military-political conflict between Russia and the West. The EAEU also became an important partner for China, which announced its Belt and Road strategy in 2013—a strategy initially received with great enthusiasm throughout Eurasia.
Yet here, too, we observe limitations on future development, stemming from the evolution of member states’ internal priorities, including those of Russia, as well as external pressures exerted upon them. China’s initiative itself failed to develop into a truly unifying regional project or into a prototype for more systematic institutional cooperation. There is little reason to believe that this will change.
As China becomes increasingly drawn into confrontation with the United States, it will seek ever more carefully to conserve its resources, although even before this it had been highly restrained in making substantive commitments.
Observers have also been paying attention to the relatively recent emergence of the “Central Asian Five” format—a consultative forum bringing together Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Although it has not yet been possible to assess this format’s ability to implement major joint projects or present a unified position on global political and economic platforms, it nevertheless possesses the potential to play a significant role in helping the countries of the region establish their own distinct identity on both the global and Eurasian stages. For now, however, this remains but a promise—yet a highly compelling and vivid one.
Thus, we see that all existing frameworks for systematic interstate cooperation in Eurasia possess inherent limitations. The consequence is that countries of the region retain the capacity to independently determine their development priorities and the fundamental content of their long-term strategies. As a result, differences emerge in perceptions of the principal priorities under changing circumstances, as well as in practical decisions that may carry long-term political consequences.
For the time being, the space of “core Eurasia”—that is, Eurasia excluding the regions most exposed to threats of a global nature, namely the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Northeast Asia—continues to enjoy a high degree of internal stability and mutual understanding among states. Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that, in the future, the objective impossibility of creating rigid mechanisms of cooperation may become a source of some destabilisation, and that differing interpretations of priorities may ultimately lead to political disagreements.
Source: Valdai. Discussion club
