Russian conceptions of world order

Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Dr Bertrand Ramcharan

In previous offerings in these pages, we discussed the threats of new cold wars in the coming era, and the implications of ‘Project 2025’ for Americas policies internationally. Russia and the USA have the largest number of nuclear weapons in the world and, in this piece, we look at Russian conceptions of world order. In a future piece we shall look at the Chinese conceptions.

Reverting to the USA, by way of background, The Economist of 16 January, 2025, commented that much will change in American foreign policy during the second Trump administration: “He has helped secure a ceasefire in Gaza and shocked European politicians with a taboo-busting bid for control over Greenland. It’s already clear that the impact of Mr Trump’s second term on the rest of the world will be both more disruptive and more consequential than his first. Mr Trump is supplanting a vision of America’s role in the world that held sway since the second world war. Welcome, instead, to the Trump Doctrine.”

The Economist assessed that the idea is gone of America as the indispensable defender of democracy, settled borders and universal values: “Mr Trump has little truck with alliances, multilateral rules or any other elements of what is often called the post-war world order”. Instead, the Trump Doctrine is based on the belief that American strength, wielded in unorthodox and opportunistic ways, is the key to peace and prosperity. This approach, simultaneously swaggering and unpredictable, transactional and norm-busting, will be tested in the future: “When the use of power is untethered from values, the result could be chaos on a global scale.” 

A RAND Corporation study defined an international order as the body of rules, norms and institutions that govern relations among the key players in the international environment. An order is a stable, structured pattern of relationships among states that involves some combination of emergent norms, rulemaking institutions, and international political organizations of regimes.

A related RAND study of Russian perspectives on international order saw Russia as having five core interests:  Defence of the country and the regime; Maintaining Russia’ influence in its ‘near-abroad’; Pursuing Russia’s vision of itself as a great power; Russia’s advocacy of non-interference in domestic affairs; and Russia’s desire to cooperate on political and economic issues as an equal with the other great powers.

This RAND study assessed that “After pursuing closer relations with the West after the Cold War, Russia has become more sceptical and suspicious of the West. From a Russian perspective, the West has refused to recognize Russia’s basic interests, and several Western activities, such as support for colour revolutions and EU and NATO expansion threaten Russia’s security.”

Russia’s conception of international order can be presented as having five key dimensions: 1. Qualified support for the UN Charter; 2. A sphere of influence approach; 3.  A civilizational approach; 4. An anti-Western thrust; and 5. Challenging the concept of universal human rights.

First, Russia’ qualified support for the UN: Russia is a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council and enjoys its status and prestige as such. It therefore supports the core structure of the United Nations Charter. However, it takes a cautious view of the purview of the UN Security Council and has been reluctant to see the Council play a role in the protection of the environment or in implementation of the Responsibility to Protect (RTP). The RTP doctrine posits that the international community will act energetically in situations of genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

In principle, Russia accepts the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter but rails against America’s assertion of a ‘rules-based international order’. Commentators have pointed out that past American assertion of the term ‘rules-based international order’ has been selective and opportunistic, inasmuch as it seemingly embraces not the full panoply of rules of international law but selective rules that the USA has accepted and champions. It has been pointed out, for example, that the USA has not ratified several key international conventions, notably the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been on the defensive in the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council (from which it has been excluded). Russia therefore takes a restrictive approach to the competence of the United Nations generally. One will have to wait to see if and how Russia’s approach to the UN evolves.

Second, Russian spheres of influence: Russia, mindful of the status of the former USSR as a global super-power, is psychologically keen to be seen as a global super-power, mindful of its nuclear and energy capacity, and its permanent membership of the UN Security Council vested with veto powers. Russia also wants to have a sphere of influence in its ‘near-abroad’, namely the countries bordering it and this is one of the reasons that it has consistently opposed countries bordering it, such as Georgia and Ukraine, entering NATO. Russia has a special interest in the Arctic region, where it has extensive land and maritime territory.

Russia’s leadership sees the country as being at the centre of the vast Eurasian continent, occupying a pivotal position as an independent great power located astride both Europe and Asia. Two thirds of Russia’s territory is located east of the Urals Mountain, and Russia has a Pacific coastline extending for some 4,500 kilometres. Russia also sees itself as having interests in regions such as the Middle East and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and wants its interests to be recognized and accepted in these areas.

Third, Russia’s ‘civilizational approach’: Russia pursues a ‘civilizational approach’  and the associated doctrine of ‘Eurasianism’. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an article on “Russian Foreign Policy: Historical Background” has argued that Russia’s history, culture, and geography make it a natural bridge between Europe and Asia. It will, he asserted, never be wholly European because of Russia’s Mongolian past and its natural expansion eastwards, but its natural Eurasian identify will lead it to expand its political influence across both Europe and Asia.

 In 2011, as Russia’s Prime Minister at the time, Vladimir Putin wrote an article, “A New Integration Project for Eurasia: The Future in the Making” in which he outlined a project for a Eurasian Union. This would involve a large space (larger than a single country) integrated along non-Western civilization lines, “based on new values and a new political and economic foundation” that could oppose Western hegemony. He proposed “a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world and serving as an efficient bridge between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.”

Lavrov and Putin are both said to be influenced by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who is considered to be an anti-liberal ideologue, a defender of Russia’s civilizational uniqueness, and a theorist of civilizational multipolarity. Dugin and, so it seems, Putin, subscribe to the school of thought known as Eurasianism.  Eurasianists call into question the universalism of western culture, asserting instead that there are many cultures and civilizations with their own internal values. Eurasianism opposes unipolarity and argues for a multipolar world.

Michael Millerman’s 2022 book, “Inside Putin’s Brain”, discussed the political philosophy of Alexander Dugin. Dugin advocates an international order of regional great spaces as “four vertical geographical belts”: (i) The Anglo-American Zone; (ii) Euro-Africa, with the European Union as its centre; (iii) the Russian-Central Asian zone, or ‘Pan-Eurasian’ zone; and (iv) the Pacific Far East Zone. Millerman commented: “At times, Dugin expands his model of civilizational multipolarity to include more civilizations; at other times, he simplifies the schema to the basic opposition of Land Power and Sea Power. But whether in its minimialist or maximalist version, Eurasianism is a multipolar theory of civilizations and great spaces.”

Dugin elaborated his views on Eurasianism in his book, “The Fourth political theory”. One of his first steps towards a fourth political theory is the “global rehabilitation of tradition”. Dugin thinks that the only way to ensure Russia’s survival is to reject Western liberalism, since there is no room for Russia in the ‘brave new world of globalism, post-modernity and post-liberalism”. According to Dugin, “It is clear that Russia has to go another way, its own way… the fourth political theory.” (The previous three political theories, according to Dugin, are liberalism, communism, and fascism.)

Dugin thinks that Russia’s identify is Eurasian. Russian culture belongs to both East and West, and at the same time cannot be reduced either to the former of the latter. Russia is a Eurasian civilization, not a European country. The Russian-Eurasian world is broader than the Russian Federation, which is just one state form. Dugin has set out five main pillars of Eurasianism:

Differentialism: a plurality of value systems versus the conventional and obligatory domination of a single ideology;

Tradition versus the suppression of cultures, their dogmas, and the wisdom of traditional society;

The rights of nations versus the ‘golden billion’, a term he applies to the developed nations/the West and the neocolonial hegemony of the rich north;

Ethnicities as the primary value and the subject of history versus the homogenization of peoples that are to be imprisoned within artificial social constructions; and

Social fairness and human solidarity versus exploitation and the humiliation of man by man.

These pillars, Dugin thinks, are the foundations on which to build a multipolar world.

In 2015, the Kremlin’s project for an Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) was established. At the 2016 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Putin stressed that the EAEU partners could become one of the centres of a greater emergent integration area: “Now we propose considering the prospects for a more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the EAEU and countries with which we already have close partnership – China, India, Pakistan and Iran – and certainly our CIS partners, and other interested countries and Associations.”

Fourth, Russia’s anti-Western thrust: We saw President Putin, earlier,  arguing for Russia and its partners to develop along “non-Western civilization lines, based on new values and a new political and economic foundation” that could oppose Western hegemony. Andrew Monaghan, in his 2022 book, Russian Grand Strategy, writes that Russia is of the view that the world is now one of Great Power Competition. Monaghan commented: “Indeed, Russian strategy can in large part be understood as the effort to resolve a strategically disadvantageous post-Cold War position and prepare for intensified competition at the global level…Moscow’s strategy is to position Russia as a ubiquitous state in global competition, a pivotal energy power in the global market, and with increasingly substantive economic relationships with emerging powers in the ‘post-West’ world”.

 He added that the theme of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition permeates Russia’s official and analytical discussion about international affairs. Moreover, the Russian defence establishment emphasises that most contemporary problems are of a regional and global scale and, therefore, there is need for Russia to establish a global network to extend the reach of Russian maritime and long-range aviation forces and improve Russia’s military presence in the strategic parts of the world.

Fifth, challenging the concept of universal human rights: When it comes to the concept of universal human rights, Russia has a double-barrelled approach. In its formal reports to the UN Human Rights Council it has accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the human rights treaties the Declaration has inspired, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, as we saw above, Russia (like China) considers itself to be a civilizational state, with its own governing philosophy and norms. Even the USA, during the First Trump Administration, had established a Commission, led by Harvard Law Professor Mary Glendon, to review the norms of the Universal Declaration with a view to narrowing down those of universal validity. This is a fundamental problem that the United Nations will need to grapple with in the future.

To reiterate, Russia’s approach to the future international order has five key dimensions: 1. Qualified support for the UN Charter; 2. A sphere of influence approach; 3. A civilizational approach; 4. An anti-Western thrust; and 5. Challenging the concept of universal human rights.