To use a broad generalization, it is ironic that Russia, known as the Soviet Union between the two twentieth-century World Wars, the latter of which morphed into a Cold War, should today seem once again to be a source of intense Western concern. Now, Russia, and the other European powers combined as the European Union, contend over the remnants of the dissolved Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its inter-war area of domination.
Many had hoped that with the demise of the USSR, and with the transformation of both the USSR, and its so-called satellites of Eastern Europe, into essentially capitalist-led entities, there would be, by now, a basis in the wide continent of Europe for an evolution of peaceful relations among the post-Soviet Union independent states, and between all of them and the new Russia.
But it must be instructive that former USSR President Gorbachev recently, from his position of virtual political exile, expressed the fear that as the situation in Europe essentially over the fate of Ukraine develops, we may be moving towards a new Cold War between the Western powers and Russia, now a state essentially without satellites or states acknowledged to be within its own sphere of influence, to use a geopolitical term often heard in the era of the Cold War.
No doubt to a country like China having emerged as one of the new Great Powers of the 21st century, and now itself redefining its relationships with neighbouring countries and the extant contemporary great powers, will see the events in Europe as a continuation of the still settling period of the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, and only one of the major concerns of a country like itself.
From that perspective, the continuing contentions over the rearrangement of the settlement attending the end of European imperialism – whether of the Western, or of Eastern Europe Russian-dominated kind, must, as the Western powers excited themselves over President Putin’s behaviour in the Ukraine, have seemed to a China attending the recent G20 meeting in Australia, as a minor part of the evolution of the re-arrangement of wider Europe now, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its attendant military arm, the Warsaw Pact.
For the Western powers will have been aware that, as we indicated in a recent editorial, over the last three weeks or so China has been preoccupied with finding a way to come to terms with Japan, as China itself emerges as one of the contemporary world’s Great Powers; and with Russia, as Putin prepares to establish his country more firmly in the East vis-à-vis both China and Japan; and as those three countries seek to position themselves as major economic powers in the determination of the economy of the Far East in which the United States, of course, also claims a major interest.
So although President Putin is said to have been disturbed by the extent to which the Western powers, joined by the host country Australia, sought to remonstrate with him over Russia’s behaviour in the Ukraine, it is probably the case that Putin had other preoccupations. For all indications are that Putin is well aware of the economic objectives of the emerging and determining powers of the Far East with which Russia in one way or another shares boundaries, and with which Russia is also now seeking to elaborate economic and investment arrangements that can, in the long run, counterbalance the influence of, and pressures exerted by, the Nato powers.
Putin will have been convinced about seeking to maintain effective economic arrangements with China by the Nato response to his behaviour over Ukraine. There can be little doubt that the economic sanctions exerted against Russia are having serious effects on the country’s finances. And this is particularly so when those pressures are combined with two perhaps unexpected events, namely what appears to be a persistent fall in the price of oil, today a central foreign exchange earner for Russia; and secondly, a degree of hesitation on the part of Germany in particular to encourage continuing active investment in Russia.
The economy has now been marked by a slowing of the rate of growth of the economy and as said above, a hesitation in pursuing active investment by the European powers, in particular Germany. Clearly these pressures have had much stronger effects than they would have had in the middle of the Cold War, marking another decisive change in the evolution of relations between Russia and the major European Union states.
This phenomenon of the change in the nature of the economies of China and Russia, to a state of capitalism led essentially by private foreign investment from the Western powers though influenced by the Russian and Chinese political leaderships is one to be fully taken note of, and of which the governments of both Russia and China are well aware. Indeed it can probably now be asserted that the economies of these countries are essentially capitalist-led, and therefore subject to certain levels of economic sanctions from the West.
Partly because of these initiatives Putin now sees more clearly the importance of balance in investment between Russia and the major Eastern powers, and of trying to create a more balanced dependence between East and West than now exists. And it seems to be the case the Chinese leadership is not averse to this approach, even as the economic linkage between that country and the United States reinforces itself.
What the present relationships between Russia and the Western powers in particular indicate, is the need to find a way to control or at least maintain an appropriate level of, and trends towards, the types of economic links that could have major effects on the geopolitical relations among themselves.
This is a trend that has a long way to go, and as the years go by, even though the Ukraine controversy looms large at present, each of the powers will be exerting efforts to seek to ensure that any economic imbalance does not prevail too substantially vis-à-vis the balance of geopolitical relations. And in that sense the present Nato, and in particular European pressures on Russia, represent the kind of episode that will recur in the new competitive relationships that are now developing within what is a sphere of world-wide capitalism.
