In Russia, the concept of multipolarity in world politics is most often associated with the figure of Yevgeny Primakov. Indeed, the beginning of the transition to multipolarity was identified back in 1996 by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs as one of the main trends in the development of modern international life. And during his visit to Delhi at the end of 1998, already as prime minister, Primakov put forward a plan for the development of trilateral cooperation between Russia, China and India (RIC) as a practical mechanism for promoting global multipolarity. Sergei Lavrov also emphasized Primakov's outstanding role in developing the concept of a multipolar world.
Internationalists in the West will hardly agree with the primacy of the Russian scientist and politician. As a rule, they attribute the emergence of the concept of multipolarity to the mid-70s. last century. The sources of multipolarity are sought in the then-observed rapid economic growth of Western Europe and Japan, the American defeat in Vietnam, in the 1973-1974 energy crisis. and other trends in world politics that did not fit into the rigid framework of a bipolar world. The creation in 1973 of the Trilateral Commission, called upon to seek a new format for relations between North America, Western Europe and East Asia, also reflected the idea of an approaching, if not already established, multipolarity.
Chinese historians, for their part, have the right to declare their version of multipolarity (dojihua), which took shape in the early 90s. last century and going back to the theoretical legacy of Mao Zedong. In China, ideas were formulated about the peculiarities of the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world through a “hybrid” structure of world politics, combining elements of both the past and future world order.
Regardless of how we date the birth of the concept of multipolarity and to whom we give the laurels of the discoverer, it is obvious that this concept is not an invention of recent years, but an intellectual product of the last century. It would seem that in the decades that have passed since its introduction, multipolarity should have evolved from a hypothesis to a full-fledged theory. As for political practice, intuition suggests that in a few decades the multipolar world should have finally taken the form of a new system of world politics - with its own norms, institutions and procedures.
But something clearly went wrong as predicted by the founders.
This elusive multipolarity
Exactly twenty years after Yevgeny Primakov's programmatic article in Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, speaking at the annual meeting of the Valdai Club in Sochi in October 2016, President Vladimir Putin remarked: all members of the international community”. And six months earlier, speaking about the role of the United States in international relations, he stressed: “America is a great power. Today it is probably the only superpower. We accept it. That is, although a multipolar world is a desirable model of the world order, it would be premature to talk about the final overcoming of the “unipolar moment” at this point.
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Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, following the general logic and even the stylistics of Yevgeny Primakov's 20-year-old narrative, also spoke about the beginning of the process of transition to multipolarity, postponing the completion of this process for an indefinite future: "… The change of eras is always a very long period, it will continue a long time. " As an additional complicating factor, Lavrov singled out the stubborn resistance of the adherents of the old world order: "They are actively trying to hinder this process, they are hindered primarily by those who previously dominated the world, who want to maintain their dominance in the new conditions, and by and large forever."
It is difficult to disagree with this logic. But some questions still remain.
First, the historical experience of recent centuries does not provide us with examples of a gradual, extended in time process of replacing the old world order with a new one. And in 1815, and in 1919, and in 1945. the change in the world order was carried out not by evolutionary, but by purely revolutionary (force) methods and was associated with previous large-scale armed conflicts. The new world order was built by the winners and in the interests of the winners. Of course, we can assume that humanity has become wiser and more humane over the past one hundred or two hundred years, although not everyone will agree with this assumption. But even in this case, won't the attempts of a "gradual" transition to a multipolar world turn out to be akin to attempts to alleviate the suffering of a beloved dog by chopping off its tail piece by piece?
Secondly, if we take for granted that the transition to a multipolar world will be a historically long process, stretched out, say, for five decades (1995-2045), then it follows from this a disappointing conclusion that until the middle of this century, humanity will be forced to stay in a "gray zone" between the old and the new world order. And such a "gray area" is clearly not a very comfortable and not too safe place. It is easy to predict the absence of clear rules of the game, understandable and generally recognized principles of the functioning of the international system, and numerous conflicts between the emerging “poles”. Or, possibly, the split of the system into separate fragments and self-closure of the “poles” in their regional or continental subsystems in general. Can we afford to be in the gray zone for several decades?without exposing humanity to prohibitive risks?
Third, do we generally have sufficient grounds to assert that the world - albeit slowly, inconsistently, in jerks - is still moving in the direction of multipolarity? Is it possible, for example, to conclude that today the European Union is closer to the role of a full-fledged and independent global “pole” than it was, say, ten years ago? That Africa, the Middle East or Latin America have come close to the status of such a collective “pole” over the past decade? That in the course of the expansion of the SCO the ability of this group to act in the international arena from a consolidated position has increased? If we are not yet ready to give unequivocal affirmative answers to all these questions, then we have no right to declare that the world is steadily moving towards multipolarity.
Over the past two decades, multipolarity has become like a distant horizon line that invariably recedes from us as we move towards it. Why not, then, apply to the multipolar world the well-known statement of Eduard Bernstein that movement is everything and the ultimate goal is nothing? That is, to perceive multipolarity not as a full-fledged alternative to the existing world order, but as a mechanism for correcting the weakest and most vulnerable elements of this order?
"European Concert": two hundred years later
Adherents of multipolarity like to refer to the experience of the "European Concert" or the Vienna System of International Relations, created in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century following the Napoleonic Wars. This design was indeed fully multipolar, and it really helped to keep the peace in Europe for a long time. Historians argue when this system was destroyed - in 1853 (Crimean War), in 1871 (Franco-Prussian War), or all the same in 1914 (World War I). In any case, the 19th century after 1815 was relatively peaceful for Europeans - especially against the backdrop of the disastrous 20th century that followed.
Is it possible in principle to repeat the experience of the "European Concert" two centuries later - and this time not on a European, but on a global scale?
Let's start with the fact that the participants of the "European Concert", being very different state entities, were nevertheless comparable in terms of the main parameters of power and influence - military, political, and economic. The cosmopolitan European elite remained generally homogeneous (and the European monarchies of the 19th century generally represented, in fact, a single family), spoke the same language (French), professed one religion (Christianity), and were generally within the framework of a single cultural tradition (European Enlightenment) … More importantly, there was no fundamental, irreconcilable disagreement about the desired future of European politics between the participants in the "European Concert" - at least not until the rapid rise of Prussia and the subsequent unification of Germany.
Today the situation is completely different. The potential participants in a multipolar system are fundamentally disequilibrium. Moreover, by most parameters, the United States has more weight in the modern international system than the British Empire in European politics of the 19th century. The global elite is heterogeneous, and deep divergences between cultural archetypes and basic values are striking. In the 19th century, the disagreements between the participants in the "concert" concerned specific issues of European politics, methods of manual tuning of a complex European mechanism. In the 21st century, disagreements between the great powers affect the foundations of the world order, the basic concepts of international law, and even more general issues - the idea of justice, legitimacy, and the "big meanings" of history.
On the other hand, the success of the European Concert was largely due to its flexibility. Great European powers could afford the luxury of swiftly changing configurations of alliances, coalitions, and alliances to maintain the overall equilibrium of the system. For example, France was one of the main opponents of Russia during the Crimean War. And a year after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1856, an active Russian-French rapprochement began, which led to the final rupture of Russia with Austria and to the defeat of the latter in the conflict with France in 1859.
Are displays of such flexibility imaginable today? Can we assume that Russia is capable of changing its current partnership with China to an alliance with the United States within two to three years? Or that the European Union, faced with growing pressure from the United States, is reorienting itself towards strategic cooperation with Moscow? Such assumptions look, at least, unlikely, as a maximum - absurd. Alas, today's leaders of great powers lack the degree of flexibility that is indispensable for maintaining a sustainable multipolar world order.
Concluding our brief historical excursion, let us ask ourselves one more curious question. Why the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815 gave birth to a stable European order, and the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 lost its significance within a decade and a half after it was signed? Why were the members of the anti-French coalition able to demonstrate nobility and generosity towards their former enemy, while the members of the anti-German coalition could not? Is it because Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson were more stupid or bloodthirsty than Alexander I, Clemens Metternich and Charles-Maurice Talleyrand?
Of course not. It's just that the "European Concert" was created primarily by autocratic monarchs, and the Versailles Peace - by the leaders of Western democracies. The latter were much more dependent on public sentiment in their countries than their predecessors a century earlier. And the moods of the societies that had gone through four years of suffering, unprecedented hardships and losses, demanded to "punish the Germans" in the most harsh and uncompromising form. As a result, the winners did, thereby launching the mechanism for preparing a new massacre on a global scale.
It is clear that over the past hundred years the dependence of politicians on the slightest fluctuations of public opinion has grown even more. And the chances of repeating examples of Alexander's generosity and Metternich's sagacity are, unfortunately, not great today. Paraphrasing the words of the classic, we can state that "political populism and multipolarity are two things incompatible."
"Gangsters" and "prostitutes" of a multipolar world
According to one of the common formulas for the rules of the game in international relations (attributed to various authors - from Otto von Bismarck to Stanley Kubrick), on the world stage, large states act like gangsters, and small ones - like prostitutes. The concept of a multipolar world appeals to "gangsters" and ignores "prostitutes". After all, not every state in the world, and not even any coalition of states, has the right to claim the position of a separate "pole" in the international system.
According to supporters of multipolarity, the overwhelming majority of existing nation states are simply unable to independently ensure even their own security and economic growth, not to mention any significant contribution to the formation of a new world order. Thus, both in the modern and in the future multipolar world, only a handful of countries have "real sovereignty", while the rest sacrifice this sovereignty in one way or another - for the sake of security, prosperity, or even just banal survival.
But if at the time of the European concert the "gangsters" could, on the whole, successfully control the "prostitutes" who depended on them, and the number of the latter was relatively small, then two centuries later the situation changed dramatically. Today, there are about two hundred UN member states in the world, and there are also unrecognized states and non-state players in world politics. It turns out that the absolute majority of participants in international relations in the new multipolar world are prepared for the unenviable role of extras or observers.
Even if we leave out the moral and ethical flaw of such a world order, serious doubts arise about the feasibility of such a project. Especially in the context of growing problems in the existing military-political and economic associations and a sharp rise in nationalism, affecting not only great powers, but also small and medium-sized countries.
Probably, from the point of view of supporters of multipolarity, the “poles” of the new world order will develop naturally, and “prostitutes” should throw themselves into the arms of neighboring “gangsters” not out of duress, but out of love - that is, due to geographical proximity, economic expediency, common history, cultural similarity, etc. Unfortunately, historical experience speaks, rather, of the opposite. For centuries, Francophone Flanders fought off the intrusive patronage of Paris, Portugal for no less long time sought to distance itself from Spain, close to it, and Vietnam for some reason was unable to appreciate all the advantages of belonging to the Chinese "pole". I don't even want to recall the current state of relations between Russia and the once "fraternal" Ukraine.
If the "prostitutes" are forced to seek protection from the "gangsters", then they obviously prefer the "gangster" not from their street, but from the neighborhood further away. And, in general, we must admit that such preferences are not always devoid of logic. And if this is so, then the formation of "poles" is possible only on a voluntary-compulsory basis, the reliability of which in the 21st century is more than doubtful.
One gets the impression that in the Russian discourse on the coming multipolarity, the concepts of legal equality (“equality”) and de facto equality (identity as ultimate equality) are confused. The states of the world cannot actually be equal to each other - their resources and capabilities, sizes and potentials - economic, military, political and any others - are too different. But the apparent inequality of states does not necessarily mean that they should also differ in their basic rights. After all, there is the principle of equality of citizens before the law - regardless of differences in social status, property status, education and talents.
Old bipolarity under the guise of new multipolarity
The differences between the current situation in the world and the state of affairs at the beginning of the century before last are too obvious to try to restore "classical" multipolarity. Apparently, the adherents of multipolarity are somehow aware of this. And if one reads deeply into modern Russian narratives describing the “new” multipolarity of the 21st century, then behind the magnificent multipolar facade very often looms the same reinforced concrete bipolar structure of world politics, reflecting the not completely overcome Soviet mentality.
The "new bipolarity" comes in a wide variety of guises. For example, as the West-East dichotomy. Or as a confrontation between "sea" and "continental" powers. Or as a clash between the "liberal" world and the "conservative" world. Or even as opposing the United States to the rest of the world. But the essence of the matter does not change from this: "No matter how much I collect a baby carriage, I still get a Kalashnikov assault rifle."
One cannot completely exclude the possibility of the world returning to the bipolarity of the 20th century. In any case, such an option in the format of the upcoming US-China confrontation looks more real than a return to the "classic" multipolarity of the 19th century. Nevertheless, attempts to combine elements of multipolarity and bipolarity in one design are deliberately hopeless. The basic principles of the two approaches to world politics diverge too much. Multipolarity and bipolarity are two fundamentally different views of the world.
In "classical" multipolarity there can be no rigid division into right and wrong, into us and foes, into black and white. Strangers can turn out to be their own, right and guilty - change places, and between black and white there are many different shades of gray. The bipolar picture, on the contrary, gravitates towards Manichaeism, where "insiders" are always right, and "outsiders" are invariably guilty. Everything is forgiven to "friends", nothing to "aliens". The concept of the "aggregate West", popular in Russia, also reflects the rudiments of the Soviet mentality. It, of course, does not fit into the declared multipolar picture of the world, but it is very convenient for constructing the opposite concept of the “aggregate non-West”.
The usual stereotypes of Soviet thinking stubbornly return us to bipolar logic, depriving us of the opportunity to use the advantages of managing complex multipolar structures even in cases where such opportunities arise. Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule. One of such exceptions can be considered Russian politics in the Middle East, where the Donald Trump administration has found itself trapped in a bipolar view of the world, and Russian politics has so far managed to maneuver between various regional centers of power, taking the preferred position of a regional arbiter. And, say, in the Russia-China-India triangle, which Yevgeny Primakov once promoted as the basis of a multipolar world, this is still getting worse: the equilateral Russian-Chinese-Indian triangle is slow,but it is steadily evolving in the direction of a Russian-Chinese military-political alliance.
Overcoming the rudiments of bipolar logic is, although necessary, but still not a sufficient condition for a successful foreign policy. Successful use of multipolar approaches appears to hold promise at best for tactical gains. Strategic victories are achievable by abandoning the idea of multipolarity in favor of the idea of multilateralism.
Finding balance in open systems
If we agree with the principle of equality of states in the international system, then we must abandon the fundamental foundations of the concept of multipolarity. After all, this concept, in an explicit or implicit form, assumes that in the world of the future there will always be individual states or their groups that are endowed with special rights. That is, the privileges of force will be consolidated, just as the victors in the Second World War consolidated their privileges when the UN system was created in 1945. But in any case, it will not be possible to repeat the experience of 1945 in 2018 - the great powers today do not have the authority, or the legitimacy, or the unanimity that enjoyed the countries that made a decisive contribution to victory in the bloodiest war in human history.
For the international system of the future to be stable and durable, there should be no fundamental differences between winners and losers, between “ordinary” and “privileged” participants. Otherwise, with any change in the balance of power in the world (and such changes will occur with increasing speed), the system will have to be corrected, passing through new and new crises.
And in general, how can we talk about the consolidation of the privilege of power in a new multipolar structure, when, before our very eyes, a rapid diffusion of this power is under way in world politics? At the time of the Congress of Vienna, strength was hierarchical, and the number of its parameters was limited. Today, traditional rigid hierarchies of power are rapidly losing their former significance. Not because the old components of national power cease to function, but because in parallel with them numerous new components are being built.
For example, South Korea cannot be considered a great power in the traditional sense of the term - it is unable to independently ensure its own security. However, if you look at the sector of wearable electronics, then South Korea plays in this sector not even as a great power, but as one of two "superpowers": the Korean corporation Samsung is the only company in the world that fully and successfully competes with the American " Apple”in the global smartphone markets. And in terms of the country's global "brand", the latest model of the Samsung Galaxy S9 + smartphone weighs more than the latest modification of the Russian S-500 Prometheus anti-aircraft missile system.
Intangible parameters are more and more included in the concept of “powers of states”. The country's reputation, its "credit history", which is easy to undermine, but very difficult to restore, is becoming increasingly valuable. Stalin's famous phrase about the Pope - “Pope? How many divisions does he have? " - look no longer so much political cynicism as political archaism.
If the concept of "the strength of states" becomes less unambiguous and includes more and more dimensions, then we inevitably face the problem of redefining the balance of power in world politics. Determining a multipolar balance of power is generally a very difficult matter, even when the number of power parameters used is strictly limited. For example, what is a “stable multipolar nuclear balance”? "Multilateral Nuclear Deterrence"? When the number of force parameters tends to infinity, the task of building a stable multipolar balance becomes insoluble. Balancing an open system with an ever-growing number of independent variables is like trying to turn a living cell into a dead crystal.
Multilateralism instead of multipolarity
A stable system of world politics presupposes that it will not be entirely fair in relation to strong players, limiting these players in the interests of the weak and in the interests of the stability of the system as a whole. So, in any federal state, there is a redistribution of resources from prosperous regions to depressive ones: the prosperous are forced to pay more in order to preserve the integrity and stability of the federation. Or, for example, traffic rules on city streets are more limited not by some decrepit and slow-moving Soviet-made Zaporozhets, but by the newest super-powerful high-speed Lamborghini. The Lamborghini driver is forced to sacrifice much of his “automobile sovereignty” for the sake of overall safety and order on the road.
The future of world order - if we are talking specifically about order, and not about a "game without rules" and not a "war of all against all" - should be sought not in multipolarity, but in multilateralism. The two terms sound similar, but their content is different. Multipolarity presupposes building a new world order based on force, multilateralism on the basis of interests. Multipolarity reinforces the privileges of leaders; multilateralism creates additional opportunities for those lagging behind. The multipolar world consists of balancing blocks, while the multilateral world consists of regimes that complement each other. A multipolar world develops through periodic corrections of the balance of power, a multilateral world - through the accumulation of elements of interdependence and reaching new levels of integration.
In contrast to the multipolar model of the world, the multilateral model does not have the ability to rely on the experience of the past, and in this sense it may seem idealistic and practically impracticable. However, some elements of this model have already been worked out in the practice of international relations. For example, the principles of multilateralism, the priority consideration of the interests of small and medium-sized countries, the priority of the general legal basis in relation to the situational interests of individual participants in the system formed the basis for the construction of the European Union. And although today the European Union is not in the best shape and individual components of this complex machine are clearly malfunctioning, hardly anyone will deny that the EU is still the most successful implemented integration project in the modern world.
If someone does not like the experience of European integration, it is worth looking for the seeds of a new multilateralism elsewhere. For example, in the BRICS + project. Or in the concept of the “Community of the Common Destiny”. Both initiatives try to avoid the over-complexity, exclusivity and rigidity of the European project by offering potential participants more varied options for cooperation. But the implementation of these projects, if it turns out to be successful, will not bring the world closer to "classical" multipolarity, but, on the contrary, will lead the world further away from it.
One way or another, the international community will have to restore the legal framework of world politics that has been seriously undermined in recent decades, look for complex balances of interests at the regional and global levels, and build flexible regimes that regulate individual dimensions of international communication. Strong states cannot avoid substantial concessions to make multilateral agreements attractive to weak players. We will have to resolutely abandon the obsolete rudiments of the thinking of the past centuries, from dubious historical analogies and from attractive, but insignificant geopolitical constructions.
The world of the future will turn out to be much more complex and contradictory than it was imagined twenty years ago. There will be a place for a multitude of combinations of the most diverse participants in world politics, interacting with each other in various formats. As for the concept of multipolarity, it should remain in history as a fully justified intellectual and political reaction to the self-confidence, arrogance and various excesses of the hapless builders of a unipolar world. No less, but no more. And with the decline of the concept of a unipolar world, the decline inevitably begins and its opposite - the concept of a multipolar world.
Andrey Kortunov - General Director and member of the Presidium of the Russian Council on International Affairs