At a summit in Prague a few months from now, all NATO member states - great and small, long-standing and recent - will discuss the issue of admitting fresh members into their ranks. First in line are Slovenia and Slovakia, as well as the Baltic trio: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Romania and Bulgaria cannot conceal their impatience.
Over a decade ago, NATO won a bloodless victory in the Cold War which had lasted almost half a century; it has now had time to absorb such tasty morsels of the self-disbanded Warsaw Pact as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic; now it is poised to start swallowing and digesting some former Soviet republics. The eastward expansion of NATO is unstoppable. It was initiated by the feckless "new thinking" of Gorbachev, and sanctioned by the thoughtlessness of Yeltsin. It was already unstoppable by the time Primakov made his desperate, insistent efforts to do so, when he took over at the Foreign Ministry in early 1996.
Russia was left with two options. One is encapsulated by that cynical old expression: if you're being raped and there's nothing you can do about it, you might as well relax and try to enjoy it. The other option: not to consider NATO as an enemy. These options do not differ in content, only in form. After all, the new NATO members are sovereign states, and Russia has recognized them as such. They are joining NATO of their own free will, looking to gain a wealthy, strong patron. Their political elites view the USSR as the rapist, retrospectively; and for them, contemporary Russia is by no means a magnet of strength and wealth.
Is NATO our enemy? If the past outweighs the present in the reply, then yes, undoubtedly so. If we focus solely on the present, then no, it's not an enemy; since the basic element of ideological confrontation has vanished from the global picture nowadays, along with the military and strategic rivalry between the USSR and US for control over Europe. NATO, headed by the US, isn't conquering anything. NATO is merely settling into the geopolical space which Russia vacated of its own accord when it played the role of leading eliminator of the USSR.
NATO is the inertia of the past in material form, and it's still being used to justify the military and political dominance of the US in Europe. Discussion of the idea that NATO ought to move in step with the times - by transforming itself from a military-political to a political organization, en route to disbanding itself - is still treated as "dissent in the ranks". But it's impossible to avoid the truths of these new times. Neither is it possible to avoid the fundamental fact that the European Union, not NATO, is becoming the most important alliance operating in Europe. In these radically changed circumstances, there is no longer any justification for a US military presence, other than the inertia of the past.
The lengthy echo of a bygone era still takes the form of the nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia, but the goal of "catching up with and overtaking America" - which pursued us like a dream and a nightmare for decades - really has been taken off the agenda.
While making clear our opposition to NATO expansion, and simultaneously finding ways to cooperate with NATO, we should not forget that in the new world this Cold War era organization is doomed; it will fade away, since it is no longer needed. It's vital for us to get along with the United States, to cooperate with it - but if we crawl to it, or do the opposite and try to create the impression that Russia is equal in strength, it would mean we are losing sight of the main strategic goal.
That goal entails participating in setting up a new global balance, to replace the exhausted model of two superpowers and assorted Third World countries. The new balance ought to be a guarantee against any slant toward US dominance - which, although it may seem natural, given the power of the US, is still dangerous, intolerable, and contrary to the nature of things in the 21st century - if we want to see it become a century of reason and civilization.
What should Russia's contribution to the global balance be? Firstly, Russia can contribute its responisbility as the second global nuclear power, alongside the US; having the kind of agreements with the US which would restrain the US from nuclear extremism like that which left the stain of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on history.
A second point, perhaps even more important: Russia shouldn't just create a window to Europe - it ought to fling its doors wide open to cooperation with Europe. It is more suited to us - in its historical roots, in the type of its civilization and culture, in the social orientation of the historical processes behind European unification.
Thirdly, of course, there are the views to the east and to the south. The new global balance is unimaginable without elements like constructive cooperation with China, India, Japan, and the Islamic world - where American-style globalization is intensifying a dangerous inferiority complex.
A sober, constructive foreign policy is very important for Russia - but still, it's secondary. It's a means, not an end in itself. A new global balance and the associated stability are required in order for us to meet Russia's domestic challenges; in order to implement a strategy - which we still lack, unfortunately - to create a political, economic, and social system which is enduring, acceptable, and broadly advantageous for most of the people. The only kind of democracy which will do is the kind that frees the nation from the humiliation of poverty and strife, making it wealthy and united, worth of respect from its own citizens and the rest of the world. (Translated by Elena Leonova)