Multilateralism, Multipolarity, And Beyond: A Menu of Russia's Policy Strategies (Essay‪)‬

The article examines the main approaches to multilateralism that coexist in Russian foreign policy thinking. It argues that these approaches must be put in the context of the debate on multipolarity, which comes out as a direct opposition to the Western "collective unilateralism." Both as an abstract model and as a concrete practice, multipolarity is not synonymous with multilateralism; certain visions of a multipolar world, such as great-power management, are hardly compatible with multilateralism if the latter is grounded in the idea of equality of all participants in the international system. It is also crucial to take into account the origins of the Russian doctrine of multipolarity in the particular context of Russia's uneasy relationship with the West. Against this background, it is clear that some traditional foreign policy strategies, such as balance of power, can result in both unilateralist and multilateralist outcomes. The article's main conclusion is that the contradictory dynamics of identity and security, in Russia and in the West, seem to produce a trend in favor of great-power management as the model of future international order. If this is true, it means that there is a move toward a type of international society where egalitarian multilateralism is replaced by a more hierarchical structure. KEYWORDS: Russia, multipolarity, multilateralism, great-power management, balance of power. AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES IN 2001, THEN secretary of state Colin Powell famously declared the end of the post--Cold War era. Although this announcement has been contested repeatedly, and many alternative dates have been proposed, September 11 definitely was a major turning point in the development of the international system that was symbolically located almost exactly at the turn of the century. For Russia, however, the twenty-first century began at least two years earlier, ushered in by NATO's Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia launched in March 1999 and the start of the second Chechen campaign in the fall of the same year. These events concurred--and not accidentally--with the dawn of Vladimir Putin's epoch, thus laying the foundation for Russia as it is today. By the dramatic moment of President Boris Yeltsin's resignation on New Year's Eve 2000, the worldview that was to shape Russian foreign policy and domestic politics in the years to come had already consolidated and become common sense for a large majority of the Russians.