Ukraine at the geopolitical crossroads
Unfortunately, the situation with the definition of foreign policy in recent years for our country was not the best. 2010 was marked by the beginning of a rapprochement between Ukraine and the Russian Federation: V. Yanukovych made his first visit to Moscow; he gave his first interview as President of Ukraine to the Russian information and analytical television channel Vesti; in 2010. However, further events showed a clear restraint of the President of Ukraine regarding the Russian vector: he continued to declare Ukraine’s European integration ambitions and work in this direction. Nevertheless, despite the initialing of the text of the Association Agreement, which included the creation of an in-depth and comprehensive free trade zone, the pace of European integration began to slow down noticeably; this is partly due to the attempt of the EU itself to put pressure on Ukraine because of the so-called. “A politically biased trial” over opposition leaders.Today, the foreign policy situation of Ukraine is characterized by the lack of significant advancement either in relations with the Russian Federation or the EU, even though a number of Ukrainian media report this event as a breakthrough after a long political boycott. Moreover, this move remains a priority for Ukrainian politicians. People's Deputy of Ukraine from Zaporozhye V.A. Boguslayev in his interview to the television channel “Alex” stated that Ukraine should not strive to integrate into the EU, but also not to join the Customs Union (CU); at the same time, the deputy noted that this is the position of the president himself: “a wise position”. Thus, the task of Ukraine is to take a neutral position between two geopolitical and geo-economic heavyweight players. But the question is: will the heavyweights themselves suit such a format?
What is Ukraine for the West? The head of the risk management department of Erste Bank in Ukraine, in an interview with our magazine, called Ukraine Alaska with a sales market of 46 million. But if we discard the whole pathos of this statement, then between the lines it can be read that Ukraine is being imposed on the colonial model of the economy, which means excessive export orientation, almost complete dependence on a foreign investor and the dominance of the share of imports in the consumer sector. Such a system of national economy management is acceptable for countries experiencing an economic crisis and not having their own means to overcome it; It is one of the “crisis management” tools at the state level. But in the case of Ukraine, crisis management, which theoretically should be of a short-term nature, was delayed for a twenty-one-year period. Our state, both its leadership and ordinary citizens, finally needs to understand that the West sees in us only a profitable asset, from both geopolitical and geo-economic points of view. Nor can there be any talk of Western help: George Xennan, director of the US State Department’s Planning Center, wrote back in 1948 that “in order to keep 50% of world wealth in our hands, we must part with all romanticism and sentimentality human growth of welfare or democratization.
What will Ukraine get from joining the CU? Executive Director of the International Blazer Foundation, Oleg Ustenko, predicts that, subject to joining the CU, Ukraine will lose the opportunity to influence its customs policy, since a single customs policy will be formed for the organization’s member countries. This will lead to the fact that in case of joining the CU, Ukraine should revise the tariffs for a number of goods exported by WTO members, which will prompt them to appeal to the WTO dispute settlement body, which can impose sanctions on Ukraine. As noted in the report “Prospects for relations between Ukraine and the Customs Union of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Kazakhstan” prepared by the National Institute for Strategic Studies in 2011, the total amount of penalties will be 5 billion dollars.
In addition, the high revenues of the Russian Federation from the export of hydrocarbons will allow it to buy high-tech products, ignoring the Ukrainian supplier, thereby placing Ukraine’s research and development enterprises in a difficult position. In addition to this, we should recall the statement of the General Director of Motor Sich JSC, and now the People's Deputy of Ukraine V.A. Boguslayeva at the conference "Ukraine - Russia" with the participation of the presidents of the Russian Federation and Ukraine D. Medvedev and V. Yanukovich, held on 17-18 in May 2011, about the RF policy on import substitution, which threatens the existence of the scientific and technical base of Ukraine, because of high technology Ukrainian products are mainly supplied to the Russian market.
Yes, we have to admit that Ukraine is only an object of international politics and economy, not a subject. It is hardly possible to change this, therefore one must be guided by the main principle of diplomacy - to operate with the existing ones. This means that Ukraine needs to sell itself as profitably as possible, but to sell it to someone alone. The reader may object, citing as an example the countries of Central Asia, which, although they cooperate closely with Moscow, in parallel also play along with Brussels, Washington and Beijing.
However, these subjects of international relations conduct such a foreign policy only because they all have real assets that are in demand on world markets. The countries of Central Asia have reserves of oil and gas, as well as reserves of the most important rare-earth metals for the world economy. In the period 2010-2011. The EU planned to use gas reserves from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to fill the Nabucco and Trans-Caspian gas pipelines, but now China claims the same gas, intending to contract not only the main export volumes of Turkmen gas, but also all gas exports from Uzbekistan and even from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is interesting not only for its hydrocarbons, but also possesses the second largest reserves of rare-earth metals after China. Today, the “rare earth” of Kazakhstan is the only real alternative to Chinese raw materials: Greenland possesses huge reserves of rare earth metals, according to the sectoral Internet publication mining.com, which in the future can satisfy about 20% of the global demand for the most valuable metals from Green Earth with radioactive elements, making them unsuitable. Considering this, and also the fact that the Celestial Empire uses the “rare earth” as a political tool, Kazakhstan is becoming in demand on the world stage: in 2012, the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan signed an agreement with Kazakhstan for the supply of rare earth metals.
Uzbekistan is also of interest from a geopolitical point of view: located in close proximity to the Middle East and from the Russian Federation, it is an excellent base for building military bases, conducting special operations and deploying radar stations. So 29 June 2012 Uzbekistan declared the suspension of its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is considered to be an informal counterbalance to NATO, and already 3 in October 2012 Tashkent visited 17 US generals for a five-week visit to discuss issues of US cooperation with " key allied countries. "
All this means that the international community will strive to be friends with Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent, closing its eyes to the violation of its own core values (the uprising of oil workers in the Kazakh city of Zhanaozen in December 2011 killed 700 lives) and not teach them how to live constantly happening with Kiev. Unlike the states of Central Asia, Ukraine cannot boast of such reserves of the most valuable minerals, and the estimated volume of shale gas production in the amount of 8-11 billion m3 / year, which Azarov stated, still needs to be confirmed.
However, the countries of Central Asia can act as another example for Ukraine, namely, an example of how one can overdo it by playing on clashing the interests of world heavyweights. The desire to escape from the Kremlin’s “guardianship” and the naive adherence to the idiological “West (and East) will help us” can be brought by the countries of Central Asia in the neocolonialism network - not only western, but also eastern. The problem of Central Asia is the colossal power ambitions of the local elites with very little political experience of the government itself. The political experience of the Central Asian countries is limited to a period of several hundred years after the collapse of the Golden Horde and before the steppe lands passed under the arm of Moscow. In other words, this is the experience of the Horde khans, whose main ambitions were "to own the herds and wives of defeated enemies and feast in their tents." This meme is actually completely recreated by the current rulers of the region, who formed their regimes in the image and likeness of the same khanates.
And precisely in this lies their mistake: in the 21st century, steppe men no longer inspire fear in the whole world; unfortunately, they are no longer subjects of politics, but only objects, and objects that are devoid of a strategic vision, but with Tamerlan’s ambitions.
Central Asia is located between two strategic players in Eurasia - the Russian Federation and China. But if the Russian Federation almost 70 years created on the site of the nomadic civilized states, with China there is only a genetic relationship and only. Most of the Middle Kingdom, this region is needed only as a raw materials appendage. There is another player - the United States, who, like the Serpent-Tempter, trying to play on the “great past of the owners of the Great Silk Road”, draws them into their networks. Thus, the foreign policy of the Central Asian elites in the form of withdrawal from the CSTO and from the sphere of the direct interests of the Russian Federation, as well as maneuvering between the interests of the powerful, can play a cruel joke with them: the “golden Tamerlana onuchata goal” may be between the US hammer and the anvil of China.
Therefore, in spite of the “multi-sectoral policy”, the Central Asian countries, nevertheless, suffer from one of the heavyweights, the Russian Federation. Thus, the obstinate Uzbekistan at the end of December 2012 assured Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that he did not plan to deploy military facilities of foreign states on his territory; With all the freedom of its foreign policy, Kazakhstan is increasingly integrating into the CU; Kyrgyzstan in 2013 will develop an action plan for joining the CU. These countries have made their choice. Now it's Ukraine.
Joining any bloc, be it European or Eurasian, in any case will lead to a partial infringement of national interests. This is as objective as the fact that the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea. But the delay of death is similar: if Ukraine does not decide on a foreign policy course, our country can be comprehended by the fate of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, when, due to an unsuccessful attempt of the central government to observe neutrality, the ultra-right Khmer Rouge group captured the country. The Orange Revolution introduced into the formation of Ukraine’s foreign policy course an element of radicalism: it began to obey the formula “OR-OR”: “either NATO or non-aligned; or West or East. " If at the beginning of the 2000s (especially the period of V. Yanukovych’s premiership in 2002-2004), this situation could have been resolved according to the scenario of a small European state: economic stability in exchange for a national idea and ideology, now this was not possible due to unfortunate set of circumstances due to the second round of the global economic crisis.
The danger of the current situation from a political point of view, as shown story, is a threat that is internal to the country: in order to finally determine the foreign policy, and therefore ideological, course, society can turn away from liberal parties (to which the ruling party belongs) and appeal to parties that hold radical views. History knows such examples - Italy 1920's and Germany 1930's; no need to describe further events. At first glance, this least desirable development scenario seems unlikely, but the theory of strategic planning and risk management says that you need to take into account all the scenarios, even the least realistic ones.
Thus, the analysis of the current situation and a vivid example of the Central Asian region showed that Ukraine by all means need to finally decide on the foreign policy direction or significantly improve the economic condition of citizens as a possible alternative to a clear foreign policy and national ideological course. Otherwise ... Ukraine will repeat the fate of Buridan's ass.
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