That’s the title – in part – of Fyodor Lukyanov’s piece in Russia in Global Affairs. Lukyanov is editor-in-chief of RGA, which is Russia’s answer to Foreign Affairs (and indeed, RGA is produced with FA’s assistance). Lukyanov discusses in some depth the new Russian security strategy paper released by the government on May 15. The paper purports to read the tea leaves out to 2020, but like all such prognostications, it will make for an interesting retrospective read well before then.
According to Lukyanov, the paper stresses that a true global security strategy must take into account the Russian people’s quality of life and the demographic difficulties currently facing Russia. But what Lukyanov really finds interesting, however, are textual clues that tend to indicate slapdash analysis from a disheveled government.
In addition, the document contains odd passages that give the impression it was prepared in haste. For example, it states that one of the necessary conditions for energy security is “multilateral cooperation to develop energy resource markets in compliance with principles formulated by the World Trade Organization.” But because the WTO does not regulate global energy markets, it is unclear why the authors mentioned the organization in this context.
It creates the impression that the strategy was not thought out thoroughly and is nothing more than a random collection of conceptual elements without any logical connection between them. This reflects the level of Russia’s disorganized government apparatus, the general condition of its poorly functioning structures and strategic thinking. The bureaucratic quality of the previous national security strategy published in 1997 and revised in 2000 is clearly higher, although the current version is richer in content.
The strategy fails to give a developed vision of the future. It would have been more realistic to extrapolate from current conditions and make a projection of not more than a decade into the future. Objectively speaking, the situation in the world is so complex and unpredictable that it is hardly possible to formulate a long-term strategy. For this reason, it is a little strange that the authors boldly attempt to predict events more than 10 years in advance, although the current rate of change could easily alter the situation far beyond recognition by that time. Just read predictions made 10 years ago about how today’s world would look and it becomes clear how far off the mark they typically fell.
As to predictions in general, I think Lukyanov is a bit hard on the authors. I never trust anybody’s crystal ball, least of all my own. I just look to whatever hard facts I can get my hands on and hope for the best. But he’s probably correct when he portrays as rudderless the upper echelons of Russia’s government.
But in the end, the development and presentation of the ideas and the quality of the document as a whole falls far short of the authors’ desire to respond to the challenges of the time. Russia is unable to define its own goals and strategies clearly. Therefore, the concepts it presents to the world will be perceived with the same confusion.
Problem is, I tend to think we’re rudderless at the moment, too.
