Russia’s Destiny

One of the recent concerns that has bestirred the semi-somnolent development of Russian mentality is the lack of the federal national concept ("the so-called "Russian Idea"). As if expecting the messiah, the nation is expecting the arrival of a document that, in accordance with our Constitutian, the President will make public in his Annual Address to the Parliament. In the meantime, the country remains torn by disagreements and mutual misunderstandings of what constituters the concept of national development, and the lack of comprehensible, commonly acceptable language only compounds this situation.

National Security and the Russian Idea

All of this appears quite normal and we do not need to overdramatize the situation. Russia’s national identity is still evolving. The new Russia is not the Soviet Union. Even more important, nor is she the old Russian Empire. Russia’s new borders, possibilities, culture, civilization, inner development have all contributed to making Russia a new state, one that has not previously existed on the global political or geographical map. Half a dozen years is a short historical period in which to mold a country’s national identity, shape the political system, and define the objectives and grasp the prospects of national development. These are just a few of the contitutive factors that underlie the country’s national security. So far, we have not yet defined the subject of national security, namely the consept of Russia as a state.

And yet there is more to it. National development concept must be reinforced by consensus, or in the absence thereof, by national agreement that goes beyond political strife and interests of parties and addresses a number of key matters, above all, the most preferable model for social, economic, and political development of the country. It must somehow harmonize preferences of the people and of the elite that they might have with respect to the state system, economic pattern, and the nature of relationship with the outside world. It must be a sort of Common Effort Philosophy (in the Fedorovian sense) and a technology showing ways to achieve the compromise that such an accord requires. Much time would pass before participating scientists, politicians, general public, and, of course, Parliament might achieve it.

The adopted Security Law (1992) reads that security is protected existence that allows for the advancement of an individual, society, and the state. If this is so, the maintained security is not confined to protection, it also accommodates development. It is not just a mere removal of threats (security policy in its narrow, traditional meaning). What is meant here is tangible and intangible values of the community, constitutianal system, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state, namely, the activity typically qualified as consolidated long-term government policy which, for instance, American poilitical science defines as a "Grand Strategy" instead of a "National Security Strategy".

Russia's "Grand Startegy" (or the "National Idea") has not yet been perceived and therefore has not been formulated.yet. But how do other countries define themselves? In the most general terms, the "national idea" of the United States is the "crusade for democracy." The national idea of Ukraine, Estonia, other post-Soviet states is the national statehood built on their independence from Russia. The new germany, too, has its national idea: the restoration of the unified German state and economic expansion in Europe. Even the USSR, had some sort of a national idea which the communists interpreted as territorial expansion and the expansion of the power of the party-state.

The Russian Question

Avoiding the trap of the present-day politics, let us assume that Russia's national security has different aspects attributed to its history and culture. To resolve most urgent items on the national agenda, we have to build on Russia's age-old interests and tasks.

Approximately, they may be formulated as a series of questions: