Celebrating 90 Years - Foreign Policy Association

Russian foreign and domestic
policies focus on economic issues.
We want to undertake
trade while making use of our
competitive advantage.
new problems and undermine confidence.
Without confidence, there can be no effective
cooperation on the broad range of problems
common to all of us.
Having embarked upon profound yet
peaceful transformations, Russia is currently
facing criticism and sometimes accusations
concerning democracy, rights and freedoms,
and the rule of law. Our opponents, I believe,
fail to consider that Russia has only covered
a short distance along this road, yet it has
already achieved one of the fundamental
conditions for the success of reform: domestic,
political, and economic stability.
Quite long ago, western democracy
entered the age of political technologies.
When Russia became Russia, after the demise
of the Soviet Union, political technologies
became one of the many items exported by
the West to Russia. So we have a common
problem. I believe we should look at it without
sticking labels on it. I would also add that
we have a lot of economic development
activities in common. For example, Russia
now promotes what we call a public-private
economic partnership, which sometimes is
viewed as an indication that we are moving
toward state capitalism. Let us remember that
public-private partnership is an Anglo-Saxon
invention. It is another export from you to us,
and we thank you very much for it.
I would like to quote from Michael
Mandelbaum’s article in Foreign Affairs: “The
key to establishing a working democracy, and
in particular the institutions of liberty, has been
the free market economy. The institutions,
skills, and values needed to operate the free
market economy are those that in the political
sphere constitute democracy.” Then he added
that “the best way to force democracy is to
encourage the spread of free markets.” I can
assure you that this tenet absolutely describes
the strategic course of President Putin. Please
be a bit patient to see additional results in the
political sphere.
I think we are in very bad need of a frank
and open discussion, which was the point
President Putin made in his speech in Munich.
He initiated the debate, and we are trying to
adequately contribute to it without hiding
our assessments, our analyses, or our foreign
policy philosophy. We know that we are being
listened to and being read, but unfortunately,
interactivity is missing. I hope that our partners
will respond substantively and will persuade us
of the fairness of their analyses.
We are open to persuasion but in an
intellectual mode with arguments at hand and
not just on the basis of principles. We all need
open discussions based on acknowledgement
of honest disagreements on some issues.
Avoiding such debate or substituting for
it lectures is a bad sign of intellectual and
psychological isolationism. I would like Russia
to be understood correctly. It is not the first
time in our history that we have undergone
a period of internal consolidation, of pulling
ourselves together as necessary for a new
recovery of our country. It happened after the
Crimean War and even during the Soviet period
following postwar reconstruction.
FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION | 77
MEETINGS: PRESENTATION BY SERGEY VIKTOROVICH LAVROV