Moscow Unfiltered (3)

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and how he and some others, too, see the world

Note: This text is part of my informal “Unfiltered” series, in which I seek to provide a counterbalance to the Western mainstream media’s biased and often ignorant coverage of Russian politics. It’s longer than my average text, but I hope that readers will see why that makes sense.

On the eve of what will be – one way or the other – very important talks between Russia and the US regarding if and how to end the Ukraine War (and more, of course), a number of noteworthy statements have come out on the Russian side, certainly deliberately. And as usual, they are either entirely neglected or selectively misrepresented in the West’s mainstream media.

The most extensive one is a long interview (hereafter simply, the interview) that foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has recently given to three American interlocutors, the well-known bloggers and journalists Andrew Napolitano, Mario Nawfal, and Larry Johnson. At the same time, literally within a few days, Lavrov has also addressed the official Business Council under the Foreign Ministry and made several pertinent statements on the occasion of a visit to Moscow – the first in 4 years – by the new head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In the interview, Lavrov did most of the talking. His answers were long and comprehensive, and while they were crammed with noteworthy points, claims, and arguments, a few key themes stood out: Lavrov, in effect, offered three theories (in the original, simple sense of the word: a systematic and explicable way of looking at things): A theory of normality, a theory of multipolarity, and a theory of (political) pragmatism.

It is obvious that these theories reflect the thinking of the Russian leadership, in particular also of president Vladimir Putin, whom Lavrov, unsurprisingly, also occasionally referred to. In the following we will focus on them.

I Lavrov’s Theory of Normality

Asked what he thinks about the current changes in Washington under the new Trump administration, Lavrov described them as, first of all, a return to normalcy. That, in and of itself, was a straightforward, very plausible, and unsurprising answer. What viewers should not miss is the hints Lavrov provided as to what exactly he – and Russian leaders in general, it is safe to assume – understand by normality.

Here – apart from a quick allusion to the specific two-party normality of the American political system – two key, conceptually and politically fundamental aspects emerged from his statements: First, normality means a return to international relations and diplomacy based firmly and explicitly on the pursuit of national interests. This was a point Lavrov has made before and he made it not once but several times in this interview especially addressing a US and Western audience: Both Moscow and Washington – Lavrov stressed repeatedly that this approach is also that of the US now, specifically of president Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio – are now explicit and agreed about this basis for their relationship.

Each will pursue national interests and expect the other to do so – and, clearly, fundamentally respect that fact. Both are aware that national interests often do not converge. Where they do not converge, both will always strive to avoid a deterioration of their relationship into conflict or even war. Where they do converge, both will look for mutual benefit.

That is a simple – and thus robust – set of very reasonable principles. It may seem obvious, but, for years, it has been anything but in the West. Now, fortunately, Washington – though not yet NATO-Europe – has adopted it. Lavrov, it is true has explained these principles before, especially, as in this interview as well, with reference to the recent Russia-US meeting in Riyadh. Yet there were two features of his statements in this interview that deserve special attention: First, Lavrov repeated this point at least three times.

No other thesis he advanced in this conversation received that degree of emphasis and highlighting from him. It almost felt as if he was saying: If you remember only one thing I told you, this is it. Secondly, Lavrov also made a particular effort to underline that this was the position of the current US administration as well. Indeed, at times, he almost sounded as if ascribing the idea as such to Washington (which would be not entirely factual; it’s a longstanding Russian notion in reality, but it would bring out just how much Moscow wants the West to understand that this is sine qua non of a common starting point).

If the above was key aspect number one of Lavrov’s theory of normality, the other was not – at least not directly – about international politics, but about values. Yes, values. For it would be a grave error to believe that Russia’s frequent and very well-founded criticism of the West’s utterly hypocritical talk of “values” means that Moscow prefers some kind of nihilism or cynicism. In reality, the opposite is true: The Russian leadership is seriously invested in claiming and upholding its own set of values which it believes are genuine and constructive, unlike the West’s.

Obviously, all states, governments, and politicians honor all values – even the ones they sincerely believe in – in the breach as much as in actual deeds. So, this is not here – nota bene – an argument about Moscow being “better” (although I personally think it is, comparatively speaking; but then the co-genocidal West is a low bar). This is simply a description of the important fact that no one will read or predict Russia’s leadership’s actions well, who does not take into account its values.

And those are, as Lavrov has told his interviewers from the West, Christian. Lavrov stressed that the confessional differences between Russia with its largely Orthodox culture and the kind of Christianity prevailing in the US are less important than that overarching commonality between the two countries.

Lavrov also explained why and how, he believes, the US lost its normality in the first place over the last decades, namely “with the introduction of neoliberal ideas, neocon ideas but mostly neoliberal ideas” that polarized the former Christian-value-based consensus away. He blames the leadership of the most for this “departure from Christian values the Democratic Party and its promotion “without any limits of the LGBTQ-whatever-comes-next” agenda.

You may disagree (or agree) with Lavrov, on the whole or in detail. But it would be a mistake to consider these statements a mere captatio benevolentiae with the conservative audience of the journalists and bloggers he was talking to. Lavrov is an extremely intelligent and educated man, and he is certainly aware of the basics (and more) of the art of rhetoric. Yet this is not (mostly) about that. Instead, what we are hearing here is an exposition of a key element of current Russian leadership thinking about the link between, roughly speaking, conservative (including religious) values and the basis for reasonable and consensual politics.

Make a mental note of this and remember it, the next time a superficial mainstream media talking head tries to tell you again that Russia’s politics are “nihilistic” or “cynical” – a realism without any morality. That is very badly misleading. Russians are as good or bad as others about always following their moral precepts. But those denying that they have them, and in very high places, too, will end up analytical failures, blinded by their own prejudices.

Not to be overlooked, of course: There also is a very concrete, immediately and urgently relevant manner in which these references to Christian values matter now: Western observers and politicians should not underestimate Moscow’s commitment to vindicating the suppression of all religious organization with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. That is a Zelensky-regime policy that even Human Rights Watch in the West has criticized (if too mildly). More importantly, it is a policy that Russia will not let stand, as its leadership constantly reiterates. Lavrov, for instance, mentioned the issue explicitly as well in the interview; only very recently Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry, has done so, too. Any agreement on ending the Ukraine War will have to address this issue.

II Lavrov’s Theory of Multipolarity

Lavrov’s theory of Christian-value-based normality clearly corresponds to but is not the same as his theory of multipolarity. His starting-point for laying out the latter was the question if, in the future, Russia and the US could go even beyond a new politics of national interest, dialogue, and pragmatism to forge an alliance. His answer delivered the first of the ideal features of multipolarity, as he sees it: Alliances, he pointed out, are traditionally associated with being made against someone else.

Multipolarity, though, Lavrov explained, “is different,” stressing, again, that the US – here, specifically Marco Rubio – agrees. Lavrov then sketched his “vision” of multipolarity in several points: It will require recognizing “such giants” as, for instance, Brazil, China, or Africa as a whole. It will “evolve” over time as a historical epoch. Here, it is worth noting that he has put the same idea even more forcefully in a recent short address to the Business Council under the Russian Foreign Ministry, where he spoke of the “objective process of the establishment of a multipolar world.” In other words, multipolarity is here to stay and growing, whether they like it or not in the West. It also is, to quite again from the foreign minister’s address to the Business Council linked to “a fundamental factor” of current global politics, namely the “consistent, inevitable, relocation of the center of global development from the Euro-Atlantic to the Asian, Pacific region, and more broadly [speaking] to the Global South [and] to the Global East.”

In his recent interview, Lavrov went into further detail: The multipolar world “could be composed of superpowers, [defined by] size, economic weight, military might, especially nuclear. And certainly, US, China, Russia fit into this category.” Clearly, take-away point number one, this is a model of multipolarity with a great power or, in Lavrov’s terms, superpower core and top, presumably existing in a balance based on, again, the principles of national interest and dialogue laid out above.

It is not, put differently, a free-for-all or a world without palpable and consequential power differences, and it presupposes a degree of hierarchy. “Those [powers] who are not as big,” he added, “can participate in a multipolar world” through structures based on regional organization, such as ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the African Union, and the League of Arab states. So, take-away point number two: While hierarchical, Lavrov’s model of multipolarity does foresee a place for all states in a concrete, organized manner.

The third point Lavrov made about multipolarity concerned a specific international organization, namely the G20, which, he said, “might play a very positive role in the process of multipolarity.” He pointed out that the G20 practices a rule of consensus and does not rely on votes. For context, as of now, the G20 brings together states and international organizations; its economic weight is massive with over 80% of gross world product (GWP) and 75% of international trade. Its member states (not counting international organizations) are home to 56% of the global population. Moreover, and this point may be very important for Lavrov’s highlighting it, it brings together states from the Global South (such as South Africa and Brazil), East (Russia and China), and traditional West (the USA, for instance). Lavrov, in any case, even contrasted the G20 positively with the UN, which he clearly sees as hamstrung.

Perhaps, the single most important point that emerges from Lavrov’s theory of multipolarity can be seen best if we take a step back: For the Russian leadership a multipolar world is not a utopia, but an inevitable “historical tendency” (a term Lavrov used at the Business Council). It’s not a choice but a fact of the present and the future. And, correspondingly, the Russian leadership’s project is not so much fighting for multipolarity – since it is happening anyhow – but thinking in concrete, practical terms about how to shape it. That is, Moscow is ahead of those who still cannot even get their head around the fact that multipolarity is coming whatever they do or say. Those in the West who do want a say about things to come better get with the program, and the program is the multipolar world.

III Lavrov’s Theory of (Political) Pragmatism

The first thing to note here is that Lavrov’s approach is so practical that he did not even use the term “pragmatism” itself, but only the word “practical.” That may have something to do with what Lavrov clearly sees as the opposite of “practical,” namely whatever is “ideological.” For Lavrov, for instance, deriving mutual benefit from converging national interests (when they converge; see above under “theory of normality”) is “practical” and, of course, a very good thing. What he means by “ideological” is exemplified by Germany’s suicidal strategy (if that is the word…) of cutting itself of from inexpensive Russian energy and thus deindustrializing its own economy. Call it self-Morgenthauing, if you wish. And all of this insanity to achieve, in Lavrov’s terms, the “ideological” goal of defeating Russia.

Hence, Lavrov’s pragmatism is really common sense (in the best meaning of the term) and his term “ideology” stands not for complex, explicit political belief systems but for a mix of foolishness, prejudice, and hubris. In other words, if we treat these statements, again, as indicative of how the Russian leadership now sees the world, then it is exactly the opposite of what Western mainstream media are (absurdly) trying to make us believe: Moscow is not after foolish aims, such as rebuilding the Soviet Union or watering Cossack horses in the Rhine and Seine.

Instead, its approach is driven by common sense in search for national-interest goals that are both beneficial and realizable. Indeed, Moscow (rightly) sees large parts of the West (now - maybe, hopefully - minus Washington) driven by exactly the “ideological” – that is wishful, unrealistic, and stereotyping – (non-)thinking that Western mainstream media love to falsely project on Russia. What Lavrov is saying is: You are looking for a voice of reason? That would be us. Feel free to join us.

There were, as mentioned above, many more noteworthy points. My recommendation is to listen to the whole interview carefully. Lavrov’s detailed statements on the causes of the Ukraine War, Russia’s refusal to let NATO integrate Eurasia, and the three crucial points at which Ukraine (and the West) could have had better deals, for instance, are not entirely surprising but still worth close attention.

Some of the interview is also entertaining: EU “Führer” (Lavrov’s term) Ursula von der Leyen and French pocket-Napoleon (my term) Emmanuel Macron get their well-deserved side swipes.

For this text, however, I have focused on what I believe are important underlying themes. I hope readers will find it useful.