It is a strong decision, which seems to want to establish a new world order. Russia adopted on Friday a new foreign policy strategy naming the United States and the West as the origin of “existential threats” for Moscow, against the backdrop of a diplomatic crisis linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
“Upheavals on the international scene” are forcing Russia to “adapt its strategic planning documents, in particular (the one on) the conception of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation”, justified President Vladimir Putin during a meeting of its National Security Council.
What is this “foreign policy doctrine”?
Foreign policy doctrine defines the priorities that countries give themselves in international affairs and the way in which the states in question perceive their relations with the world. In this case, the new document, which replaces a version dating from 2016 and was published on the Kremlin website, gets straight to the point.
In a document of more than 40 pages recalling by its content and its language the era of confrontation between the Soviet Union and America in the last century, Russia poses as a bulwark of the Russian-speaking world against Westerners, accused of wanting “weaken it by all means”.
Eliminate the “domination” of the United States and the West
This new Russian strategy is above all aimed at the West and its numerous economic sanctions since the start of the war in Ukraine. Washington and its allies have implemented heavy economic sanctions against Moscow, which accuses them in return of waging a proxy war in Ukraine, in particular by giving arms to kyiv.
Russia has set itself the “priority” of eliminating the “domination” of the United States and Westerners while describing itself as a “civilization” defending Russian speakers, according to its new foreign policy doctrine made public on Friday. The head of diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, underlined “the existential nature of the threats (…) created by the actions of unfriendly countries”, accusing the United States and its allies of waging a “hybrid war” against Moscow.
“Russia intends to give priority attention to eliminating the remnants of the domination of the United States and other hostile states in world affairs,” reads this document published on the Kremlin website. According to Sergei Lavrov, the new document notes “the existential nature of the threats (…) created by the actions of unfriendly countries”, qualifying the United States “as the main instigator and conductor of the anti-Russian line”.
“Generally, the West’s policy of weakening Russia by any means is characterized as a new kind of hybrid warfare,” Lavrov added. The new Russian foreign policy strategy is based on the principle that “anti-Russian measures taken by unfriendly countries will be constantly opposed, severely if necessary”, he added.
India, China, Africa… The new partners
In this context of isolation in the West, Russia seeks to draw closer economically and diplomatically to Asia, in particular to China, a vital priority which is reflected in the new doctrine. They are economically determining nations and rather withdrawn from the conflict in Ukraine. China and India are designated as key partners of Russia against a backdrop of isolation from the West, according to this new Russian foreign policy doctrine, which also plans to develop relations with Africa and Latin America.
“The overall deepening of ties and coordination with friendly world centers of sovereign power and development located on the Eurasian continent is of particular importance”, can be read in this document published on the Kremlin website, in the chapter devoted to China and India. Putin had displayed his complicity with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a summit in Moscow earlier in March, touting the “special nature” of relations between their countries, which nonetheless seem increasingly skewed in favor of Beijing, both the dependence on Moscow is growing.
A fight on the “moral” aspect
Echoing the conflict in Ukraine where Moscow claims to want to prevent abuses against Russian-speaking populations, the new document presents Russia as a “civilization” rallying the peoples who constitute “the Russian world”. While Putin presents himself as the champion of the “traditional values” of the Orthodox Church in the face of a West presented as decadent, the new doctrine also carries iron in the moral field.
We must “neutralize attempts to impose pseudo-humanist and neoliberal ideological principles, which lead to the loss of traditional spirituality and moral principles”, we can read.