12.01.2018, Washington.
American global order is threatened not just by the Russian President, but by Russia itself, Kori Schake, a distinguished research fellow at the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, said on January 12 during a book talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Rossa Primavera news agency correspondent reports.
Kori Schake said that after 1991 USA made Russia an offer to join its world order. The proposal included renunciation of collectivism, implanting democracy, and opening markets for economic intervention. “If you are a society that respects the rights of individuals… if you conduct your economy in a way that is transparent and open to negotiated trade with others, [which is the] mainframe of American international order”, she said.
But nevertheless, said Schake, Russia did not opt into such a role. She suggested that the cause could be not just the country’s leadership, but also the society that “didn’t believe it could succeed on those terms”, thus Russia opposed the U.S. and their rules of world order.
Therefore, the expert said, the US’ problem is not the Russian President, Russia itself is. She also spelt out a scenario in which Russia itself will not be a great power any longer and will become something else. “We should be worried about the Russians”, Schake concluded.
The discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies was devoted to the Kori Schake’s newly published book titled Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony. During the book talk, threats to the U.S. hegemony, including the ones coming from Russia and China, were discussed.
Editorial comment
The U.S. indignation of Russia’s role in modern world politics is understandable. It has been directly said in the West for a long time that in 1991 the USSR did not move from socialism to the market economy, but instead it suffered “a devastating defeat in Cold War, accompanied with a loss of face”. Such a statement, particularly, could be seen once again in Samuel Charap and Timothy J. Colton book titled Everyone Loses that was published in Russia in Russian language in December 2017. Starting with the “loss face” moment, it is thought no longer necessary to consider Russia a sovereign country on the world arena.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
