Given their partner publications, perhaps the tone of this Vedomosti editorial shouldn't be surprising.
Website Fears Russia's 'Turn West' Aimed at Preserving 'Corrupt' System
Vedomosti
www.vedomosti.ru
May 26, 2010
Editorial: "Turn West" (Translation courtesy of JRL)
The modernization of Russia declared by the country's first person dictates fundamental changes in foreign policy. A number of events confirm that Moscow is abandoning the fat years' great power arrogance and isolationism and striving for full-fledged cooperation with the West.
It seems that Russian politicians are striving for more trusting relations and, in the future, even for integration with Europe. For example, the recent warming of relations between Moscow and Warsaw is connected not only to the personal sympathies of the premiers and the catastrophe involving Poland's aircraft No. 1 near Smolensk. The tone itself of foreign policy speeches and documents has changed. The participation in the 9 May Victory Parade in Red Square by NATO country military units and its conclusion with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" -- united Europe's anthem -- are symbols confirming the trend.
The "Program for Effective Use of Foreign Policy Factors for Purposes of Russia's Long-term Development" published the in the magazine Russkiy Newsweek (the document's authenticity is confirmed by experts and the lack of the MID's (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) denials) must not be considered as our response to American President Barack Obama's new international strategy. The program, however, suggests a very substantial tactical correction. The understanding that "reinforcing relations of interdependence with leading world and regional powers . . . including the creation of 'modernization alliances' with our main West European partners and with the European Union as a whole" will help Russia emerge from the crisis has arrived to replace self-satisfied statements about an "island of stability."
Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov is talking about the need for political rapprochement with advanced countries. In the article "The Euro-Atlantic: Equal Security for All" published the other day in the French magazine Defence Nationale, the minister emphasized that our country "is an integral part of Europe" and pointed out that "the philosophy of joint work lies at the foundation of Russia's foreign policy." Yet another key of the article is that Russia will not get into confrontation with the West and when necessary will wait while "natural processes create the conditions for convergence at the level of assessments and practical policy."
Two reasons caused the changes in Russian foreign policy. Europe and the US agreed to take Russia's interests in the post-Soviet space into greater consideration. Simultaneously, they recognized in the Kremlin that they will not succeed in modernizing the Russian economy using their own efforts and resources. Adults posing as an offended adolescent -- this is not the best way to attract western investments and technologies. And this means that political trust is needed.
It is another matter that closer relations with Europe and the US may lead to ambiguous consequences for Russia and, speaking broadly, for the post-Soviet space. The problem is in the understanding of the term "convergence," meaning rapprochement of different economic and political systems, and the degree of this rapprochement. Convergence with the European Union, of which Lavrov spoke, may accelerate the creation in Russia of European institutions -- the supremacy of the law, the independence of the courts, and the inviolability of private property.
There is, though, reason to fear that part of the Russian establishment views the future "European choice" exclusively as the state and major corporations' free access to Western technologies and credit lines, as the possibility of one's own going about Europe without a visa, buying real estate, and maintaining high standards of consumption. Moscow probably is trying to use cooperation with Europe in order to, by attracting resources and technologies, preserve the present system: clannishness, corruption, and access to resources through the electoral system.
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