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DOES THE CIS HAVE THE FUTURE?
ALEXEY VLASOV, SERGEI MIKHEEV,
Moscow
Alexey VLASOV, general director of the Information and Analytical Center for Study of the Social and Political Processes in the post-Soviet space, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Every year somebody says that the Commonwealth of Independent States is dead as organization. However, what do we need this organization for?
Originally, the CIS was necessary for a "civilized separation" of the former Soviet republics. After the separation, a new concept of the CIS appeared, according to which the CIS is a universal communication platform where the state leaders of the New Independent States, many of whom are unlikely to sit down at the negotiating table with each other, can meet in an informal atmosphere. Those include, for example, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, or the leaders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
But this motivation is insufficient if to take the August 2008 events (war between Georgia and Russia) into account. Another question is what role the CIS can play in the near future, at a time when there is a confrontation between some member states of the organization as well as between Russia and the West.
Unfortunately, in many respects the question cannot be answered in an optimistic way. I believe that the CIS has prospects only in three spheres.
The first sphere is the humanitarian ties and, first and foremost, maintenance of the Russian language as a means of universal communication in the former Soviet Union and of development of the common cultural and educational patterns.
The second one is the transportation and communication ties. Even if all the CIS member states stopped cooperating in this sphere, nothing would come out of it. The transportation infrastructure has the routes, which were constructed during the Soviet period. Those ties must be developed in the future.
The third sphere is security. There are common risks and challenges connected with religious extremism and drug traffic, so there is a need to find common areas of cooperation.
If the CIS leaders wished to abolish this organization, it would be easy for them to do that. Abolition of all the economic privileges and preferences, which are between the CIS member states, and introduction of visa regulations would make the Commonwealth cease to exist.
Who is the main CIS integrator? In fairness, it is Russia, which considers the CIS as well as other integration projects to be a tool of securing or championing of its interests, and Kazakhstan that regards the CIS reformation as its image project.
Sergei Mikheev, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies
The CIS is a public phenomenon, which has many integration and disintegration stimuli and reasons, so we can influence its development.
Which of them will prevail depends only on the political elites. The CIS has quite enough prerequisites for existence. On the other hand, there are disintegration factors, one of which is the alternative attraction center, the USA.
So, the future of the organization depends on the political will of, above all, the Russian political elite. If the Russian authorities decide that the CIS has become a thing of the past, so be it. If the Russian elite take serious steps to work out a strategy towards the CIS and to prolong the life of this organization in particular and of the post-Soviet integration in general, the CIS will have every chance of survival.
As regards Russia, the CIS integration serves its interests. I am sure that the issue of the CIS collapse is a logical continuation of the USSR collapse. Then, if the CIS breaks up, the issue of Russia’s collapse will arise. Russia needs the CIS, at least, as a prerequisite for the ‘Russian’ nation-building project.
If to raise the CIS membership issue, Georgia’s example is significant. Although many said that nobody needed the CIS, Georgia did not withdraw from the Commonwealth. After the armed conflict with Russia in August 2008, Tbilisi is going to do that but keeping all its benefits.
The external factor will play a serious role in the future of the CIS. The weaker the USA determines its policy in the distant regions of the world, the more reasons there are for the CIS existence. The CIS disintegration tendencies are stimulated, aside from all, by the Western countries, especially, by the USA.
So, the future of the CIS is in the hands of the political elites, first and foremost, the Russian ones.
The material is based on the experts’ addresses to the round table in the Russian Agency of International Information RIA Novosti “Does the CIS have the future?”, which is timed to the meeting of the Council of the CIS Heads of State that will be held in Bishkek on October 10, 2008.
October 9, 2008
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