Dr Bouthaina Shaaban – Political & Media Advisor to Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad
President Putin’s annual speech before the Russian Parliament this year was an expression of Russia’s doctrine as a rising and important player on the international scene. The speech put an end to the turbulent years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, while at the same time, it represented an assured Russian awakening, a strategic vision for the future of Russian power, and a practical policy for the years to come.
The speech presented a methodology for work both on the internal and international levels, and a collection of ideas and principles on which a multipolar world must be built.
Therefore, the speech was calm, detailed, visionary, reconciliatory, and accepting to anyone who wants to be an active member in this new peaceful generally international trend.
The speech was free of the language of condescension and threats, which paints the speeches of American and Western officials.
Yet the speech was also free from any weakness or appeasement towards Western intransigence, for its words reveal a will for international cooperation that emanates from power and a true desire for peace. Putin said,
“If anyone decides not share this method with us, or to test us, our reactions will be very different, and the result will be disastrous. This must be apparent to others, and they should not forget it even for one moment,” he added.
The speech adopted the principles of transparency both within Russia and abroad, and the principle of partnership with the Russian people and with willing countries in the world, a partnership which would be based on parity between states, big or small. Away from the principle of “exceptionalism,” touted by American Presidents, Putin’s speech condemned this principle and its disastrous results across the world.
Even though he admitted that “there is no alternative for the United Nations as a center for organizing international relations and coordinating policies;” he expressed Russia’s desire to reform the international system and reinforce dialogue, cooperation and stable partnerships between countries.
In addition to considering Russia and the US responsible for international security, he said that Russia has established cooperative relations with China, Japan, India, and the BRICS, and is ready to improve relations with the United States, albeit on the basis of parity and away from extortion and the spearing of the “American Model” outside the United States against international law.
From here, the democracy President Putin spoke about is a democracy based on the sovereignty of nations, and the rejection of foreign interference in the internal affairs of independent countries. It is a democracy based on civilization, culture, and the unique identities of independent nations, away from American exceptionalism and Western hegemony and the attempts to impose the Western model of democracy on other countries.
Any speech that offers an alternative for countries working to reinforce their sovereignty and stability, and presents an alternative for the post-Second World War neocolonial model of economic exploitation under the guise of a “civilizing mission” or the spreading of democracy and human rights to countries that the West deems less civilized only because it does not tow its line.
From this perspective, Putin considered Russia’s work to reinforce international legitimacy to be a priority. This means that he spoke of true international legitimacy that stems from dialogue, understanding, mutual respect of national sovereignty, and economic equality away from the Western monopolization of “free trade” around the world.
Putin emphasized that forming a broad international coalition is the only way to fight terrorism, as he indicated the work that Russia has done in this regard on Syrian soil, hinting that others who claim to fight terrorism are actually doing next to nothing. Putin indicated that Russia has learned many lessons, and has transformed the crisis that the others tried to manufacture into an opportunity to improve agricultural products, which succeeded brilliantly, for the value of agricultural exports exceeded military ones.
In this there is an important lesson for all countries, that the will of the people will always defeat attempts at hegemony and extortion, this will has the ability to transform any difficulty, or even a calamity, imposed from abroad into an internal success story, with wise and well-planned policies.
The first veto that Russia and China sued at the UN Security Council on 4 October 2011, was in the face of Western powers, who tried to evoke international legitimacy for its terrorist war on Syria, the way they did in Libya, Iraq, and before that in the former Yugoslavia.
That veto was the first indicator that the unipolar system was breaking up, and President Putin’s speech before the Council of the Russian Federation on 1 December 2016 is a timely declaration for the official birth of a new multipolar international order based on the respect of national sovereignty and the will of the people.
Putin opened the door for every nation to develop its own doctrine on the basis of parity, mutual respect, and international law, and on the basis of honesty, transparency, and accountability.
Putin’s speech is the beginning of the end for a world of “hegemony and exceptionalism” and a new dawn for free peoples. So would countries and nations now start to write their own doctrines in a manner commensurate with its identity, civilization, and the aspirations of its people?
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