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13.02.2020

HYBRID CHALLENGES TO INTEGRATION PROCESSES 2

   

Gagik Harutyunyan

Keywords: integration, disintegration, multi-polar world order, think-tanks, military-political factor, economic factors, humanitarian-informational factor, hybrid confrontations, hybrid challenges, information warfare, critical infrastructures, science and technology factor.


2.THE MILITARY-POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION TRENDS

2.1 Shaping the polycentric world order: change of vectors and terminology

During the monopolar world order, when the political and economic developments were largely subordinated to the United States and the “Western community”, some analysts assumed that a polycentric world order of the future would allow the nations to follow their own civilizational and ideological traditions and develop in a more harmonious manner1. However, the transition period tendencies that emerged with the entrance of China and Russia into the global political and economic arena (also accompanied by strengthening of regional players such as Iran and Turkey) dissipated the hope for the “bright future”. The transformation of the monopolar system into a multipolar one occurs in a chaotic manner, and currently there are reasons to believe that such turbulent mode would continue to dominate the modern world order for quite some time.2 It has to be also mentioned that the emergence of new poles and centers of power makes it additionally difficult to forecast real scenarios in the foreseeable future. Among other things, one reason is that currently not only the nation states are subjects of geopolitics and geo-economy, but also large transnational corporations and non-governmental organizations, whose ideas are not always in line with the policies of one or another state3. The situation arisen significantly affects the content of geopolitical and geo-economic vectors of integration, as well as the political science terminology.

For example, the concept of “West” popular in global information space, until recently was associated with some sort of unified ideological, political and economic system, the two pillars of which were the USA and their ally EU. However, two turning points significantly changed this perception: the Brexit and Donald Trump’s election as the US President (which was dubbed as Brexit-2.). It turned out that the British have no intention to share the hardships of ideological and immigration crisis with their European allies, which according to the forecasts might lead in the foreseeable future to a change of the religious, ethnic, and hence, the political fabric of the continental Europe4. Almost simultaneously, the Americans responded to the realities, too. A part of the establishment that advocated American-centric, sometimes almost isolationist policies, started to act in a particularly vigorous manner. As a result, Donald Trump was elected the President, who carries out his own political line trying to overcome (sometimes unsuccessfully) the fierce resistance of his numerous opponents. In addition to all that, Trump tends to depart from the ultraliberal modus operandi toward a more authoritarian form of governance5. It can be stated that the Anglo-Saxon societies once again turned out rather agile to the new challenges and trends that emerge in the world.

Meanwhile the continental Europeans have been developing skepticism towards the Anglo-Saxons and, particularly, the global strategy of the USA. If anything, because of the “controlled chaos” created in the Middle East, the EU faces an immigration problem that has provoked a standoff between the political and social forces with different views in Europe (which is still dominated by ultraliberal dogmas). Also, turning Ukraine into a “black hole”, after all, pursued a hardly veiled purpose of creating an additional barrier between the EU and Russia. Today the US accompanies all these developments by admonitions about relatively modest European financial contributions in NATO and the situation is further aggravated by the policy of economic sanctions against Russia, which boomerang back onto the European interests. It is also known that as Americans developed a taste for sanctions, they also unleashed a trade war with the Europeans by significantly increasing tariffs on metals imported from the EU, imposed sanctions on the Russian natural gas imports, etc.

Naturally, the European elite are not thrilled about all these actions. Already in 2003 they were not happy with the US policies in relation to Iraq, which caused US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice to promise to “punish France, ignore Germany”6. However these displays of discontent in the past never developed into real political forms. While currently, perhaps first ever since the times of de Gaulle, there are not just some frail protests, but quite serious disagreements between the Europeans proper and the Anglo-Saxon community. This discord openly manifests, for example, in policies towards Iran, as the EU rejected the American sanctions on this country, and in more “politically correct” forms in many other matters. Worded differently, the Western community no more appears all that united as it used to be, and the antagonism between its certain segments is becoming rather tangible. In this context it has to be considered that separatist sentiments loom over Europe (e.g. Catalonia, Corsica, and even some Italian provinces). A considerable disassociation occurs also between the Western and Eastern European countries. Moreover, even in the UK separatist trends are apparent among the Scottish and Irish. It is then no surprise that certain German military experts consider various scenarios of the EU dissolution, some of which even look quite catastrophic7. All these trends allow supposing that the manifestations of the “pre-Westphalian” fragmentation syndrome are marring Europe8.However, despite the existing controversies and higher probability for “bad scenarios”, overall the Western or worded differently the European-American society is the most integrated, and by this criterion the strongest structure globally. In these terms the generalized West is hard to compare with the divided conditional “East” where the disintegration trends prevail presently.

Undoubtedly, such state of the West is largely thanks to the belonging to the common Christian civilizational culture and quite similar approaches to the military-political security issues. However, the mentioned controversies between continental Europe and Anglo-Saxon community are still apparent in the said areas. The most important modern integration and disintegration processes in the military-political area are briefly presented below in this context.


2.2 Integration and disintegration trends in the military-political area

Cohesion of countries to ensure security is perhaps the most stable, strictly regulated and mutually binding form of integration. Several dozens of countries around the world are militarily integrated to one or another extent and are part of military blocs or other associations with a military component. One of those worth mentioning is the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, the treaty for which was signed in 1373 and is still in force. In the light of the developments in Eurasia, this study will review only the integration resources of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the formally non-military Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

  • USA, Europe and NATO:

Among the mentioned three, NATO undoubtedly has the most resources with its members including USA, Canada and 27 European countries (although geographically, Turkey is only in part European) of which 22 are EU members. Before 1982, i.e. at the peak of the Cold War in the bipolar world order, NATO had only 16 members. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and NATO’s main adversary – the Warsaw Pact, 12 more countries of the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia and other countries of the so-called “socialist camp” joined NATO. In 2017 Montenegro joined, too. Thus NATO played an important role in integration of the most of the European part of Greater Eurasia, the countries of which were disassociated earlier due to the collapse of the USSR and “socialist camp” as a whole. Today NATO represents the military power of the West (in somewhat obsolete terminology), and its military expenditures are over $1 trillion, which constitutes over half of the global military expenditures (these and other data on defense hereinafter come from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Global Firepower (GFP)9). The military-political power of the West are based on the colossal resources of the USA, which as a “centralizer”10 country, in real time dictate their allies their ideas about the strategy and tactics of the alliance in all situations.

In the new realities it is not surprising that projects for creating own armed forces appeared in the continental Europe. For example, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission suggested this idea in 2015 and in 2018 Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy supported it. However, despite the existence of concepts and signed protocols, this project is far from being implemented. Unsurprisingly, the USA and UK are against creation of a European army, while Russia keeps silence. In any case signs of disobedience to the “military discipline” appear more often in Europe recently. For example, Germany rejected Washington’s demand to deploy troops in Syria and participate in patrolling of the Persian Gulf11, which in goes against Berlin’s earlier strict compliance to the rules. Another sign of dissent was the unconcealed pessimism about the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which creates threats first of all to Europe. The EU called on Russia to keep the treaty and comply with its provisions.

Meanwhile, not only European countries appear to wish maintaining their security on their own. Despite the ultimatum-like statements of the USA, Turkey purchased S-400 Triumph air defense systems from Russia, and even expressed a desire to cooperate with Russia in the area of air defense.

The disintegration trend of Europe relative to the US is among other things a reaction to Anglo-Saxon autonomy in security. For instance, a special system of global signals intelligence called Five Eyes or ECHELON was created in 1960, operating under an agreement between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Mass media reports suggest that using satellites and other systems for monitoring and signal interception the Five Eyes carefully keep their eyes not only on their adversaries, but also European NATO allies.

  • Russia and CSTO:

In the European part of Eurasia and Syria it is Russia with its second largest military power that stands off against NATO. Characteristically, almost immediately after its defeat in the Cold War Russia initiated a military integration project in the practically disintegrated post-Soviet space: Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was created in 1992, which in addition to Russia involved post-Soviet republics of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. It has to be noted that civilizational motives played a role here, considering the concepts of Sergey Kara-Murza about “Soviet civilization”12. Yet the CSTO with a total budget of just $6 million13, can hardly compete against NATO. The guarantor of security for CSTO nations is Russia, but its military spending is 10 times smaller than that of the USA. In addition, Russia currently spends significant resources on the mission in Syria and support of militia in self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

  • SCO and military-political integration of the “Eastern bloc”:

As far as the integration prospects of the modern “Eastern bloc” are concerned, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization initiated by China (2001) deserves a special attention. SCO currently includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Observer states in SCO include Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, whereas dialogue partner status was granted to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey (remarkably, a NATO member) and Sri Lanka. Such a wide membership of SCO countries that differ from each other is because this organization is associated to the Chinese economic mega-project One Belt, One Road.

Legally, SCO is not a military structure, but its activities started with a convention against terrorism, separatism and extremism. Beijing’s incentive for military cooperation with Moscow is its territorial issues with the neighbors and, of course, problems related to Taiwan (relatively recently Beijing made a harsh announcement with regard to US arms export to Taiwan worth $2.2 billion14). Strengthening of Russian-Chinese military ties is evidenced, for example, by joint air patrolling over Sea of Japan and East China Sea, which prompted stark protests from South Korea and Japan15. The military cooperation between Russia and China causes worries in the USA, and the matter is periodically referred to in their statements16.

As for the military integration of the other SCO countries, the situation would seem unfavorable at all: relations between India and Pakistan sometimes degrade into confrontation, while there are some controversies between India and China as well. However, the global instability prompts SCO countries to converge for security. Importantly, they conduct joint war games regularly. For example, in 2018 a large scale Peace Mission 2018 exercise was conducted, while in 2019 at the SCO member states Defense Ministers meeting in Bishkek a program for further activities till 2021 was approved17. As a result, it seems military resources of NATO can be matched.

Tables 2.1 and 2.2 present top five countries of SCO and NATO according to the Global Firepower (GF) ranking18. Iran was added to the SCO states list, although it is an observer country, but it looks like will join as a full member in the near future.




As seen in the tables, the military budget of the included NATO countries 2.5 times exceeds that of the SCO countries. And even though some experts suggest that data on the military budget of China are significantly understated19, it does not really change the overall picture. Because of the USA, NATO has a considerable lead in the number of aircraft and aircraft carriers. However, there are more SCO countries with nuclear weapons and with the Russian resources their arsenal is larger than that of NATO. Top five SCO countries in aggregate also have more submarines and tanks. Overall, the West outmatches the “Eastern bloc” due to higher technology level and well-developed infrastructure of the USA (over 700 military bases abroad). However, it appears this is not a decisive superiority and between these two conditional blocs there is a certain military-political balance, which in our opinion contains both integrating and disintegrating potential for Greater Eurasia.

  • “Euro-America against Eurasia”: confrontation-disintegration scenario:

The probability of such scenario increases under development of sanctions and trade wars, in which many Eurasian countries are involved. In this context the attitude of various countries’ societies towards the main actors of the mentioned blocs plays an important role and hence, we will consider the data from WIN/Gallup International’s Annual Global End of Year Survey. Within the framework of this project the following question was asked to respondents in 68 countries: “There are 6 countries in the world with big military power: USA, China, Russia, France, UК and India. Suppose in the case of a military threat to your own country you had to choose ONE of them as a partner, which one would you choose?” The survey results were processed by us and their averages are presented in tables 2.3 and 2.420.



As Table 2.3 shows, 41% of respondents in 68 countries preferred to see the USA as an ally, 15% chose Russia, 10% China, 8% UK, 5% France and 3% India. Interestingly, four NATO countries, including Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia chose Russia (civilizational trend of integration).

The survey data also allow assessing the “mutual attraction” between the six leading military powers of the world. Based on the Gallup International’s data we created a matrix of “strategic attraction” between these countries. Table 2.4 shows that 43% of the US respondents chose UK as an ally, while 58% of the UK respondents preferred the USA (civilizational trend of integration). In the Russia-China pair 44% of Russian respondents favored China and 47% of respondents in China chose Russia.



Table 2.4 shows that the average mutual “attraction” of the USA-UK pair is 51% and for China-Russia it is 46%. These two pairs have the highest mutual “attraction” than all the others. For example, 54% of the French respondents chose the USA, but only 7% of the American respondents chose France, and hence, the average mutual attraction in this pair is 31%. Thus, if these data are taken as a basis, then in the matter of military-political alliances there appears to be a trend for shaping a new version of bipolar world, which sometimes is dubbed as “Euro-America versus Eurasia”.

This development is a “bad scenario”, because the bipolar configuration to a certain degree will follow the logic and rules of the Cold War times when disintegration processes prevailed. In modern realities it would mean at least an intensification of “sanction policies” and trade wars. At the same time, we believe some optimistic scenarios are also possible.

  • “Greater Eurasia and USA” – integration scenario:

In summary, the “good” scenario is possible under the following developments and conditions:

  • Occurrence of integration trends embedded in One Belt, One Road and SCO projects;
  • Peaceful settlement of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, stabilization of situation in the post-Soviet space and dialog of EU with Eurasian Economic Union;
  • Strengthening of continental Europe’s geopolitical status.

As already mentioned, the SCO project is part of the One Belt, One Road initiative, which is based on the concept of increased free trade and economic cooperation. Financial institutions have been created for the project: in 2015 the agreement about creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with a starting capital of $100 billion was signed by 57 countries (currently already over 70). Some analysts suggest that the strategic goal of AIIB is to form a competition to the US dollar, which is evidenced, for example, by the agreement between central banks of China and Switzerland about creating a financial platform for transactions in yuan renminbi, Gazprom Neft switching to settlements in yuan21, etc. The same analysts also point out the possibility of “shaping a geo-financial alliance between Beijing and Moscow… which could establish a financial order parallel to the currency hegemony of the dollar”. Thus, the political ambitions of China and Russia are supported by some serious financial resources, too.

However, with the confrontation between Russia and conditional “Western bloc” on the Ukrainian question, the prospects for the “Eastern” projects are not optimistic. In this context also the EU ambitions for a higher status in the military (own armed forces) and economic areas should be considered. It is possible that under such developments the politics of continental Europe may more adequately respond to the military-political realities than before and may adopt a milder mode of relations with Russia. Perhaps, the first real move in this direction was restoring Russia to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which can be also perceived as a step toward a compromise solution in the Russia-Ukraine confrontation. In addition, a stronger Europe could play a role of a liaison between USA and Eurasia, thus making a contribution to mitigating global turbulence in the multipolar system. In turn, Russia could be a liaison between China and EU, again adding positive moments in this scenario. Shaping such ties could in future bring about implementation of the integration megaproject “Greater Eurasia” from Lisbon to Beijing.

However, countries participating in such an integration megaproject, due to their civilizational and historical features (which is minimized in the case of the European - Anglo-Saxon community), will encounter a number of problems. Indeed, even relations between China and Russia, which are critical actors in the integration process, sometimes look problematic. For example, Russia, which is experiencing demographic difficulties, has problems in developing Siberia, which is rich in natural resources and borders China. Siberia occupies 77% of the territory of the Russian Federation, but it has only 25% of the country's whole population. Meanwhile, the situation in China is the opposite - a high population density and a shortage of natural resources, in particular, energy resources, which dictates China to pursue an appropriate economic policy in Siberia. As a result, a situation has formed that motivates some Chinese22 and Russian23 political circles to make radical statements. This allows the opponents of the “Eastern Alliance” to take steps in the spirit of the policy of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon in 1972, which “pulled” China to the west, and allowed to further worsen relations between China and the USSR. Today, the hybrid disintegration vector is directed more towards Russia, which was called to be reinstated in G7, etc., with a “forgetfulness” towards the “Red East”. Thus, perhaps, a scenario platform is being prepared for the formation of the US-EU-RF triad against the PRC. In this context, let’s add a characteristic nuance: during the "color events" in Hong Kong they called on "China to follow the example of the USSR and fall apart."

At the same time, changes have taken place over the past decades that allow a more optimistic assessment of the situation, and this primarily concerns the sphere of ideology, which, as Vyacheslav Yanko puts is “a set of instructions that provide the most effective mode of functioning and interconnectedness for ongoing processes.”24 This algorithm is especially effective once both universal ideologies - liberalism and socialism, and conservatism reflecting the national specificity are comprehensively used when managing the society. Such a “triad of ideologies”, which is successfully applied, in particular, in the Anglo-Saxon community, today operates not only in China, but also is being gradually formed in Russia.25 This situation allows us to believe that the leaders of the PRC and the Russian Federation, led by the “triad of ideologies”, will find an effective algorithm for solving problems in the foreseeable future. In turn, the logic of these decisions will, to one degree or another, affect the policies of the other countries of the Greater Eurasia, which will ultimately create the necessary incentives for participation in integration processes.



1 Тер-Арутюнянц Г., «Холодная война – 2» с геоидеологической перспективой // Голос Армении, 04.12.2003; Тер-Арутюнянц Г., Многополярная и ассиметричная Холодная война // Вестник Академии военных наук, М., #4(21), с. 23. 2007.
2 Harutyunyan G, The Multipolar Realities, Middle East and News Ticker Genocide, 21-st Century, #2(14), p.3, 2013.
3 «Информационная безопасность». (Глав. редактор Арутюнян Г.), Издание Научно – образовательного фонда «Нораванк», Ереван, 2017, 319с. (на армянском языке).
4 See, for example, http://forum.syntone.ru/index.php?showtopic=14159. In this regard it has to be noted that that sometimes the creative artistic imagination outperforms the scientifically founded forecasts of the experts, and one of such examples is the following remarkable book: Elena Chudinova, The Mosque of Notre Dame, The Remnant Press, 1st American Edition, 2015.
5 See, for example, Barry R. Posen, The Rise of Illiberal Hegemony (Trump’s Surprising Grand Strategy). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-02-13/rise-illiberal-hegemony.
6 Очарование и лед улыбки Кондолизы Райс, https://www.dw.com/ru/%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%B8-%D0%BB%D0%...
7 С. Дебрер, Бундесвер: Евросоюз — не жилец, США идут к упадку, https://svpressa.ru/politic/article/185646
8 Арутюнян Г., Фрагментированный или «довестфальский» миропорядок», http://www.noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=16546&sphrase_id=71920
9 https://www.sipri.org./, https://www.globalfirepower.com/
10 Huntington, S., 1993. The clash of civilizations. Foreign affairs, 72(3).
11 https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3173669&tid=113862
12 Кара-Мурза С. Г. Советская Цивилизация (в двух томах) – М.: Изд-во «Алгоритм», 2001г.
13 Шибутов М., ОДКБ – лишь бумажный тигр. Почему?, https://regnum.ru/news/2450511.html
14 See for example: Петровский В., Поставки оружия и «тайваньский фактор» в американо-китайских отношениях, http://www.rodon.org/polit-190715110420
15 РФ и Китай впервые провели совместное воздушное патрулирование в АТР, https://news.rambler.ru/troops/42543491-rf-i-kitay-vpervye-proveli-sovmestnoe-vozdushnoe-patrulirova...
16 See for example, http://biang.ru/ru/news/ssha-obespokoenyi-usileniem-voennogo-sotrudnichestva-rf-i-knr-na-dalnem-vost...
17 http://bigasia.ru/content/news/politics/ministry-oborony-stran-shos-utverdili-plan-sotrudnichestva/
18 https://www.globalfirepower.com/
19 https://toparmy.ru/novosti-vooruzhennyx-sil-mira/voennye-byudzhety-vedushhix-stran-mira-2019-god-201...)
20 Арутюнян Г., Марджанян А., Духовно - технологические ресурсу и вопросы союзничества в гибридных реалиях, 21-й Век, #4 (45) с.5, 2017.
21 Комиссина И., АБИИ как инструмент международного финансового управления, http://www.rodon.org/polit-190814112103
22 https://inosmi.ru/politic/20180905/243154870.html
23 https://www.politforums.net/rmo/1520105004.html
24 Янко В.А., http://yanko.lib.ru
25 Harutyunyan G, Critical Infrastructures and Ideology, 21-st Century, # 1(20), p.15, 2017.



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