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29.04.2013

ON SOME MAIN ISSUES OF INTEGRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF A VALUE SYSTEM

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Gagik Harutyunyan
Executive Director of “Noravank” Foundation

On the basis of “Armenia: Geopolitical and Integration Prospects” report presented at the international conference
(April 13, 2013, Yerevan)

Today the main issues of the Eurasian integration are up for debate. The geopolitical necessity of integration is underlined. Rather good analyses of its profitability and other economic issues are carried out. This all is wonderful and very useful – certainty is a must. It is obvious that everything is interconnected. For example, nothing will get done in geopolitics without economy. In 1990s at one of the meetings when they spoke about the geopolitical claims of Russia, Kissinger made a remark from his place that a country the budget of which can be compared with the one of Holland could have no geopolitical claims. Today the situation has qualitatively changed, though such statements of a question are still reasonable.

But there is still something more important than both economy and geopolitics – value system (VS), in compliance with the logic and spirit of which both economic and geopolitical conceptions are formed. Meanwhile such issues as system of values are discussed only when they concern European direction of integration. It can be stated that the arguments brought in this aspect are very often of superficial and declarative character. But it is very important here not to go into the criticism of the western ideology and thus to multiply the same mistake, which used to be made in the USSR in older times, but to create one of your own which will be at least competitive in this sphere.

So it is necessary to deeper consider the main issues which are connected with value system, which, despite its seeming abstractedness and theoretical character, can definitely be measured materially. It is remarkable that one of today’s biggest Russian economists claims that it is difficult to expect turnaround in an economy under the current mentality and level of professionalism of the society (we will still get back to this issue). It is no wonder that studies of the value systems are carried out within the framework of different programmes, in particular World Values Survey, and the results of these studies are of applied relevance not only in the economy (as the author of this projects claims) but, probably, in geopolitics too – it would have been very problematic to carry out “color revolutions” without knowing the mentality of the society.

But for more or less relevant discussion and analysis of the values and integration issues it is necessary at least to set the coordinates within these notions. In this context we should admit that what is supposed to call the Eurasian Union (EAU) had comparatively recently suffered heavy defeat in the Cold War. Today the few can doubt that the preservation of the trapping of the sovereignty of Russia is conditioned only by the availability of the so-called “nuclear briefcase”. There is no doubt that some new republics instead of independence received only formal attributes of this independence.

At the same time the collapse of the USSR was not only geopolitical but also political and humanitarian disaster, i.e. the system of values also collapsed. It should be admitted that in this context the inner sphere of some newly formed republics was fully occupied. Let us clarify what we mean by saying these words.

It is remarkable but not surprising that when one is looking though the literature concerning the occupation of Germany and Japan after the World War II, it becomes obvious that for the appropriate restoration of the domination of the winners and methods of managing of the society the technologies – nation building, etc. – were used which are very similar to the ones used in a half a century in the former Soviet republics but with one big difference:

  • In this half a century these technologies, due to the revolutionary changes in the information sphere, had considerably been modified and today a total manipulation of consciousness has become possible;
  • Geopolitical content has changed: if it was planned to direct Japan and Germany against the USSR from the very beginning, thus they carried about strengthening these countries, in our case, naturally, there was no such purpose and after the collapse of the USSR the world had been one-polar for some time.

In this respect it should be mentioned that the issue of “inner sovereignty” is topical today too with only difference that today this issue is tried to be solved. At the same time it is suffice to take a look at the processes which are connected with the NGOs in Russia and you will see what opposition they face.

In the context of all the aforementioned it should be admitted and not to be ashamed of the fact that the EAU project is a kind of attempt to have a historical revanche, an important component of a big strategy and it refers not only to Russia, but also to other states which tend to form the EAU. Meanwhile, big strategy, according to a celebrated British strategist Liddell Hart, must be moral and morality is a derivative from a system of values. Let us excurse in this context.

We live in the era of information wars (IW), i.e. in the era where the so-called soft-power wins, but its aftermaths might be no less disastrous that the ones of the “hard power”. It is remarkable that the main goal of the second generation of information wars is the destruction of the rival’s (often even partner’s) system of values.

In due time Thomas Rona1 who put into circulation information war term also defined critical infrastructures of security in information-technical sphere. Those are the computer networks, data bases, etc. Meanwhile, we put into circulation the notion of critical infrastructure of the information content and in this context system of values is a critical infrastructure of information security2.

However, the system of values is not formed in a vacuum; it is formed in the spiritual and intellectual sphere of the society which is, in its turn, formed by the science, technologies, culture, etc. institutions (in a broad sense of this word) functioning in that society.

Among other reasons which conditioned the collapse of the USSR there was also the one that the scientific-technical and creative intelligentsia was not satisfied by the System. It is also remarkable that the much of System’s might was owned to this segment of the society, the representatives of which were also the creators and bearers of the spiritual values. And it referred not only to intelligentsia – it should be admitted that the character of many anecdotes - HOMO-SOVETICUS, was much more moral and educated than the modern HOMO-LIBERALUS–ECONOMICUS. Another peculiarity is that the representatives of this creative segment turned out to be most seriously affected by the collapse of the USSR.

It seems that the success of the EAU formation mostly depends on the ways and ability to restore and develop spiritual and intellectual level of our societies, thus forming convertible values for EAU. That is the reason why today it is necessary to emphasis the development of the scientific and cultural sphere, to form the creative segment which will create a new system of values, and thus, the conditions for the integration processes. I would like to mention that this will cause the solution of the issues in both economy and geopolitics. It is not for nothing that the inscription at the building of the U.S. Library of Congress reads: “Knowledge Will Forever Govern Ignorance”.

1 Thomas P. Rona, “Weapon Systems and Information War”, Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA, 1976.

2 Гагик Арутюнян, Распад “системы” и формирование будущего. Ереван, 2011.

“Globus” analytical journal, #4, 2013

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