20 years of CIS: ambiguous results. Part 1

The last of the world’s empires – the USSR – collapsed 20 years ago, but the echoes of this geopolitical big bang can still be felt on a global scale. A new geopolitical reality emerged from the ruins of the bipolar world, a reality that changed the global balance of power.

The ethnic and political conflicts that had been smouldering within the USSR burst into flames at the first signs of weakness displayed by the Soviet central government. These conflict factors outweighed any stable development trends of the epoch. The anti-communist and nationalist demonstrations of the early 90s were warmed up by the desire of local elites to regain political independence.

The first and the only President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, made an attempt to preserve the state and prepared a new Union Charter for the republics. However, it wasn’t signed due to the events of August 1991 – after that the process of disintegration became irreversible. The formal decision followed in December 1991. Twelve newly-formed sovereign states found a new model for political, social and economic interaction – the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The CIS is often criticized for a lack of mobility and efficiency. However, this organization played a very important role in the 90s – it helped reduce disintegration trends and minimize negative consequences of the disintegration of the single economic and social system that used to connect all CIS states.

Ex-Soviet republics didn’t have equal start-up capitals, nor did they have common goals and interests. The majority of the post-Soviet republics chose to pursue multi-vectored foreign policy courses. However, the growing rift between Russia and the West made the field of opportunities for such a course quite narrow. Those states that couldn’t form a conclusive national development strategy suffer the most in these conditions.

According to Tajik political expert Abdunabi Sattorzod, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan failed to commit to a true multi-vectored nature to their foreign policies. Nevertheless, the principle goal of all political efforts of the newly-formed independent states was to secure their rightful places on the international scene. In order to achieve that goal a country needs to have a stable economic system and an efficient model of political development.

The different levels of economic development of the Soviet republics showed itself during the transition period. This difference became even more noticeable in the conditions of the world economic crisis of 2009-2008. Ironically, those CIS countries that are deemed to be the most developed by international experts (Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine), suffered the most.

CIS states can still be categorized into those that possess a solid natural resource base and those that don’t. For example, in Central Asia the states that have considerable oil and gas deposits (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) differ from those that have no hydrocarbon resources (Tajikistan, Kirgizstan). However, all countries of the region lose due to their conflicts with one another. Even the economically strongest country of the region – Kazakhstan – couldn’t make its economic system diverse in these 20 years.

The dependence of certain states (such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) on raw natural resources only grew in the years after the collapse of the USSR. However, now their economic systems also depend on changes on the unstable world market. All attempts to cure this dependence on raw material export came to nothing in post-Soviet space due to the lack of political will of the local elites.

None of the post-Soviet republics could create a viable and efficient independent economic system or form new economic ties. The low level of competitiveness of the post-Soviet economic systems is due to the old Soviet principle of labor division – none of the national economies was aimed at producing actual integrated products. So it is only natural that the process of industrial production in the CIS states remained tightly inter-connected, despite the political sovereignty of the states. All post-Soviet states find themselves in an exclusive circle between themselves and Russia, a circle they can’t break.

To be continued

By Alexei Vlasov, exclusively to VK