Moscow-Dushanbe: Eurasian prospects

The agreement on the extension of the stay of a Russian military base in Tajikistan for 30 years - until 2042, followed by five-year renewals, was the main result the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Dushanbe of the end of last week. At the same time, according to the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, "the Russian side will be responsible for the issues of modernization and technical re-equipment of the armed forces of Tajikistan and strengthening the material and technical base by modern weapons. The Russian side will also assist in training in this area, as well as other aspects of strengthening the defense capability of Tajikistan. "Demonstrating the capabilities of Russia in modernizing the Tajik army, Putin gave Rahmon the latest Russian sniper rifle "Orsis" T-5000. Another Putin’s birthday present for Rahmon was a copy of registration card of Russian naval forces. "Emomali entered Dushanbe with a gun in his hands, he was a well-experienced fighter. He knows the value of high-quality military," - the Russian president spoke of his gifts.

An important outcome of the negotiations was an agreement that labor migrants from Tajikistan would receive permission to work in Russia for three years.

Meanwhile, although, according to Putin, "the Tajik side actively supports the deepening of integration processes in the CIS as a whole", it seems that there is no much progress in terms of the interaction in the integration organizations - the Customs Union and the Eurasian Union in the future. The memorandum of duty-free oil supplies to Tajikistan can only partly be considered to be the demonstration of the advantages provided by the Customs Union.


But in Moscow, there were high hopes for the support of Eurasian initiatives on the part of Dushanbe. On the eve of Putin's visit, RIA Novosti even held a round-table discussion "Russia and Tajikistan in the context of the Eurasian integration", in the course of which, in particular, the general director of the Center for Current Politics Sergei Mikheyev gave his assessment of the prospects of such an association:


"Definitely, I am a supporter of the idea of ​​integration in the post-Soviet territory. I am absolutely convinced that at the time states and peoples which were merged into the Soviet Union, and before that - the Russian Empire, were together for a good reason. There were quite objective geopolitical, geo-economic and even cultural reasons for it. In my personal view, the participation of some peoples in our common project actually saved them from destruction. Central Asia, if Russia had not come there at the time, would now be half Chinese. In alliance with Russia, the peoples of Central Asia have a historic chance for survival. Their states actually passed the incubation period within the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, because Chinese form of assimilation, which actually threatened the region, and even the form of English patronage, which was hanging over the region would be more serious and destructive than the association with Russia. The integration in the post-Soviet space is largely a restoration of common sense in this regard.

In XXI century it will be difficult to survive alone. Regional integration organizations are our future. The world divided into different poles or alternative development centers will require our own project, or joining another project. Therefore, integration in the post-Soviet space as the creation of an alternative pole of influence is quite reasonable and inevitable.

Russia has gone through several stages of relations with other post-Soviet countried. At first it seemed to us that we did not need this, then we decided that we needed it. Now it is time to understand why we need it. Eurasian project is important, it has different prospects, but it should be more meaningful than just a desire to automatically restore the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, the former empire. Processes need to be more meaningful, more rational, and we should consider the fact, that, if the project exists only in the mind of the elite, in the XXI century, most likely, it is doomed to failure. If it is not supported in some degree by a majority of the population in countries included in the project, it will not work. The plan invented by only one person, even if that person is a very large head, is not a large project that has perspectives. If the majority of the population in countries included in this project will understand and approve its development, this project has a future. If not, the mechanical actions on its development will only lead to a waste of resources and to a crash.

The second crash may be the last, because then is in the eyes of entire generations the project will be compromised forever. Most approaches to these issues are quite good. Economic development is a means of combating illegal migration, drug trafficking; it will provide influence in different regions. But in the twenty years we have seen a huge number of examples where we have invested money, we have helped the individuals and as a result we have not get anything at all. The impact, of which we speak, should be materialized. Just keeping some leaders, just investing money somewhere without very fundamental grounds is extremely risky. We must think several times before investing the money; we should have a clear guarantee that this money will work, what the results will be for the interests of Russia, how it will develop, what the monitoring of the implementation of these projects will be.

We have the ability to invest or to do something else, but there is no mechanism of turning this "doing" into the real results of influence. I believe that the threat of drugs is one of the sword of Damocles that hangs over all of us - Russia, Tajikistan and all the former Soviet republics. But let's look at this issue realistically. I also had occasion to visit this region and even to work there. I will not speak about all areas, but I do know some states and territories, where the main drug trafficking is related to the local authorities. It looks like this: there is an area, and the head of the local administration and the local head of the Interior Ministry is responsible for drug trafficking. And when we talk to people, thinking that we are talking to the authorities, we are actually talking to those who sell drugs. And in fact, in a considerable number of cases they do not want any investment. They have already got it for themselves; they are well settled in their life. And they take the money. They do not need any factories, mines, etc., they do not need it. They live in a totally different dimension. I know these people personally.

... We need to understand the mechanisms that allow us to still be confident in the investments, which we will make, and be sure that they will not be in vain. For example, in five to seven years, they will say us: "Thank you, lads! You have invested a lot of money, we have spent them with chic, and now we have other plans." This happens even now, in some cases, in the post-Soviet space. This is a serious problem of the policy at a higher level of quality. One of the main problems of post-Soviet space is an extremely low quality of the elites. If in the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire there was long ladder of gradual growth for the elites, the mechanism was very strict, the representatives of the post-Soviet elite are just random people. Many of them, unfortunately, in my opinion, I'm not talking about everyone, but many of them are not able to think in terms of strategy. Therefore, it is important to understand that the survival in the XXI century and the transition to a qualitatively new level of development will require a transition to a higher level of responsibility for our words, actions, politics, and understanding of strategic common interests. "


If we reduce everything to economic issues, then our formations will not have any future. The main centers of influence all over the world are ideologically charged. They can say that the economy is a central problem. In fact these are ideologically charged centers with complex system of philosophy and moral and ethical evaluation of what is happening. And their ideological appeal is the key to success in certain situations. The Soviet Union, like the Russian Empire, too, actually had their own system of values, and this supported their projects. What will be the ideology of the Eurasian Union? What will be our world view alternative? Many people say it's just lyrics, because we need to build factories and to invest. This is not lyrics. The attractiveness of the Western project lies not only in the fact that they are able to have tasty food and sweet dreams. They formed their own system of values which they successfully sold. I do not support this value system. I can talk for hours about` why it is flawed. But it already exists, and it is a very strong trump of the attractiveness of the system. There are other alternative centers that have their own view of life.

Eurasian projects also need some kind of ideological formulation - how it sees the world, which system of values ​​and which scale is welcomed by us and what is not very welcome. If we only reduce everything to the primary needs, we will not be able to hope for serious prospects. At some stages the success of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire was associated, among others, with the presence of ideological goal-setting of the projects that existed. "