Russia seeks a “post-West world order” that shifts power away from the United States, according to the nation’s top diplomat.
“If you want, you can call it a ‘post-West’ world order, when each country — based on it’s sovereignty, within the rules of international law — will strive to find a balance between its own national interests and the national interests of partners, with respect for cultural, historical and civilization identity of each country,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
The speech challenged many of the American and European leaders, who spent the beginning of the conference mulling “the future of NATO” and “the future of the West.” Those topic pre-occupied the leaders in light of Russian aggression in Ukraine and President Trump’s suggestion that the NATO alliance could be “obsolete.” Hours after Vice President Mike Pence affirmed the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO, Lavrov blamed the alliance for causing “unprecedented” levels of tension by allowing former Soviet satellite states to join the union.
“NATO remained a Cold War institution,” Lavrov explained, speaking through a translator. “Many say that wars start in the hearts of people; and, according to this logic, they should stop there as well. Unfortunately, this did not happen with the Cold War. We can judge about that in regards to many appearances by politicians in Europe and the U.S., including the statements which were heard yesterday and today at the beginning of our conference.”
In addition to Pence’s speech, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis promised Friday that the United States would “meet its responsibilities,” but exhorted European leaders to increase their own defense spending. And Sen. John McCain’s offered a defense of “the West” that was all the more pointed given that it prefaced a panel discussion with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is struggling to fend off Russian and Russian-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov countered that western countries have provoked Russia, not only through the expansion of NATO, but the formation of political and economic agreements. “We vehemently disagree with those who blame Russia and the new centers of world influence in their attempt to thwart the so-called ‘new liberal order,'” he said. “The crisis was programmed back then, it was inherent, because the process of economic and political globalization was thought out as a main kit in order to increase the domination of an elite club of states in the world.”
The Russian view that the current international order benefits the United States breaks sharply with Trump’s assessment. “We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon,” Trump said during his inaugural address. “The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.”
