ANALITICAL NOTE

G8 Summit in Strelna and the possibilities of a new global politics

CONTENTS

1. The transformation of G7 into G8: goals and result 1

2. G7 or UN => Gx + UN?. 6

1. The transformation of G7 into G8: goals and result

As a result of the annual G8 summit that took place in the suburb of St-Petersburg in July 14-17[1] for the first sight the world’s atmosphere hasn’t changed a lot. That’s why many analysts consider this summit to be just a protocol arrangement, combined with a “picnic” for the heads of the states and governments, that doesn’t lead to any global political consequences. The Mass Media’s attention was captured by the fact that during this summit V. Putin showed his “arrowy tongue”, dealing with an “attack” of western politicians and journalists on Russia, and the other members were afraid to become victims of his poignancy.

So the British newspaper “Times” published an article “Jokes backfire at G8 as leaders smart from Putin’s acid tongue[2]”.

“LAST WEEK Dick Cheney was the target. On Saturday it was President Bush. Then came Tony Blair. No one, it seems, is immune from Vladimir Putin’s acid tongue.

World leaders must have been wondering yesterday who would be next, after the Kremlin chief had embarrassed two of his guests at the G8 summit here with barbed jokes about their democratic records.

But they were powerless to respond to a man at the pinnacle of his political career and at the helm of a resurgent economic powerhouse.

“What can you say to a man who controls the weather?” asked one Western diplomat after Russian authorities were reported to have scrambled cloud-seeding jets to disperse a rainstorm.

Mr Putin’s dig at Mr Bush came during their joint news conference, casting doubts on the close personal friendship that the two men claim to enjoy. Mr Bush said that he had told the Russian leader that people in the United States wanted Russia to promote the sort of democratic institutions that exist in Iraq.

Mr Putin’s deadpan response caused even the thick-skinned Texan to blush. “To be honest, we certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq,” Mr Putin said, prompting laughter and applause from reporters[3].

Later in the day Mr Putin took a swipe at Mr Blair over his links to Lord Levy, the Labour party fundraiser[4].

Asked by a British reporter how he would respond to Mr Blair’s concerns about Russian democracy, Mr Putin said he was always glad to hear fellow leaders’ views.

Then, after a long pause, he smiled and added: “There are also other questions; questions, let’s say, about the fight against corruption. We’d be interested in hearing your experience, including how it applies to Lord Levy.”

American and British officials yesterday brushed off the remarks as harmless jokes between old friends that would neither disrupt the main work of the summit nor affect bilateral relations.

“We think he has a little joke for every leader,” said a spokesman for Mr Blair. “We have not lost our sense of humour.”

The issue did not come up again in a bilateral meeting between the two men yesterday. But political analysts said that Mr Putin’s remarks reflected his irritation at recent criticism of his own democratic credentials — especially from London.

Last week the British Ambassador addressed a conference of the Kremlin’s most ardent opponents, despite a warning that it would be seen as an unfriendly gesture.

“The friendship between Mr Putin and Mr Blair has been undermined,” said Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin. “President Putin’s remarks were not diplomatic. But he’s not a diplomat: he’s a leader. Diplomats riticiz problems. Leaders confront them.”

Mr Putin aimed another barb at Mr Blair last night, expressing frustration that Britain had granted political asylum to Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen rebel leader wanted in Russia on terrorism charges.

Mr Putin’s confrontational style also mirrors his growing confidence on the international stage. When he took over as president in 2000, he was written off by many as a grey, transitional figure.

Today he is one of Russia’s most popular and powerful leaders since Peter the Great, the tsar who founded St Petersburg in 1703. By contrast, more than half of his G8 counterparts — Messrs Bush, Blair, Chirac and Koizumi — are “lame ducks” nearing the end of their tenures.

“I think he’s enjoying himself. He’s proud,” said another source close to the Kremlin. “He’s also a bit of a showman. He’s a performer and he thinks on his feet, including with the media.”

Mr Putin has a long history of making acerbic off-the-cuff comments. In 1999 he vowed to hunt and destroy Chechen rebels, even “in the s***house”.

Mr Blair is still smarting from the time in 2003 when Mr Putin, at a joint news conference, mocked the failure of Britain and the United States to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And just last week, Mr Putin took a personal stab at Mr Cheney, who riticized the Kremlin in May for backsliding on democracy and using its energy resources to blackmail neighbours. Mr Putin called the speech an “unsuccessful hunting shot” in a reference to Mr Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting companion”[5].

Most of other analysts seem to be shallow-minded either:

“As Ukrainian newspaper “Delo” shirty writes[6], “Putin knew all the vulnerable places of his guests and hit them without any fear. It’s amazing that the Russian president got away with it. Blair didn’t leave the Summit and what is more even didn’t wisecrack. And there’s nothing to say about George Bush”. We have to admit that the US president couldn’t vie with the Russian leader in esprit, but he managed to surprise the others with his rather clumsy “Yeltsin-style” attempt to make a neck massage to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor”, - marks “The Russian Journal”, July 25, 2006. (M. Zharov, “Vladimir Putin’s irony”:

http://www.russ.ru/ comments/124240331?user_session=7774a17cc75c2bad394c1b138df1fdca).

It seems that the authors of the article published in “Times” didn’t guess to recall an English saying: “one who lives in a glass house shouldn’t peg at others”. Actually V. Putin hinted with his “jokes” on this circumstance, as long as the G7 leaders didn’t come to understanding on their own.

The Mass Media analysts from all over the world are dissatisfied with futility of Summit in Strelna, rebuking namely V. Putin. However there are those in the West, who look deeper and remember the facts not only of the present days but of the past either:

“But what did this gathering of leaders — representing in toto some 67 percent of the world’s GNP — actually achieve?

Well, they agreed corruption is bad. They exchanged views on political philosophy. They reaffirmed that Iran and North Korea should not have nuclear weapons. They stressed no one wants war in the Middle East[7].

We needed a summit for this?

To be sure, the announcement of new initiatives for putting the world’s most dangerous substance — enriched uranium — under firmer supervision and control was quite welcome. But it was one of the few things to come out of the meeting that is actionable. Otherwise, the overriding theme seemed to be “message.” In a variant on the Field of Dreams mantra, “If you agree on a joint statement, policy will follow.”

Some critics, of course, have a ready answer: It is Russia’s fault. If Putin were not in the chairman’s seat, if only we went back to a Group of Seven, we would have a far more robust position on Iran, on the Middle East crisis, and so forth.

I saw no evidence of this in St. Petersburg. It is very true Putin made no secret that in the talks he was going to advance and defend Russia’s national interest (a phrase he used so many times during his joint press conference with President Bush on Saturday that, if suitably sampled, could make a wonderful advertisement for the journal I edit) — and that he was not going to automatically accept the U.S. perspective on any given issue. Having said that, recreating the G-7 in 2006 would not have been more effective. Since the disappearance of the USSR, the notion of “the West” + Japan forming a tightly integrated security and economic bloc has been weakening, and that was clearly on display in St. Petersburg. Trans-Atlantic divergences mattered just as much; Putin on his own could not throw a monkey wrench into the works if he truly faced a united Seven. Excluding him would still have resulted in a laborious search for consensus in carefully worded documents expressing “concern.” – Nikolas K. Gvosdev writes in the article “«The diamond smoke» of St-Petersburg’s summit”, published in the US journal “National Review”, 19.07.2006.

In the conclusion of his article Gvosdev writes:

Is the G-8 process irrelevant, then? It depends on your criteria. The original “Group of Six” convened in 1975 to deal with very concrete and specific trade and financial issues triggered by the energy shocks in 1973-74.

Over the years, it has evolved into more of a forum for discussion, unencumbered by the more formal strictures of bodies like the U.N. Security Council. It certainly provides a chance for not only the leaders and principals but even for staffs to interact in informal settings. It is important to have such channels in place, but I understand the frustrations with the G-8, particularly American ones. After all, the U.N. never worked as FDR intended it to. NATO and EU expansion have both produced much more unwieldy bodies. The G-7/G-8 always offered a beacon of hope: a small group comprised of critical countries that should be able to act decisively. But a three-day meeting, even in a setting like St. Petersburg, cannot substitute for the real problem: the lack of a shared strategic vision — as well as agreement on the best way to put it into practice — among the major powers. If this summit was expected to revitalize the G-8 process and convincingly demonstrate its relevance as a body of action — then I leave unconvinced”.

We consider the words italicized in the last cited paragraph to be the most important to clarify the reasons of the UN and ex-G7 incapacity in the past. Perhaps the backstage wheeler-dealers of G7 transformed this organization into G8 in order to prolong the former way of western countries existence, putting pressure upon the head of the post-soviet Russian State during G8 summits, thus resolving the crisis of the UN and ex-G7 inefficiency as the regional localized the UN alternative.

The idea of G7 transformation into G8 is in the basis of a strategic concept, stated in 1948 in the Directive 20/1 of the US National Security Council dated 18.08.1948 y. and in the subsequent political documents of the US developing its states:

“Actually, our main goals towards Russia add up to two goals:

a). To nullify the might of Moscow

b). To conduct the fundamental changes in the theory and practice of foreign affairs, that is followed by the Russian government.

… we are not limited by the certain time in order to achieve our goals in the peacetime.

… we shouldn’t feel guilty destroying the concepts inconsistent to the international peace and stability and changing them with the concepts of tolerance and international cooperation. It’s not our business to think over the internal consequences after the establishment of such concepts in other countries, and what is more we shouldn’t think that we are responsible for these facts…If the Soviet leaders decide that the new concepts of international relations are inconsistent with the maintenance of their power in Russia, it will be their, but not our problems. Our duty is to work and to contribute to the new events implementation… Being the government we are not responsible for the internal situation in Russia…

…In the peacetime our aim is not the destruction of the Soviet government. Naturally, we are looking forward to creating an atmosphere, unfavorable to Soviet leaders. Perhaps, they will lose their power in such atmosphere. However we should stress it again that it is not our business…

The thing is to make and to maintain the Soviet Union depressed in political, military and psychological spheres in comparison to the external powers beyond its control.

… We shouldn’t hope to achieve an absolute implementation of our will on the Russian territory, as we tried to do in Germany and Japan. We should come to understanding that the final adjustment should be political one.

…In case of the worst variant implementation, i.e. the reservation of the Soviet power over the Soviet territory we should require the following:

a). the implementation of military clauses (the relinquishment of armament, the main districts evacuation and etc.) in order to cause the military impotence;

b). the implementation of clauses in order to create an economic dependence on the rest world.

In other words, we should create automatic guarantees to provide an atmosphere, so that even non-communist and friendly regime:

a). shouldn’t have a serious military might;

b). should be dependent on the external world in economic sphere;

c). shouldn’t have the real power over the main national minorities;

d). shouldn’t establish any kind of an iron curtain.

In case this regime is hostile towards communists and friendly with us, we should do our best not to impose these conditions in an offensive and disparaging way. Our duty is to impose these conditions by all means in order to protect our interests”.

The post-Soviet Russia involvement into G7, that transformed G7 into G8 corresponds to the statement at the beginning of the last cited paragraph. Actually, the requirements of the US Directive 20/1 of the National Security Council were satisfied with the transformation G7 into G8, but the problem of the West is not resolved because of the fact that this Directive 20/1 was worked out on the basis of such global politics, that had been losing its efficiency since 1917[8].  That’s why the transformation of G7 into G8 leads to other consequences: in particular the G8 Summit in Strelna revealed new possibilities of humankind development. It is still reflected in the tendencies and thus couldn’t be expressed in its documents.

2. G7 or UN => Gx + UN?

The signing of the UN establishment declaration in 1945 summed up the mutual activity of many states within frames of globally important concept with the aim to clampdown the global expansion of powers of the axis “Berlin – Rome – Tokyo”. This aim was reached in 1945, but taking in consideration the fact that the USSR wanted to build socialism and communism in global scale, while the US and other states-winners in the 2 world war were for the capitalism and middle-class – individualistic formal democracy, the concept of countries cooperation that joined the UN was ruined.

So the Organization of the United Nations was fated to be inefficient from the very beginning of its establishment.

To prove its inefficiency one can recall the fact that the veto had been used 279 times until 1989.

The veto had been used 6 times per year and that’s because of inconsistency of accepted by different states concepts of social control. Each of these concepts tried to become the dominant concept of social control, uniting the humankind on basic principles; other concepts just ignored the existence of global problems at all. Such conceptual uncertainty of global civilization’s life lead to new global problems and aggravated the old problems.

Because of the UN’s inefficiency as the global coordinator of efforts of different states in resolving common problems, the emergence and development of other international organizations was inevitable. Their declarative destination was to resolve those problems left by the UN, and that the member states couldn’t resolve on their own. Such organizations had been created since the late 1940-s on the basis of regional community, ideological community (military organizations such as NATO, SEATO, Warsaw pact and so on), on the basis of common problems (Organization of non-alignment states, Council of mutual economic aid, the forerunner of G7 – G6, and G7 on its own) and organizations uniting the states on the basis of complex principles (Common Market, that triggered the development of the EU).  

In this light the end of the 20th century can be characterized in the following way:

·              The so-called “world system of socialism on the basis of Marxism and its regional modifications” doesn’t exist any more. As a result the global confrontation of states alliances that emerged on the basis of bourgeois ideology (in its liberal and dictatorial modifications) – on the one hand, and on the basis of Marxism-socialism ideology on the other hand disappeared on its own. It seemed that there was the green light for the UN to become efficient if not in the role of Federative Government for the whole Humankind, but as the coordinator and responsible advisor of the states governments.

·              But this didn’t occur because of the fact that by the end of the century some ex-colonies of “great powers” in the 19th century and some “undeveloped” formally independent states reached the same level of development that characterized so-called “developed countries” in the middle of the 20th century. Most of these states were oppressed and robbed by “developed countries” of the West topped by Great Britain (at first), and by the US later. The “developed states” still insisted on their predominance over the “newly-developed” states, so dismissed and oppressed states started to establish their own international organizations for their common problems resolution. The post-soviet states stepped in this process after the Soviet Union collapse[9]. And as a result occurred such organizations as Eurasian economic community and Shanghai Organization of cooperation.

As a result:

The difference of historical cultures of the regional Western civilization and especially its leaders, “newly-developed” and post soviet states lead to the change of the world system and to the creation of alliances, not defined by the state ideologies of the member-states. And such cultural difference dooms the Organization of United Nations to be inefficient[10].

According to the mentioned above circumstances the G8 Summit in Strelna is incredibly important not because of those documents signed during the meeting, but because of the tendencies and prospects, reflected in the last day of the Summit – when even the heads of the states (not G8 members) such as China, India, Brazil and Kazakhstan took part in the meeting. This means that G8 is not the detached community of the most rich and irresponsible states any more.

If the subsequent summits ruin this tradition, that was put in pledge during the Summit in Strelna that will lead to the G8 degradation and the closure of some possibilities for the humankind to overcome biosphere-ecological and social crisis that occurred in the end of the 20th century.

 The support and development of this tradition in the future will contribute to the UN’s efficiency and will help it to become consulting organ responsible for its recommendations (if not the Federal Government for the whole humankind).

The thing is that the UN doesn’t have any administrative rights in regard to the states. What’s more the heads of the states and ministers outrank the UN officials. That’s why they have to look back at officials of their own countries of higher ranks. That explains the UN inefficiency as the Federal government for the whole humankind, its inability to be the world parliament and its vainness to be coordinator, responsible for its recommendations (but however the international officials of the UN have pretensions for supranational power).

In case the G8 is not the detached community of the most rich and irresponsible states any more, and the heads of other states (not G8 members) take part in the future Summits, and discussions are devoted to real problems resolution, this will help the heads of the states taking part in summits to understand the global problems better and to see regional problems conditionality by global ones and vice versa.

In this case the cultural singularity of different regions and nations will develop in combination with the cultures of other nations. As a result all the states will have a single strategic concept of multinational humankind development and finally there will be worked out a consent concerning the best ways of its realization.

This process will undoubtedly take some time for double ethical-moral standards perception and their denial. There will certainly occur some political groups against it. But at present day it’s beyond any doubt that the G8 Summit in enlarged format in Strelna opened the gates for this process.

That gives the possibilities for the UN officialdom subordinated to the governments of the UN member-states and primarily to the high-end group of states - enlarged G8 –to work in behalf of the whole humankind more effectively, rather than the Organization of United Nations did it in the past.

[1] Officially Summit opened on July, 15, but factually on July, 14 taking in consideration the fact that the Russian and American presidents came to Strelna exactly on July, 14.

By the way, July, 14 – is the day of Bastille’s capture: Western countries consider that the development of democracy and civil society has started since that day. It’s quite possible that this very day will signalize the end of the western form of democracy that has been propagandized for the last 2 centuries.

[2] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2273399,00.html

[3] This is an excellent example showing how “Times” distorts events. Literally the leaders said the following:

George Bush: “Today I’ve told Mr. Putin about my will to develop institutes of democracy all round the world. Let us say, as in Iraq, where there is a freedom of speech and religion. I know, that many people think that there should be the same situation in Russia. But I personally think that the democracy in Russia should have some distinctions from that we have in the US”.

Vladimir Putin: “We certainly wouldn’t want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq”.

Pay attention to Mr. Bush’s phrase: practically it shows that he agrees with “sovereign democracy”, the concept of which asserts Mr. Putin.

One of our analytical notes was devoted to “Sovereign democracy”, ser. “About the current events” #7 (55), 2006 y. This note along with other works are published in the Internet on different sites, such as:

www.vodaspb.ru,    www.globalmatrix.ru,     http://mera.com.ru   http://subscribe.ru/catalog/state.politics.bkz

[4] Lord Levy is brought to trial for “conferring the dignity of a peerage for Labor Party financing” (http://www.russ.ru/comments/124249331?user_session=7774a17cc75c2bad394c1b138df1fdca).

[5] In the weekend on February 11-12, 2006 Richard Cheney during his shooting campaign shot 78 year old Harry Whittington, a lawyer. “As ITAR-TASS referring at mass-media representative of vice-president says, two hunters together with Cheney were looking for partridges. Whittington was first to notice a wildfowl, he shot and then went to check it up. Suddenly he disappeared in a high grass. Than it was vice-president’s turn to shoot. Mr. Cheney had been following a partridge for awhile and then fired. Unfortunately Whittington turned out to be between vice-president and a wildfowl. The lawyer got serious injuries – he got the shot in the right part of his face, shoulder and chest. He was taken immediately to the nearest hospital. Cheney has already visited wounded. According to the words of representative of vice-president’s mass media, the casualty is ok. George Bush was informed about that accident”. (http://www.vesti.ru/news.html?id=86412).

This episode with Cheney is similar to one famous musical comedy “Bat” – when the main hero - Azeinshtain, shot during his hunting campaign a forester’s breech instead of a hazel-hen. He was put in prison for hen’s murder. And as it turned later, the shot got right into forester’s breech and the hazel-hen died because of a great fright. Being guiltless, Azeinshtain was released.

[6] http://delo.ua/ru/news/8504.html

[7] Actually, even if George Bush is against this war, the US backstage wheeler-dealers are definitely interested in it, because this war spoils the investment climate in the Middle East. And what is more this war contributes to the oil price growth. All mentioned above factors support the dollar as the world currency, the emission of which exceeds the real products production.

[8] Here is implicated the Bible doctrine of the whole humankind enslavement on the basis of racially-corporative monopoly of Jews for the transnational usury.

[9] Except Baltic States, Ukraine, Moldavia and Georgia. These states were ready for the servile’s life in the EU system.

[10] If you want to get more information about the UN’s inefficiency you can read  the analytical journal “Germany” #3, June, 1995 y.,  the works digest of Interior predictor “Intellectual position” «1б 1996 y., and the analytical note “Global sociology from different points of view”.