Both expansions, the eastward and the westward one, had the consequence of attenuating any possible European purity. This "impurity" did not detract from Europeanism; rather, it coincided with the birth of modern "Europe" as a cultural conception, building on and gradually supplanting Christendom. The impurity of Russia was that of a European expansionist power. Today, the very idea of being "purely European" is a negative one in light of the Nazi experience; but even before that, Europeanism had never been understood to the exclusion of the accured admixtures from expansion. America and Russia have both frequently claimed a positive feature from these admixtures -- a greater universality than would be possible for pure Europeanism. This is not only because of their ethnic mix, but also -- perhaps primarily -- because of their larger geographical expanse than the particularistic states of Europe with their petty claustrophic realpolitik. The great question in the internal identity battles, in both Russia and America, has been whether their universality is to be constructed on the basis of their European roots or on the basis of an ideological rejection of Europe.
Both America and Russia separated from Europe, diplomatically and ideologically, through their respective Revolutions. Both eventually rejoined Europe after nearly a century of alienation. In the case of America, it rejoined on the basis of an accommodation between European and American ideology, renouncing some of the separatism from its Revolution but not the Revolution itself, nor the democratic substance that it shared with already-existing trends in northwestern Europe. In the case of Russia, it rejoined on a basis of renouncing nearly the entirety of its Revolution. Russia's rejoining is thus in a sense ideologically more complete, but structurally America's is the more complete: American society and northwestern European society were always a part of one another and never suffered a deep division, only a slight de-synchronization in political development, while Russia was always on the socio-economic periphery of Europe and still is, despite the closing of the gap in urbanization and literacy under Communism.
America separated diplomatically from the European state system in 1783, rejoined it with the Anglo-American rapprochement in the 1890s, and helped reconstruct it along integrative lines in the 1900s, giving it the shape of a split-level Euro-Atlantic home after 1947. The ideological versions of isolationism asserted both America's uniqueness and its universality in opposition to Europe, arguing that the colonial settlers came to find freedom in the wilderness and get away from the corruption and oppression of Europe. Atlanticism -- the main ideological foundation of American foreign policy in the twentieth century, supplanting isolationism although never completely destroying it -- was an affirmation of America's European roots, arguing that the settlers came to America to extend the British empire, building on its liberalizing modernizing tendencies and raising it to a leadership position in the European world. It put forth the prospect a new, integrative form of Europeanism as a foundation for progress toward universality.
While it favors applying the federative aspect of the American model to Europe, in other aspects it has had equal -- sometimes greater -- appreciation for European social and political models. It has respected parliamentary democracy as much as presidential; it has criticized the executive-legislative separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution for creating too many obstacles to reliability in foreign policy. It remains controversial in the U.S. for being "Eastern establishment", i.e. Europhilic. Its supposedly purely American center is an optical illusion, or perhaps a geographical illusion that comes from looking west at it from Europe; its actual center is truly in the Atlantic Ocean, the central sea around which the modern Atlantic world developed. Also an optical illusion is the radically liberal, individualist, selfishly egotist, disintegrative character attributed to Atlanticism by many in Russia.
This flows in part from viewing Atlanticism in terms of aping the American model. It neglects to notice that the federative cosmopolitan element in Atlanticism is not radically liberal, but a moderate or conservative corrective to the selfish egotism of the nation-state, which had proved too disruptive and disintegrative of society through the world wars it was letting loose, and through its power politics system which made it hard for old democracies to help new ones and for modernizing societies in the south and east of Europe to stabilize along liberal lines. Atlanticism has aimed to make democracy safe for the world, not just the world safe for democracy. Of course Atlanticism is a corrective within the system of the modern society, aimed at restricting egotism where it has proved most damaging, namely nationalism, not a radical ideological corrective of the sort that is aimed indiscriminately against all liberal aspects of modern society, functional or dysfunctional, and that invariably serves to exacerbate the nationalist egotism that is the main problem.)
Russia separated diplomatically from the European state system in 1917 and began to think of rejoining it after 1956. It helped form a "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe" in 1975, and genuinely rejoined Europe as a state system in 1991 when it renounced Communism.
However, in the meantime, "Europe" had moved some distance from where Russia left it off in 1917: its Atlantic dimension had become central to it, and it had become as much an integrative institutional system as a system of separate states. Russia aspired to join the Euro-Atlantic world in its an organized integrative aspect as well as its state system aspect after 1991, but still has a way to go in this regard: thus far it has made it only into the G-8 and the Council of Europe. The core institutions, NATO and the EU, have brought it only into the antechamber. NATO has gone the further of the two, bringing Russia into the Partnership for Peace and the NATO-Russia Council, giving Russia an operative voice in a certain portion of NATO deliberations, while keeping the door formally open to eventual membership.
The EU has been inventive on the level of PR or projection of hopes and aspirations -- something that is very important for identity-formation and consoliation -- by agreeing with Russia on forming what they call a "common space", even if it has been lacking in substance. It too has not formally closed the door on Russian membership, but the prospect is remote. Thus far, the EU refuses to give Russia a voice comparable to what it has in NATO; it fears that Russia's size and strength are too big for the EU's deliberative processes, and would be used to divide and manipulate the other member states.
Where does this leave Atlanticism and Eurasianism in Russian thinking? Confused, as long as most writers continue to define each category in opposition to the other. But complementary, if pundits would begin to be more subtle.
Every time that Russia involves itself more actively in Central Asia or recalls its own Eurasian character, someone from the would-be Atlantic school jumps out to cry that Russia is betraying its European character and turning to an evil, globally disruptive anti-Atlanticist posture. Every time Russia involves itself more actively in the Euro-Atlantic institutional system, someone from the would-be Eurasian school jumps out to cry that Russia is betraying its Eurasian character and turn to an evil, domestically disintegrative Atlanticist posture. Which is to say that every time Russia does anything at all strategically, one or the other side cries out that the sky is falling.
But the sky hasn't fallen. The Russian leadership, which daily faces necessities and responsibilities on both levels, regionally and globally, has understood that it has to do both things. Otherwise Russia would have faced genuine disaster. In its more hopeful moments of 2000-2002, it began doing both things more competently than at the beginning in 1991. In its less hopeful moments, it has emphasized Eurasianism against Atlanticism but with many caveats to keep its Atlantic doors open.
The West's true interest is to affirm Russia's underlying Eurasian engagement, not oppose it. The West needs to make clear that what it is against in Eurasianism is the ideological, anti-Western version of it, not the practice of balanced attention by Russia to its interests.
Eurasianist ideologues like to blame the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the risk of disintegration of Russia itself, on Russia's entry into the Euro-Atlantic world. They are flatly wrong. The disintegration came as a result of internal processes, including some objective necessities and some tragic mistakes. The entry into European and Atlantic institutions came later, as a separate matter: it was due to the end of Communism and the Cold War, and to political-economic reconstruction along partly democratic and market lines. Some Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian enthusiasts might have imagined in 1991 that break-up was their ticket into the Euro-Atlantic world, but no significant actor in the Euro-Atlantic world had asked for a Soviet break-up, apart from the independence of the Baltic states, and in practice the broader break-up served as a poor advertisement for the entire area, delaying its entry into the West.
Beyond the simple pragmatic geographical and national interest meanings of Eurasianism, there is Eurasianism as a primary identity. This does indeed have an anti-Western potential -- for ethnic Russians.
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