Eurasian Union

I’m sorry … what? Eurasian Union? Don’t you mean European Union? Such a question is what I would expect from most people today since it would appear that not many people are even aware that such a thing exists. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a 1994 [1] speech at Moscow University first proposed the idea, which is based on European Union integration. In 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed an accord setting a target of establishing a Eurasian Union by 2015. The agreement included a roadmap for the future integration and establishment of the Eurasian Commission, and Eurasian Economic Space, which began its work in 2012. If realized, the Eurasian Union would comprise a number of states once part of the former Soviet Union: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Ukraine submitted an application to participate in the Eurasian Union as an observer only, in August 2013. Georgia, while still eying the European Union, said that it will consider the Eurasian Union if Russia will first agree not to drive tanks over the top of Georgian children. But, it would appear that much work has already been done: partial economic integration already exists between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan through a “Customs Union.” Additionally, a number of regional organizations already exist, such as the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the Eurasian Economic Community of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, and the Commonwealth of Independent States which involves most of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union.

The United States appears to oppose the formulation of the Eurasian Union based on the idea that Putin’s scheme is merely an attempt to re-establish a Russian-dominated USSR type union among the former Soviet republics.

Not everyone has this alarmist mentality, however. Some observers claim that the Eurasian Union is no more than a counter-weight to the European Union. Other observers, such as Jonah Goldberg, claim that the Eurasian Union is a counterweight to civility in much the same way the League of Doom is a counterweight to the League of Justice.

According to Timothy Snyder [2], it is fascism, pure and simple.  Snyder has sounded an alarm bell for future generations:

    “The Eurasian Union is the enemy of the European Union, not just in strategy but in ideology. The European Union is based on a historical lesson: that the wars of the twentieth century were based on false and dangerous ideas, National Socialism and Stalinism, which must be rejected and indeed overcome in a system guaranteeing free markets, free movement of people, and the welfare state. Its advocates, by contrast, present Eurasianism, as the opposite of liberal democracy.

    “The Eurasian ideology draws an entirely different lesson from the twentieth century. Founded around 2001 by the Russian political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, it proposes the realization of National Bolshevism. Rather than rejecting totalitarian ideologies, Eurasianism calls upon politicians of the twenty-first century to draw what is useful from both fascism and Stalinism. Dugin’s major work, The Foundations of Geopolitics, published in 1997, follows closely the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi political theorist. Eurasianism is not only the ideological source of the Eurasian Union, it is also the creed of a number of people in the Putin administration, and the moving force of a rather active far-right Russian youth movement. For years Dugin has openly supported the division and colonization of Ukraine.

    “The point man for Eurasian and Ukrainian policy in the Kremlin is Sergei Glazyev, an economist who like Dugin tends to combine radical nationalism with nostalgia for Bolshevism. He was a member of the Communist Party and a Communist deputy in the Russian parliament before cofounding a far-right party called Rodina, or Motherland. In 2005 some of its deputies signed a petition to the Russian prosecutor general asking that all Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.”

So here we go again; the cycle continues. Some on the right are warning that this evolution to yet another Soviet bloc fits the leftist narrative to a tee; they have never seen a form of socialism that they didn’t like—even if it can also be described as bolshevism. Neither is there much difference between National Socialism and Bolshevism; one of the greatest myths of the 20th Century was that fascism and socialism are opposites. It simply isn’t true. And, while some on the left will argue that use of the word “socialist” is only a device to attract trade union support, that most on the left do not embrace totalitarian regimes, it is in my view just another subterfuge. The fact is that all collectivist regimes are rooted in the same nonsense declared by the German idealists of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Differences are entirely superficial.

My gut reaction to this is Que Sera. Russia (and friends) must ultimately do what they believe is in their best interests. I’m not sure how scaring the bejesus out of everyone will further their economic model, but Eurasian Union nations are free to do as they wish. It does remind one, however, that there are consequences to elections —not only here in America, but also in places far, far away.

For the record, I do not think there is much any US president could do to arrest this development, but I think it would be nice to have people inside the beltway who understood the notion of long-term consequences. For example, while George Bush went around flexing his muscle in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin was making regular stops throughout the Middle East arranging alliances, including with Syria and Iran. So one must wonder if Bush’s inane policies helped propel Kazakhstan (70% Muslim), Tajikistan (98% Muslim), and Kyrgyzstan (80% Muslim) into Putin’s camp.

Notes:

[1] Proving that Bill Clinton was asleep even before the mesmerizing Monic Lewinsky.

[2] Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine, Timothy Snyder 20 March 2014. Timothy D. Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University, holds the Philippe Roman Chair of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and specializes in Central and Eastern European history