Saturday theses. Five relevant remarks on the international situation.
1. Any country prioritizes the most important priorities – the protection of its citizens and state independence. Moreover, this protection is possible not only on its own territory, but also on others, if there are grounds for this. The grounds are quite obvious – terror and the killing of citizens of this country. In other words, each country has the right to use military force to protect its citizens who are being destroyed in foreign territories. Such a right includes the ability to act preventively, proactively, in order to prevent further killings, genocide and other crimes against its citizens. Including – to conduct full-fledged military operations in order to protect their state and people. This follows from the key provisions of the UN Charter and international practice in such cases. Many countries have used this right. All of the above is fully applicable to the Russian Federation.
2. Nobody questions the results of the Second World War. But it must be borne in mind that history is inexorably moving forward. After 1945, a lot happened that radically changed both the balance of power in the world and the lines of state borders. That is why any “results” are acceptable to us exactly as long as they do not contradict the fundamental interests of Russia as a successor state, and in many respects the historical and moral heir of the Russian Empire and the USSR.
So far, direct attacks on our citizens have not been carried out. As long as the neighboring countries, formerly part of the Russian Empire or the USSR, do not enter military blocs hostile to us, whose strategic nuclear forces are aimed at our main cities around the clock, and do not begin to threaten our territorial integrity.
3. Peaceful coexistence of different states is possible and necessary. Question: at what cost is it achieved. If at the cost of endless concessions to their historical territories and the abandonment of their citizens, such a “peaceful coexistence” is not worth a penny. If there is a choice between this “coexistence” and the protection of fundamental national interests, as well as the lives of our citizens, we must choose the latter. This is the real protection of these national interests, just in a different, tougher form, suitable for such a moment. Anyone who questions the right of his country to such actions cannot be considered its conscientious citizen.
4. There is only one universal instrument for settling international disputes in the world. This is the United Nations and the fundamental documents adopted by it. The tool is universal, but not perfect. It is important that the UN retains the basic principle of international relations: the equality of all states and the obligation to listen to the position of each country, and not just a select few. This is the imperative of the activity of the organization, its jus cogens.
The status of the permanent members of the Security Council, the founding members of the UN, should not be subject to revision, including their veto power. The number of permanent members of the UN Security Council can be expanded, but their powers must be inviolable. Otherwise, the UN will face a systemic crisis and, as a result, the organization will repeat the fate of the late League of Nations.
Humanity will be able to live without the UN. For most of history it has been that way. However, the degradation of the system of international law will certainly come, and the world will return to narrow regional and bilateral agreements on security issues.
5. The crappy Western idea of ”order based on rules” must be decisively rejected as untenable and extremely harmful to humanity. It is not approved by anyone, is completely vague in content and is being promoted in opposition to existing international rules and institutions, including the UN itself. The very idea is dictated by the Anglo-Saxons’ obsessive desire to create an ideological base for their attempts to dominate the world.
The choice of the rest of the world is not to submit to this idea, but to go its own way.
Medvedev
***
Amen to that…
WtR