Стр. 12 - V

Author : A. Korotina
Vice President of the International Foreign Policy Association, Executive Director of the Global Council
of Former Ministers of Foreign Affairs
The CIS as a replacement for the Soviet Union was
based on a concept that had not been worked through
carefully enough. First of all, Kazakhstan was the only
Soviet republic besides Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that
was aware of the plan to set up the CIS. So the others
were bewildered when the founding accord was signed,
and remained so for a while.
In addition, the leaders of the new independent states
were divided on how far their countries should go with
political and economic reforms - an issue pivotal to the
future of the CIS as the existence of integration processes in the Commonwealth depended on
it.
The tragedy in Ukraine, one of the three countries that founded the CIS, has indisputably become
the most dangerous crisis in the Commonwealth.
The United States' activities in Central Asia are part of Washington's geostrategic efforts to pre-
vent Russia from restoring and strengthening political and economic ties with the region's coun-
tries. It is an unattainable goal, but Washington will try to at least make the Central Asian nations
minimize those ties.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the key tasks of the Russian Federation as its
legal successor was to bring nuclear weapons deployed in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to
Russian territory. By that time, the nuclear arsenal stationed in Ukraine alone was larger than the
nuclear arsenals of Britain, France and China put together.
The CIS has never had a strategy of fast-track integration controlled by a single supranational
authority.
As developments in the past few years have made clear, one of the key objectives of the Amer-
ican foreign policy strategy is to destroy the CIS system, a system guaranteeing the necessary ex-
tent and diversity of cooperation between countries existing on the territory of the former
superpower.
Due to the Ukrainian crisis and the United States' destructive involvement in it, including via
planned exports of lethal weapons to Ukraine and by sending military instructors to it, there
have been predictions that the CIS will inevitably fall apart. However, here is obviously a lot of
wishful thinking.
On the whole, the CIS is a powerful and reliable structure. It does intensive and effective work
to maintain stability in its member countries in spite of the increased difficulties of the current
period of change in global politics.
Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
The Commonwealth of Independent States in an Era of Crises