How well do international students studying at Russian universities know how to resist information attacks? Are young people today able to distinguish real information from fakes? Do students have the skill to search for primary sources? How do they perceive what is happening today in relationships between different states? The participants of the international youth round table ‘Contours of Modern Eurasia: a Look into the Future’, organized by the Central Asian Studies Institute and attended by experts and students from Central Asian countries, tried to find answers to these questions.
According to experts, since the end of the 1990s, the eastward expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders has severely disturbed the balance in international and European security that had been established in the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations since the end of World War II. Any crisis always ends with the parties agreeing on a new balance of power, which this time should be based on a multipolar world. This balance should also be found in the nearest future.
In order to make this balance be maintained, the historical memory of peoples must be safeguarded. There are currently active attempts to falsify history, historical memory and the facts about how the Second World War took place. It is necessary to be able to resist manipulation and fakes on social networks and in the media.
New actors in international relations
According to Denis Sharafutdinov, Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations, World Politics and Diplomacy at the Kazan Federal University, modern challenges in international relations are shaped solely by the positions that countries took at the end of the XX century.
‘In the 1990s, new actors in international relations were formed – 15 independent sovereign republics, which had to enter the new world and shape their own coordinate, their own foreign policy course in the new conditions. Many of them had difficulties not only with the lack of understanding of how to act in the new international realities, but also with the economic situation, which was not very favorable. In this regard, when talking about the system of international relations, the following situation emerged: in personal space, the vast majority of speakers spoke about multipolarity, about the need to develop new centres of power that would influence world politics. In reality, we observed the process of unipolarity. In the 1990s, we witnessed how the USA became the leading force in the entire world space and from the position of hegemon built relations with the overwhelming number of participants in world politics. The post-Soviet space stood apart. In the wake of the formation of the new republics, there were many disputes over territory, culture, religion, common heritage, etc. They often escalated into local and regional conflicts,’ Sharafutdinov stressed.
As the expert noted, one of the landmark events that changed the vector of interaction in the international arena was the establishment of the North Atlantic Alliance. At the same time, US attempts were met with hostility in the post-Soviet space.
‘One of the trends that became pronounced was that regional security could only be solved by expanding NATO’s presence around the world. Let me remind you that the North Atlantic Alliance was originally established as a defensive alliance in the late 1940s, the main task of which was to contain communism, the USSR and its allies. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, and the WTO officially ceased to exist six months later, the reasonable question arose: why was the North Atlantic Alliance needed in the new circumstances? The situation changed dramatically at the turn of the century, when NATO troops became involved in the Kosovo question. And the events of September 11, 2001 made it possible to demonstrate to the world why the North Atlantic Alliance was needed – to fight international terrorism. Virtually the entire community came together to drive out the new common demon called international terrorism,’ Denis Sharafutdinov explained.
According to the speaker, it is noteworthy that the USA was the most productive in expanding NATO bases in the Eurasian space. However, simultaneously with the transformation and enlargement of the North Atlantic Alliance, other blocks, defense cooperation – the SCO, the CSTO – were also formed. Thus, the defensive structure in the post-Soviet space was transformed, peacekeeping forces and common issues needed to be resolved in a timely manner emerged. This led to the development of new centres of gravity and new centre of power from the beginning of the XXI century.
‘The Russian Federation also tried to rethink its status both in the post-Soviet space and in the international arena. This was influenced by a combination of factors at once: stabilization of economy, improvement of social conditions (growth of the well-being of the people) and the foreign policy course for the relations between the Russian Federation and other actors,’ Sharafutdinov is convinced.
From the perspective of the entire history of international relations, the revision of the established systems of relations was usually influenced by two aspects – new conflicts or some geopolitical breakdown in which the parties came back to the negotiating table. Under these circumstances, one can observe the trend that the USA is not always ready to go for a revision, seeking to preserve its niche as the leading hegemon in today’s realities.
The events of 2010-2020 were marked by an attempt to establish new rules of the game and a desire to come to a compromise. At the same time, nationalist ideas and separatist sentiments began to grow. These ideas are also reflected in the current agenda. According to Denis Sharafutdinov, in some places these ideas are at a frozen stage, but in a number of cases they result in local conflicts and clashes that cause significant casualties.
‘Russia is competitive and offers different steps. Our country has enough reserves to solve the accumulated economic problems, to solve the issues arising in intercultural communication. And the Eurasian space itself in the new realities seems to be a community where countries are able to solve problems with the help of diplomatic steps,’ the expert concluded his speech.
Fake news or reliable information?
Special attention during the round table was paid to the way the media covered interethnic relations, including conflicts that might involve representatives of different nationalities and of different states. According to Radik Amirov, Editor-in-Chief of the Internet portal ‘Russia for All’ at the Russia Today news agency, it is extremely unprofessional for media workers to cover any negative events or point out the national or civil affiliation of those involved in a conflict. Such an approach creates fertile ground for the growth of xenophobia and nationalist sentiments.
In his turn, Pavel Skrylnikov, Deputy Head of Religion and Worldview Department at RIA Novosti, elaborated on how to distinguish fake news from credible information, focusing on the devastating effect the spread of unreliable news played.
Ilmira Gafiyatullina