Глобализация и стратегические интересы России на английском языке

 

Introduction 2

Chapter 1: Nature Of Globalization 3

1.1 Globalization: meaning, concepts 3

1.2 Modern globalization and international organizations 5

    1.3 Economic and social effects of globalization ……………………………………………………………..…………..…3

Chapter 2: Strategic Interests Of Russia 9

2.1 Strategic interests concerning The West: The European Union, United States and WTO 9

2.2 Strategic interests concerning The East: India and China 15

Conclusion 21

Endnotes 22

Bibliography 23

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

There were vital changes in the world for the last years. Strengthening of the collective and legal beginnings in the international relations on the basis of recognition of indivisibility of safety in the modern world proceeds. Value of the power factor has increased in the world politics, as a whole access to resources. The world situation of Russia was considerably strengthened and Russia became the important component of positive changes in the world.

In this coursework I would like to analyze to analyze the current relations of Russia with other countries and to understand what prospects is Russia having nowadays.

           Nowadays current position of Russia in the world economy does not correspond to its natural, industrial and scientific and technical, intellectual and spiritual potential. Russia has all necessary national wealth, natural resources, economic, intellectual potential, which is not present in many countries of the world. In particular, Russia has a strong natural resource base. Russia retains considerable industrial potential in spite of the physical and moral depreciation of a large part of the basic production assets. In the country, despite considerable losses, there is a strong scientific-technical and intellectual potential. On the basis of this capacity the advanced unique technologies are available and are developed in many industries of Russia. Russia has rather high educational potential, highly-qualified personnel in all major spheres of activity. In the foreign economic sphere there are many directions which play a big role: the integration of Russia into world capital markets, the use of the international transit potential, diversification of export supplies of energy resources and building of Russian industrial exports, protection of the interests of Russian companies abroad, rational integration of Russia in the world economy. Given all of this, Russia should continue to enhance its role in international economic and political relations to the leading position. In order to achieve these goals in recent years, Russian economy modernizes and introduces innovative technologies in different branches of economy and production. And in order to increase its influence in the West and in the East, Russia should use all its resources(intellectual and natural) properly.

 

 

 

 

 
Chapter 1: Nature of Globalization  
Globalization: meaning, concepts

 

Globalization - the process of world economic, political and cultural integration and unification. Globalization is the process of drawing the world economy, recently understood as the set of national economies, connected with each other by the system of international division labour, economic and political relations, the market and the close intertwining of their economies on the basis of transnationalization and regionalization. On this basis there is a formation of a single global network of market economy - the global economy and its infrastructure, the destruction of national sovereignty of States, which were the main actors of international relations during many centuries. The globalization process is the consequence of the evolution of public decorated market systems.

The main consequence of it is a world division of labour, migration (and, as a rule, concentration) of capital, labor, production resources, standardization of legislation, economic and technological processes, as well as the closer relationsamong different countries and merger of their cultures. It is an objective process, which has a systemic character as it covers all spheres of the life of the society. As a result of globalization, the world becomes more connected and more dependent on all his subjects. We have as an increase in the number of common problems to a group of States, but also the expansion of the numbers and types of integrating subjects.

Views on the origins of globalization are debatable. Historians consider this process as one of the stages of the development of capitalism. Economists are counting down from the transnationalization of financial markets. Political scientists do an emphasis on the dissemination of democratic organizations. Cultural studies associate the manifestation of globalization with Westernization of culture, including the American economic expansion. There are information-technological approaches to the explanation of the processes of globalization. The process of regionalisation is the subject of globalization, which gives a powerful cumulative effect of the global poles of economic and technological development.

However, the origin of the word "globalization" refers to the fact that the rapid growth of international trade playsthe leading role in this process, taking place in certain historical stages. For the first time the word "globalization" (in the meaning of "intensive international trade") was used by Karl Marx, who wrote in one of his letters to Engels in the end of the 1850s: "Now the world market exists. With the release of California and Japan on the world market globalization is accomplished"¹. The leading role of international trade in the processes of globalization also indicates the fact that the previous globalization, which began in the era of Marx, ended in the 1930s, after all developed countries shifted to a policy of rigid protectionism, which caused a sharp decline of international trade.

In the last two-three decades we have witnessed the unique combination of processes, each of which separately could be called a landmark event in terms of its consequences for the entire world community. The ongoing deep changes in the geopolitical structures of the world community and the transformation of socio-political systems give the grounds to speak about the end of one historical period and introduction of the modern world in a qualitatively new stage of its development.

Firstly, as a result of the information and telecommunication revolution in the industrially developed zone of the world post-industrial society is gradually transforming into the information society.

Secondly, instead of Eurocentric zone of the world in which the dominant positions are taken by the fundamental parameters of the Western rationalist civilization, we will have a new civilization on the basisof the organic combination of unity and indivisibility of the world community and on the basis of diversification and pluralism centers, peoples, cultures, religions, etc.

Thirdly, the era of double-pole world order, based on the infrastructure of the cold war endedwith the collapse of the USSR and the socialist community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modern globalization and international organizations

 

1. The scale and spread of modern globalization are far superior to everything that was previously. Earlier there were countries and regions, which do not feel the impact of globalization; in the modern world such countries and regions does not remain any more. Dimensions of international trade flows, as well as dimensions of migration of population in the modern world are far superior to those that were even at the last (4th) cycle of globalization.

2. In the international accounts currencies (USD, EUR), which are not tied to gold as it was during the previous cycles of globalization, are used. On the one hand, it contributes to a more rapid growth of international trade - as the USA and Western Europe will not have to spend gold to import necessary goods, you can just print more paper money - dollars and euros - and pay for the imports. On the other hand, currency which is used in calculations does not secured by paper money (dollar and Euro) and it creates potential threat of collapse of the entire system of international settlements and the international trade.

3. Globalization was largely distributed through colonization of Africa, Asia and Latin America (through the British, French, Spanish, and other colonial Empire) in previous cycles. In the modern world, where there are no colonial systems, globalization is distributed through a system of international organizations (WTO, World Bank), and through direct political and military intervention of the USA and NATO (the "colour revolutions", military intervention, bombing "undesirable countries", etc.). It creates a threat of a further escalation of military conflicts and the zone of political instability in the world. In the modern world and there is no region which is not covered by social explosions, revolutions, and the growth of terrorism: the Near and the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, South-East and South Asia, Latin America, countries of the former USSR. But in the future we can expect a further expansion of the list of countries covered by political and social instability and military conflicts.

4. The decline of the old centres of globalization (the USA, Western Europe) and the rise of new (China) is going too fast in comparison with previous cycles, which creates the danger of an aggravation of the military-political situation and the danger of the Third World War. So, the First World War emerged as a result of the rapid elevation of Germany as the new centre of the global economy and as a result of the rapid decline of the old centre - the UK and her ally France.

 

 

 

 

Economic and social effects of globalization

 

Economic instability

Intensification of wars, mass migrations, the unevenness in the development of countries and regions are quite significant in order to form an idea of the impact of globalization on the life of human society. Economic instability generated by globalization is also important.We can see it from examples of different countries:

The rapid flowering of the Netherlands in the XVI-XVII centuries was followed by a sharp decline and degradation. In the beginning of the XIX century, the Ambassador of Prussia in Holland wrote that half of the population of Amsterdam was located below the poverty line, it means that they lived in poverty². Prior to this, in the XVII century, the same fate befell the first flourishing cities of North Italy: Venice, Florence, Genoa. Unprecedented growth of the economy, which was made by Britain in the XIX century, gave way to economic stagnation and loss of its leading role in the world economy in just a few decades after the transition from protectionism to free trade policy in the middle of the XIX century.

The decline in fertility and population growth

Economic instability, as well as the growth of competition in the era of globalization, has a pernicious influence on the birth rate and population growth. All eras of globalization, characterized by falling fertility and population growth, in many cases in these periods was the decrease of population.

The growth of speculation at the expense of economic growth

Another consequence of globalization in the economy, along with the increasing global competition and instability, is the growth of speculation, primarily which is connected with commodities. A sharp growth of foreign trade in these periods was largely speculative in nature, since, as was shown, he was in a lot of time ahead of the growth of production, and in many of the era of globalization it took place against the background of the decline of the latter. The growth of commodity and other speculations to the detriment of the development of production is one of the characteristic effects of globalization. In the last two cycles of globalization financial speculation played an important role too. It was not a surprise that the Great depression, which meant the end of the 4-th cycle of globalization, began with the stock market crash on the New York stock exchange in October of 1929, which in turn was the result of an unprecedented rampant speculation on the financial market. Of course, the entry of the economy in the crisis in the era of globalization is reflected in the rate of economic growth, which reduced or fade at all; in this case, we can notice the further growth of volumes of international trade and speculation. Prior to the beginning of the modern globalization the economy of the countries of the West grew at an unprecedented pace. The GDP of the United States from 1940 to 1969 increased 3.7 times that was an absolute record for a country. We can also see an unprecedented economic growth In Western Europe after the war, coupled with the extremely low unemployment.

Globalization and the social sphere

Of course, the attenuation rate of economic growth has very significant influence on the population - the average level of life of the population is determined by the basic economic indicators (national income, gross domestic product), but not such indicators, which show the tendency to increase, as the dynamics of the volume of international trade or of the magnitude of the world's financial operations. Moreover, all the cycles of globalization, as a rule, are accompanied by a sharp increase in income inequality, therefore in many cases the standard of living of the mass of the population in the period of the cycle of globalization is decreasing. During the last three cycles of globalization (XVIII - the beginning of XXI centuries) we can see a decline in living standards of a considerable part of the population, which achieved its peak in the middle and in the end of a cycle and caused social protests, the revolution and the growth of terrorism. For example, the active involvement of France in international trade during the XVIII century and the repeated attempts to introduce in the second half of the century free trade regime were accompanied by the impoverishment of the population and famine, and the last attempt to introduce such regime in 1786-1789, ended with the French revolution³.

"Cumulative effect"

In general, if we speak on the impact of globalization on the economy, demography and the social sphere, it is necessary to take into account "cumulative effect", which is formed as a result of this influence in all these areas. So, negative tendencies in the field of demography (population ageing) in a few decades will have a permanent negative effect on the economy and the social sphere, as there has been in most European countries. The impoverishment of the population as a result of globalization also has a bad influence on the economy and the growth of social stratification of society. Mass demand for the products of industry and agriculture is created not by individual businessmen and speculators, enriched by trade and financial operations, but by the all population of the country; and if the solvent demand of population falls more and more, there are no conditions for economic growth.

 

Globalization and the growth of monopolies

Globalization promotes the growth of monopolies, what follows from the very nature of the unrestricted intensive international trade and generated by it of global competition.

Today you can also bring a lot of examples of trade monopolies, existing in the markets of those or other goods and monopolised appropriate channels of foreign trade supplies.

 

In the conditions of modern globalization we cannot see the trading monopolies of the country such a monopoly of Carthage, Spain or England in the appropriate age. But instead of trading we see another monopoly - currency. The leader of the modern global economy - the United States –made a lot in order to make its currency as global means of payment (it's been fixed in the decisions of the international monetary and financial conference in 1944 in Bretton Wood.). And then in 1971 the USA refused to peg the dollar to gold and exchange of dollars for gold at a fixed rate (which was stipulated by decisions of the conference). This actually means a monopoly of the USAto produce the world paper money uncontrollably and pay for all the goods of international trade using it. Consequently, these printed dollars are used to pay for the whole of its imports, which has been much higher than exports for a long time, and nowadays the USA lives at the expense of the rest of the world, maintaining the rich nation, with little regard for the fact, what will happen with trillions of issued paper dollars in future. Thus, we see that the leader of the modern globalization perfectly exists without the world trade monopoly; it has a much better monopoly - currency.

There are also many examples of monopolism, established or strengthened under the influence of globalization in the real sector of the economy (industry, agriculture). As it has already mentioned, due to varying climate, population density and other factors some of the country in case of globalization has always been in the winning conditions, while the others have been in less advantageous. And those countries, which have found themselves in the most advantageous position, could use it to create a monopoly, which often happened. So, North Africa in ancient times, thanks to its unique capabilities in agriculture, monopolized the production and the export of grain in the region of The Mediterranean, which was accompanied by the decline of agriculture in Italy, mass emigration italics in Africa and the beginning of the desolations of Italy in the first century before Christ.

The above-mentioned factors (favourable warm climate, high population density, natural transport routes) also have significant importance for the development of the industry. So, the well-known British economist K. Clark said that these factors were needed for the successful development of the market economy. Only thanks to their presence one country can acquire the natural competitive advantage over the other countries and to create on this basis, the industrial monopoly. An example of such a monopoly in the modern world can be China, with all of this set of factors and with the lowest production costs in the world. In the end of XX - beginning of XXI centuries, China thanks to these advantages has turned into the "workshop of the world" and has exported their cheap goods to the whole world.

 
Chapter 2: Strategic Interests of Russia

Strategic interests concerning The West: The European Union, United States and WTO

The concept of national interests is inscribed in the theory and practice of international relations. Especially logical it is in the field of external relations of States as it is directly linked to the context of their existence. Every country has its own national interests, which are recorded and are provided both political and economic means, both in the domestic and in the foreign sphere of activity. The realization of the national interests is a fundamental task of the country. The realization of these interests in foreign policy, in foreign relations is the immediate task of the state and its government institutions.

The state strategy in the foreign economic sphere is the state regulation of foreign economic activity. The first area of foreign economic activities, providing strategic tasks of the Russian state, is the compliance with certain spatial-political orientations. It is about the promotion and observance of the priorities in relations with the regions or groups of countries. Preferences are given to the relations with those groups of countries, from which the security of Russia or the success of its economic development depends on. Among them: the countries of the European Union, as the closest geographically, politically and culturally group of economically developed countries. In the framework of political cooperation a multi-level and stable system of consultation in the form of a bilateral "summits" and meetings of the Board cooperation (twice a year) has developed.The scope of consultations has already gone beyond the limits of bilateral relations and covers many international issues, including security issues, international terrorism. Confirmation of which is the Joint Declaration on strengthening dialogue and cooperation on political and security matters, which was adopted in October 2000, the Russia - EU summit in Paris. Political cooperation includes a number of inter-regional integration projects, carried out under the responsibility of the European Union.Regular contacts between the customs bodies of the parties, including on struggle against smuggling, illicit drug trafficking and double-Declaration of cargoes were established there. Contacts between law enforcement authorities of Russia and Europol have also been established, which adopted a joint action plan on the fight against international organised crime.

At the modern stage the European Union is the largest foreign-trade partner of Russia (trade with the EU for Russia is 35% of export)⁴. They have a lot of in common: the complementarity of economies and infrastructure, availability of legal base of cooperation, long-standing business traditions. Cooperation in the field of nuclear energy and trade in goods of the nuclear cycle was a growing trend. We are talking here only about the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The European Union has the European Atomic Energy community (Euratom), which was intended as a result of their education to promote the growth of the nuclear industry in the countries of the European Union and to compete with the two nuclear powers - the USA and the USSR. Unfortunately because of recent nuclear disaster in japan and public protests in all Europe the development of relationships concerning this question between EU and Russia is doubtful.

The practical preparations for the summit in Brussels in December 2011 were reduced to completely different issues. According to the arrangements, which were made earlier, the experts have prepared the list of joint measures on transition to a visa-free regime for short-term visits in order to improve them. Moscow believes that progress in this direction will implement a breakthrough in cooperation in other spheres. "We still hope in a relatively short historical perspective on the complete abolition of visas between Russia and the European Union," Medvedev said. The European Union obviously was not ready for these breakthroughs. The EU believes that the implementation of the conditions, which are described in the list, is only an opportunity to start negotiations on the abolition of visas. “It will not happen next year, - the Chairman of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso underlined. - This is the goal for a more distant perspective. The work is moving forward." But the main problem for trading and investment cooperation between Russia and the European Union is not the topic of the cancellation of visas, but the crisis which the Euro zone is experiencing now. The EU now accounts about half of Russian foreign trade turnover, while the share of the Euro in the structure of currency reserves of the Russian Federation is about 41 per cent.

"Russia is very interested in the fact that the EU is preserved as a powerful economic and political force", - Medvedev said after the summit. He called on European countries to show restraint, to save all that they have gained over the past decade, particularly of the Euro, which has become one of the world's major reserve currencies.

“The most important decisions are those that will be taken by States of the European Union”-stressed the head of the Russian Federation. "Only Europe is able to help itself. But other countries should create conditions to Europe in order to help it to be out of the crisis peak. We will contribute to this.