Values and Interests in the Relations between Russia and the West Professor Beatrice Heuser University of Glasgow (interview conducted by Kriel.Agency @charleskriel)
-Professor Beatrice Heuser, your view on the narrative around the end of the Cold War, is not necessarily a conventional one. Could you expand on this view for us please? I totally reject that the West won the Cold War, because it is very clear to me that Humanity won the Cold War. We are still here and alive to tell the tale. It was a victory for all of us because we were under threat of a third world war - a nuclear world war - which few of us if any would have survived. So we have all been victims in the Cold War, including the Russians. The Russians have also won the Cold War because their civilization has survived. However, some in the West keep saying that the West “won” and the Russians and the East European states “lost”; indeed, I have heard East Germans say this.. Looked at with hindsight, this makes no sense. There were bureaucratic reasons for why the United States at the end of the Cold War issued medals to their soldiers in Europe, proclaiming that they had won the Cold War. This was something that they needed to do, so their soldiers could come home bearing some sort of reward for what they had achieved in those years of occupation in Europe. But it was simplya very limited interpretation. I believe this unilateral interpretation was a very foolish mistake to make. -This particular interpretation impacts Russia’s status and whether Ruissia is seen as superpower, a great power or a medium power. Could you differentiate between those two labels and whether Russia maintained their status? One of the big themes of this conference is that Russians feel hurt by the West’s denial of a status that they think they ought to have. Russians believes their country should continue to be referred to as a superpower, as Russia was in the Cold War. Currently, there are a number of different definitions of a superpower or a great power. To be a great power, you have to fulfil a certain number of characteristics. I think superpower is a term that came up in the 20th century and applied to powers that had nuclear weapons. Indeed, we must concede that if a power has nuclear weapons, somehow it gives it a higher status. Having said that, this world is not big enough for too many superpowers. “…the term superpower somehow Even if they now have nuclear weapons, the implies an involvement in the rest of term superpower somehow implies an the world, the responsibility to the rest involvement in the rest of the world, the of the world and, possibly, even the responsibility to the rest of the world and, aim to dominate the rest of the world.” possibly, even the aim to dominate the rest of the world. If we add up criteria, not only as military power but economic power, political power, the size of the territory, population and general influence in the world, it is true that even today, the United States, China and to some extent Russia remain as superpowers. Economically, however, Russia does not come up to standard, and her poor economic performance arguably brought down the Soviet system at the end of the Cold War.
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