The balance of ties with partners is a desirable state in foreign policy. It is rarely possible in perfect form. Even the programmatic equal distance as proscribed by the doctrine of neutrality or disengagement, which will be discussed separately, is difficult to enforce in practice. Sometimes the declared equal closeness or distance is a cover for the cynically pursued pragmatic policy of “a humble calf will feed from two mothers” (“humility gets you everywhere”). In the Cold War era this attitude was associated with raising the price for not switching to the other side of the global confrontation. The price most often paid through development aid.
Few countries, especially inconspicuous ones, want to put all their political chips on one card. Unless they have to. Even then, a country tries to diversify its relations, or at least declares their multi-vector nature.
An interesting case is the process of deepening Armenia’s dependence on Russia over the more than thirty years that have passed since gaining independence. The factors of potential reliance were initially quite weak. Firstly, a significant Russian minority did not exist in Armenia. This fact neutralized a possible argument for Russia to keep Armenian policy within the circle of its hegemonic influence. Second, Russia does not have a common border with Armenia. Thirdly, the disintegration of economic ties inherited from the Soviet Union has gone so far that Armenia was theoretically not reliant on supplies of Russian energy resources (it would have been much closer to get them from Iran), or on exporting its production to Russia (because it sent insignificant amounts of products there). At that time, it also did not need Russian military support to guarantee the security of Nagorno-Karabakh (because it claimed that it could cope with the Azerbaijani threat on its own). The main reason for seeking Russian military guarantees at that time was the potential threat posed by Turkey. It is for this reason that Armenia took the initiative to keep the Russian military base in Gyumri, to deploy Russian border guards on the border with Turkey and Iran.
Over the years the security policy pursued by Armenia in the conditions of postponing the resolution of the Karabakh conflict and the growing military (economic, demographic, etc.) advantage of Azerbaijan made Armenia more and more dependent on Russia. For unpaid military loans, Russia took over more and more strategic branches of the economy (railways, gas and electricity transmission lines, etc.).
In foreign policy, Armenian bandwagoning grew with each passing time. In the years 2008-2018, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to be called in the Western diplomatic circles an outpost of the Russian MID. It came to it that Armenia turned out to be, at least as much as Belarus, committed to supporting the Russian position at the UN or the Council of Europe on the annexation of Crimea, and in several other completely inexplicable issues for Armenia (e.g. it did not support Kosovo’s independence) . The 2020 Karabakh war brought to Armenia (due to the open Turkish support for Azerbaijan and the military defeat of Armenia) total dependence on Russia. Russia has become the sole guarantor of security for the part of Nagorno-Karabakh still inhabited by Armenians, and its armed and border forces have assumed new obligations on the territory of Armenia proper. As a result of their own (and Turkish) policy, the Armenians turned to Russia’s mercy. The still preached multivectorism has thus become merely a psychopolitical need.
Sometimes the natural political or economic gravity towards the dominant partner becomes a real nuisance. So a counterweight is being sought. A good (though not very comforting) illustration of this is the fate of the Canadian concept of the “third option” implemented in the seventies of the last century.
Having a neighbour characterized by enormous economic, demographic, technological and military preponderance is not an easy matter. As the saying goes: it sneezes but we get pneumonia. And if the neighbour is not separated by almost any cultural or even linguistic barrier, the challenge is enormous. Especially if it is the only neighbour. Domination on the part of such a neighbour, even if it does not have hegemonic features, even if friendly, and does not involve interfering with internal life, such domination can be threatening. This is how Canadian politicians began to assess the US neighbourhood factor more than half a century ago.
Until the end of World War II, the US factor was balanced satisfactorily by the special bonds within the British Empire. The more the Empire faded, the more ties with the metropolis weakened, and the benefits and mechanisms of cooperation within the British Commonwealth of Nations lost their weight. In addition, the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, benefiting from the departure of de Gaulle from French politics, could seriously pursue the EEC membership, and used this option effectively. Without looking back at their own dominions. So the dilemmas faced by the Canadian political class were understandable.
In 1972, the then Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mitchell Sharp, outlined three possible variants of shaping relations with the dominant neighbour. The first option was to let things go their course, to rely on the effects of natural gravitational processes, and to maintain the status quo in external politics. The second option was to undertake a conscious and planned policy of integration (at least economic) with the USA. And finally, the third option was to attempt the diversification of bilateral relations with other countries, looking for opportunities there to balance US influence, and limiting economic and cultural dependence on the United States.
This is how the concept of a “third option” in Canada’s foreign policy was born. It never obtained an official government imprimatur, but the then Prime Minister Pierre-Elliot Trudeau got down to its implementation with clear enthusiasm. He made the Canadian foreign policy more active. He especially strengthened relations with developing countries. He built a positive image of Canada in the “Third World”. He also put forward initiatives for dialogue and cooperation with socialist states, making Canada a recognizable actor in the process of détente (sometimes irritating the southern neighbour with his activism). He led Canada to conclude its first agreement with the EEC. In domestic politics, legislation was introduced to limit the so-called cultural import. Large conglomerates of state-owned companies were created to counter the pressure of US capital.
These were, however, only palliatives and the “third option” failed. Not entirely though, because its political legacy has become the foundation for developing Canada’s activist posture on the global arena. The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ initiative is one of Canada’s tangible achievements in this context. Solutions to protect the cultural identity of Canadians have also survived. But US economic domination continued. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who took power on behalf of the Conservative party in 1984, sent the concept of a “third option” to silent funeral.
When I took the position of Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2002, our foreign policy concentrated almost entirely on the Euro-Atlantic area. Security challenges came from the East (Russia and its actions), and we looked in the West for a cure for our fears. Our development vision was completely subordinated to the accession to the European Union, and our trade and economic policy focused on the western direction. I have set myself the goal of broadening the horizons of our activity. Even then, China was growing into an economic power. It was to be expected that India and other Asian countries would follow. I also assumed that Poland’s accession to the EU would force the globalization of our policy. Within the EU, we would deal with conflicts and problems outside Europe, particpate in development policy, and send our contingents to stabilization operations under the aegis of the EU.
I assumed intuitively that we do not use the advantages of active politics outside Europe. At the end of 2003, I took the initiative to develop a strategy of the Republic of Poland towards developing countries. I wanted an honest review and a deeper reflection on our policy. However, working on the strategy among interested departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, interested ministries and government institutions became a real torment. First of all, it turned out that the scale of interdepartmental cacophony was unimaginably monstrous. Each ministry pursued its own policy, which in many cases meant total désintéressement with any involvement outside Euroatlantic area (as if Africa or Asia were distant planets inhabited by forms of life that are dangerous for Earthlings, although not necessarily intelligent). Worst of all, the priorities turned out to be conflicting. The Ministry of Economy, for example, wanted to treat Iran as a priority partner, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that the probability of introducing sanctions against Iran in connection with the nuclear program was so high that it did not make much sense to invest in this direction. Endless discussions on the draft strategy discouraged me from the whole project. Fortunately, my young and talented colleagues from the department took on the burden of reaching an agreement. In autumn 2004, the strategy was approved by the government. The traces of the startegy have remained in scientific studies to this day. Its impact on practice, as with most strategies, was negligible. In 2005, the government changed and the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed. The attempt at strategic thinking has been replaced by the reflex of immediate action. In 2015, when I became the Director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the group of our closest associates, we tried to catalogue the goals of our policy in this area, to make them more ambitious, because the political management of the Ministry saw the need for it. But my adventure in this position had to end after less than four months (I was appointed the EU Ambassador to Armenia). And after PiS came to power, the global dimension (beyond the Euro-Atlantic area) has been, in a political sense, an unimaginable fallow.
