US Plays The Boss Again – OpEd

By Natalya Kovalenko

A recent statement by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton confirmed it again that powerful political and economic alliances between former Soviet states are against the US interests. In her article in The Financial Times, Ms. Clinton said that the US is going to hamper such alliances.

Namely, it is the initiative of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to create a Eurasian Economic Union on the basis of the already existing alliances between CIS countries – the Common Economic Space and the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan – that concerns the US authorities so much. Ms. Clinton qualifies this initiative as an attempt to create an analogue of the Soviet Union.

“The US just has no real instruments to hamper the process of integration between CIS countries,” Russian political observer Dmitry Suslov says.

“There is in fact nothing new in Ms. Clinton’s statement,” Russian MP Dmitry Vyatkin says. “It is in the traditions of the US authorities to believe that they have the right to interfere in anything in the world.”

“Processes of integration are beneficial for former Soviet states. But it is against the US interests that somewhere in the world, a structure is being formed that may become politically or economically strong. The US will most probably try to influence CIS countries – in particular, those in Central Asia – in order to distract them from cooperation with Russia.”

Last week, a summit of CIS countries took place in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashkhabad, where leaders of 11 countries signed a document in which they confirm their readiness to cooperate in economy, science, technologies and other spheres. The process of integration will go on, despite any attempts of the US to hamper it.