OTHER PEOPLE’S RECIPES, OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES — writes Ramis Yunus...

I LIVED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR EXACTLY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY — TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.

During that time, I had the opportunity not merely to observe American life from the outside, but also to study in considerable depth the country’s political system, its institutions, the specifics of decision-making, the mechanisms through which domestic and foreign policy are shaped, American political culture and, most importantly, the mentality of American society.

Before that, I had spent a significant part of my life in the Soviet Union — from the Khrushchev era until its collapse in 1991. I then worked for many years in the highest echelons of power in independent Azerbaijan — both in the government and in parliament.

Therefore, today, when comparing the political culture of the United States with that of the post-Soviet space, I increasingly come to a conclusion that may seem paradoxical to some.

American politicians and political scientists very often have a poor understanding of the post-Soviet space — its history, mentality, political culture, fears, complexes, ambitions and, finally, its geography.

But politicians and political scientists in the post-Soviet space are often no better at understanding America. They have a poor grasp of how the American political system works, how decisions are made in Washington, how strongly domestic political processes influence U.S. foreign policy and, most importantly, how Americans themselves perceive the world around them.

It is precisely this mutual misunderstanding, compounded by some states’ willingness to adopt other people’s political recipes and others’ willingness to impose their own view of the world as a universal truth, that has largely brought us to the world in which we live today.

A world in which, instead of the promised “end of history” following the end of the Cold War, we have witnessed the return of great-power geopolitics, wars, confrontation among centers of power and a struggle for a new world order.

This problem can be seen particularly clearly if we return to the beginning of the 1990s.

The Soviet Union collapsed, the Cold War ended, and it seemed that humanity was indeed entering an entirely new era.

It was at that time that two books appeared in the West that had an enormous influence not only on the intellectual circles of the United States and Europe, but also on political thinking across the vast space stretching from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and the Caucasus.

In 1992, American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man.

Fukuyama argued that following the collapse of communism, Western-style liberal democracy was becoming the endpoint of humanity’s political and sociocultural development. It seemed that the era of great ideological confrontations was coming to an end, while liberal democracy, a market economy and the Western model of state governance were becoming universal benchmarks.

For millions of people who had grown up in the Soviet Union, this idea proved particularly attractive.

Only yesterday, the Soviet Union had existed, claiming for decades that the Soviet system represented the historical future of humanity. Now the USSR had disappeared, creating a sense that history had indeed delivered its final verdict. Yet it soon became clear that history had not ended; it had simply begun a new chapter.

The tragedy of September 11, 2001, in the United States became one of the symbols of this turning point. It was followed by wars in the Middle East, the rise of international terrorism, the strengthening of China, Russia’s return to a policy of forceful revanche, the crisis of the liberal consensus within the West itself, Brexit, the rise of populism, changes in the political landscape of Europe and the United States and, finally, the largest war in Europe since World War II — Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Today, it is already absolutely clear that the idea that humanity had entered an era of the final triumph of a single universal political model proved too optimistic. But an important clarification must be made here.

The problem lay not so much in democracy itself or in the liberal idea itself. It arose when a particular political model began to be perceived as a universal recipe that could be transferred, practically unchanged, from one historical and cultural environment to another.

History proved to be far more complicated.

Political institutions cannot be transplanted onto different soil as easily as a tree, because every society has its own historical memory, its own political culture, its own attitude toward the state, its own understanding of freedom, its own attitude toward power, its own fears and its own national interests. If these factors are not taken into account, even the most attractive theory can become a source of serious political mistakes.

But there was a second book.

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s famous work The Grand Chessboard was published.

While Fukuyama spoke primarily about the ideological and political future of the world, Brzezinski viewed it through a geopolitical lens.

Eurasia occupied a central place in his analysis, and here Brzezinski was largely correct in one fundamental respect: Eurasia indeed became the principal geopolitical space of the 21st century.

But a correct understanding of the significance of geography did not necessarily lead to a correct forecast of the future world order.

Brzezinski started from the premise of America’s enormous power following the collapse of the Soviet Union and viewed Eurasia as a space in which the United States should maintain strategic influence.

Unfortunately, for many in the post-Soviet space, this book became practically a geopolitical Bible, and this is where, in my view, the most interesting part begins.

The problem was not only that individual forecasts could prove inaccurate, but that too many politicians turned complex intellectual concepts into ready-made instructions for action.

Some believed in the final victory of the Western model, others believed in perpetual American hegemony, while still others decided that all they had to do was correctly choose a foreign-policy patron — and their own future would automatically be secured.

As a result, too many states began answering the central question not with: “What should our national strategy be?”

But rather: “Whom should we join?”

These are fundamentally different questions, and this, in my view, is where one of the great tragedies of the post-Soviet space lies.

Following the collapse of the USSR, a huge number of political elites found themselves in an intellectual vacuum: old reference points disappeared, while their own strategic concepts, in many cases, were never developed. Instead of independent analysis, a competition among foreign models began.

Some looked to Washington, others to Moscow, and still others to Brussels. Later, Beijing, Ankara and other centers of power began to acquire increasing importance.

But very often, in this search for an external point of reference, the principal actor was missing — the state itself and its own national interests. And this is where I want to say something that is particularly relevant today.

America is not obliged to understand the post-Soviet space better than the peoples and states themselves understand it. Washington may be mistaken in its assessment of Moscow, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku or any other state, and European capitals may also be mistaken.

But if, as a result of these mistakes, a state itself abandons an independent analysis of its history, geography and interests, responsibility for the consequences can no longer be shifted exclusively onto Washington, Brussels or Moscow, because there is a simple rule known to everyone from ordinary life: “The salvation of the drowning is the responsibility of the drowning themselves.”

For a state, this rule sounds even harsher: no one will protect your national interests better than you will. No one is obliged to formulate their foreign policy with your national interests in mind, and no one is obliged to understand your history better than you do.

Therefore, the main task of a politician is not to guess who will become stronger tomorrow. The main task of a politician is to create a strategy that will allow their state to preserve its interests even when the balance of power among the great powers changes. And for this, it is first and foremost necessary to understand one’s own geography.

Geography cannot be chosen. One can choose an ally, change one’s foreign-policy course, alter one’s economic model, join an organization or leave it, but one cannot move a country to another place on the map.

That is why, for a state, geography is not merely territory; it is a destiny that must be taken into account.

If a country is located between several centers of power, it cannot build its strategy as though only one of them existed.

If a state is situated at the crossroads of transportation, energy and geopolitical routes, it must turn this position from a weakness into an advantage.

If Russia, Iran, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Europe are nearby, it is meaningless to pretend that any of them can simply be crossed off the strategic map.

Statecraft does not lie in choosing one powerful neighbor and becoming its junior partner, but in building relations with all of them while preserving the ability to make decisions independently. And this is where I want to give an example that is particularly important to me.

That is my native Azerbaijan.

I do not believe that the Azerbaijani path is a universal recipe for all states, but I consider it a highly illustrative example of how a small country can gradually become an independent regional player if it builds its foreign policy not on the ideology of foreign centers of power, but on its own national interests.

Over the past more than thirty years, Azerbaijan has come a long way, and one of the most important turning points in its modern history was the “Contract of the Century,” concluded in 1994. It was not simply an economic agreement; it was a strategic choice.

Azerbaijan began building a system of international relations in which economic interests, energy, transportation, security and diplomacy worked simultaneously to strengthen its own statehood. Gradually, something happened that is particularly important to understand today.

Azerbaijan did not become a pro-Russian, pro-Western, pro-Iranian or pro-Chinese state.

Azerbaijan became pro-Azerbaijani, and that, in my view, is the fundamental distinction.

A pro-Azerbaijani policy does not mean abandoning relations with the West, relations with Russia, or cooperation with Iran, Turkey or China.

On the contrary, it means having the ability to speak with everyone — but to make decisions based primarily on one’s own national interests.

That is precisely why Azerbaijan can no longer be viewed today merely as a small post-Soviet state in the South Caucasus.

Over three decades, Azerbaijan has transformed from a small country into a recognized middle power — a middle power capable of influencing regional processes and participating in the formation of broader geopolitical and economic ties. And this happened not because Azerbaijan chose the “right side” in the confrontation among great powers.

Azerbaijan chose something else: it chose its own side. And this, in my view, is particularly important today for the entire post-Soviet space.

The world is no longer the system that many imagined it to be in the 1990s.

American power remains enormous, but the United States is not the only center of power.

The European Union remains one of the world’s largest economic and political players, but Europe is also facing crises and problems of its own.

Russia remains a major military and nuclear power, but its capabilities and limitations must also be assessed without myths, as its aggression against Ukraine has clearly demonstrated.

China has become a global power, while India is becoming an increasingly independent center of world politics.

Turkey has also significantly strengthened its regional influence, while Central Asia has ceased to be a periphery that can be viewed exclusively through the prism of Moscow or Beijing.

Southeast Asia is becoming one of the most important centers of the global economy.

In other words, the world has become far more complicated than the “chessboard” on which all the pieces seemed to move at the command of a single player. Today, this is no longer a two-player chess game. It is a more complex system in which dozens of states and centers of power operate simultaneously, each pursuing its own interests.

And therefore, the most dangerous mistake of a modern politician is to try to live in yesterday’s world.

Today, strategic decisions cannot be made based on the worldview of 1991. One cannot assume that after the collapse of the USSR, Russia permanently lost its ability to influence the post-Soviet space. One cannot assume that American hegemony automatically means Washington is capable of solving any problem anywhere in the world. One cannot assume that the European Union will always move exclusively in one direction. China cannot be underestimated. Turkey cannot be ignored. Central Asia cannot be treated as someone else’s periphery. And, finally, a state cannot build its strategy while constantly looking to what one or another external center of power wants, because the world changes much faster than political textbooks become outdated.

This is my main conclusion.

We, who live in the post-Soviet space, must finally learn not only to study other people’s strategies, but also to create our own.

We need to study America — but not idealize it. We need to study Europe — but not regard it as the only model for the future. We need to understand Russia — but not become hostages to Russian thinking. We need to understand China — but not turn into Chinese followers. We need to understand Turkey, Iran, India, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

But above all, we need to understand ourselves — our history, our geography, our economy, our people, our capabilities and our limitations.

Because the most dangerous dependence of a state begins not when it receives assistance from abroad, but when it stops thinking independently.

Fukuyama was wrong not because history actually disappeared, and Brzezinski was wrong not because Eurasia lost its significance.

Those who were primarily mistaken were the ones who turned the intellectual concepts put forward in these books into political dogmas and stopped asking the simplest question: does this theory actually correspond to our country, our history and our geography?

Today, this question can no longer be postponed, because the price of a mistake in the post-Soviet space is not a poor economic forecast or a lost election. The price of a mistake can be measured in territory, destroyed cities, human lives and war.

That is why the Russian-Ukrainian war should become not only a tragedy for the entire post-Soviet space, but also a lesson that national strategy cannot be built on other people’s illusions. One cannot outsource one’s destiny. One cannot wait for someone else to determine what is good for one’s country better than one can oneself, and one cannot choose between foreign centers of power while forgetting about one’s own center of power — one’s own national state.

Today, the world is entering an era in which a state’s main advantage is no longer the ability to loudly proclaim itself someone’s ally, but the ability to preserve room for independent decision-making.

That is why the future belongs not to those countries that have learned to guess the desires of great powers better than anyone else, but to those that have learned to understand the great powers — while never forgetting to understand themselves.

After a quarter of a century of living in America, I became convinced of one simple thing: the United States is, first and foremost, the United States of America and it pursues American policy. Russia pursues Russian policy, China — Chinese policy, and Turkey — Turkish policy. And it is up to us whether we will continue to expect Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Georgian or other national policies from them, or finally understand the simple truth: every state must have a head of its own on its shoulders.

That is why today, thirty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet space needs not another foreign doctrine.

The countries of the post-Soviet space, each individually, need their own strategic thinking, because other people’s recipes can be very attractive, other people’s forecasts can be very convincing, and other people’s manifestos can become global bestsellers — but we are always the ones who have to pay for other people’s mistakes. And therefore, the main question of the day is extremely simple: when will we finally start writing our own recipes?

As Abraham Lincoln said at one of the most dramatic moments in American history: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.”

Ramis Yunus

Professor of Political Science

Khazar University