Suchergebnisse

In strict texts, the general rhetoric of past and present can acquire certain spe­cific meanings. Their choice is determined by the historical size of events and time intervals. In our case, we can talk about the maximum distances, up to the ideologies of postmodernity and even the search for a way out of post­modernity into the hypothetical perspective of Supernovae. If in the great history of civilization Modern is considered the time of ideologies, then Russia has also turned out to be a globally chosen place for the practical and forceful implemen­tation of total megaprojects. These super-large and revealing works of the ideo­logical introduced Soviet Russia into the category, if not the leaders, of all the life-giving pathos of the New Age and the High Modern in particular. The Russian paradox is the unconditional triumph of Marxism as a state, institu­tionalized worldview, but based on absolute criticism of the ideological one. These features require a consistent distinction between ideology as a system of ideas and a system of institutions. Like the constitution of politics by Carl Schmitt through the binary opposition friend – enemy, ideology is constituted in the opposition faith – knowledge, in the spectrum between almost religion and near philosophy. If the task of philosophy is to reveal the non-obviousness of the allegedly obvious, then the mission of ideology is the manual or mass pro­duction of obviousness. Overcoming narrowly political reductionism opens up ideology in its ultimate expansion, distinguishes between systems of ideas and systems of institutions, as well as formats of shadow, latent, diffuse, penetrating, etc. ideology.

The far-reaching invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022 poses the greatest threat to international peace and security in Europe since the end of World War II. The unjustified attack also impacts the relations between Russia and other Arctic nations, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Canada, and the United States of America (USA), all of which are members of the European Union (EU) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or both. In this text it will be shown how the international governance of the Arctic can be conceptualized without Russia. It will be shown that there will still be some role for the Arctic Council (AC), which is currently chaired by Russia, but that the future of international cooperation for governance in the Arctic is likely to be dominated an extended version of Nordic cooperation, here referred to as Nordic Plus, including also the like-minded partners Canada and USA. Arctic governance still has a future, but it will be a future that is very different from the experience of the last three decades. Half of the Arctic will be apart from the Nordic Plus approach to Arctic governance, at least for the foreseeable future. While this change does not have to be permanent, it is currently difficult to see how Russia will be able to return to international cooperation in the Arctic after the current complete disregard for the core idea that is the fundament for international Arctic governance: the acceptance that international relations are based on rules that equally apply to all.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has hardly changed the foreign-policy mindset in Berlin. Only a robust, long-term containment strategy can help the West curb Russia's expansionist ambitions.