Greater Eurasia and Russian Foreign Policy Priorities

Abstract

The strategic concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership has been the greatest achievement of Russia in its prioritization of foreign policy and in building effective multilateral institutions in this macroregion. This concept, as well as the previously developed strategy of pairing the Chinese One Belt One Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union, is based on the academic and political belief that multilateral institutions, which introduce mutually binding norms for their members, are the essential element of international regulation on both global and regional levels. For Russia, the idea of the Greater Eurasian Partnership is also a part of its national strategy and policy of the accelerated development of the Russian Far East and Siberia – both natural and necessary parts of Asian and Eurasian space. So far, Eurasia has primarily been a geostrategic and philosophical concept, whereas the new strategy of Russia aims to revalue Eurasia in terms of rational cooperation.