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It goes without saying that national interests aredeveloped in the light of the structure of international relations, the flow of events anddevelopments unfolding globally and in the immediate vicinity of a country in question,first and foremost its neighborhood. Nevertheless, irrespective of this, this conceptrepresent how these long and medium-term variables are reflected in the collectiveconsciousness of the political class. This is why it would be permissible to characterizethis category as only partially objective57.On the objective side, it is customary to refer to enduring vital interests, such as thephysical security of the territory, the integrity of the state and its power configuration(political regime); protection of the lives of its citizens, critical elements of the of vitallife sustaining systems (infrastructures); economic sustainability and social peacestability.
Being forged throughout the entire of the state, they remain virtuallyunchanged, and their significance is clear to everyone.The subjective aspect of “national interests”, and therefore the main vulnerabilityof this category, accentuates the specific, time dependent interpretations of the objectivecomponents of national interests. This part is the most flexible and is characterized byfive major factors, such as systemism, appropriateness, awareness, adaptability andhistorism.The systemic nature of state/national interests lies in their place in a multi-levelcomplex decision making system.
Inter-institutional consistency and structural coordination play a crucial role when it is necessary to clearly articulate the position on a56The Underlying Causes of Stability and Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa: An Analytic Survey. //Centre for Strategic & International Studies. – [Electronic resource]. — URL: https://www.csis.org/analysis/underlyingcauses-stability-and-unrest-middle-east-and-north-africa-analytic-survey-057Burchill S. The National Interest in International Relations Theory.
— Palgrave Macmillan, a division ofMacmillan Publishers Limited, —2005, — p. 75.15broad array of hierarchically organized issues, facilitate the identification and publicjustification of declared priorities, both domestically and internationally, to enhance thelevel of coordination between various segments of the state during the implementationof nation-wide projects.According to S. Proskurin, the backbone of national interests, is a strict hierarchy,which is also typical of the ranking of threats in the military security domain.
Theorientation towards achieving the main goal, in a narrow sense, of the “non-threatenedstate” of progressive development, brings together the key factors of the formation ofnational interests and the category of national security in a single system, including the“geostrategic positioning of the state, the availability of raw materials, the quantitativeand qualitative composition of the population, the level of economic development , thepresence of external and internal threats, the nature of the state political system”58.Appropriateness is all about separating imaginary, delusional interests from real,genuine ones.
Proceeding from the complex nature of national interests, theirformulation and implementation is the prerogative of the state. But to get the real senseof how national interests are formulated, one has to disaggregate the state. In the idealworld, the orientation of genuine national interests should always be improving thequality of life of citizens. However, not only the leaders of the state take part in thisprocess, business structures, lobby groups of legal and illegal nature join the strugglemonopolize the interpretation of national priorities.
Often the influence of lobby groupsdo not benefit the state, but vice versa. According to Khrustalev, efforts to accomplishdelusional national interests not infrequently result in the depletion of economicresources, human potential, and ultimately the credit of people's trust in the stateauthority.For decades, the image of the capitalist Western society as the paramount enemywas cultivated in the Soviet Union. And the dominant claim was that only permanentbuild-up of the military-industrial complex, an increase in the arsenals of the weaponsof mass destruction could assure security and survival.
It became clear later on that the58Проскурин, С.А. Национальные интересы и внешнеполитические приоритеты России // С.А.Проскурин. – М.: Власть, 1996 – С. 5216de facto arms race did not meet the objective criterion of security (the notoriousvolumes of nuclear weapons, which allow for the assured destruction of the enemymore than once), the development needs of neither side. Thus, incorrect goal setting inthe development of national interests can lead to disastrous consequences59.Awareness of national interests is also considered a rather important characteristicof this category. Awareness of the integrity of national interests and the importance oftheir consistent implementation is achieved through cooperation between all agents inthe political field.
Only by using the collective resources of the society in all of itsmanifestations, starting from social movements and individual activists and up to themedia, can we achieve any approximation to the objective concept of a constructreflecting the political reality and the needs of the state and society supporting it60.Ability to articulate, and then clearly express the national interests of the country,consistent not only in theory, but also implemented in practice makes it possible todistinguish state wisdom from political adventurism and narrowly defined vestedinterests of unaccountable individuals.According to the Russian political scientist B.
Mezhuyev, defining nationalinterests is a multifaceted and multistage process, the end-result of which is drawing upa strategy of improvement on the socioeconomic situation of the country. To do so, theymust reflect the public consensus on a particular problem61.Adaptability of national interests is their another crucial characteristic. In this dayand age it is impossible to flesh out the category of national interests of any countrywithout paying heed to the interests of other states, and, increasingly, the collectiveinterests of the entire world community.
This gives rise to a new paradigm of politics“special mode of social interaction, the logic of which differs both from the logic ofmarkets and from the logic of the government”62. Therefore, the success of a country in59Воскресенский А.Д. Сравнительная политическая экономия взаимоотношений Восток-Запад / А.Д.Воскресенский // Практика зарубежного регионоведения и мировой политики. М.: магистр - Инфра-М, 2014, с. 154222.60Pham J. P. What Is in the National Interest? Hans Morgenthau’s Realist Vision and American Foreign Policy//American Foreign Policy Interests, - № 30, - 2008.
– 256-265 pp.61Межуев, Б.В. Моделирование понятия «национальный интерес» (На примере дальневосточнойполитики России конца XIX - начала XX века) – М.: Полис, 1999. – С. 26-35.62Burchill S. The National Interest in International Relations Theory – Palgrave Macmillan, a division ofMacmillan Publishers Limited, – 2005, – p. 50.17fulfilling its interests specifically depends on the degree of its integration into therealities of the world arena. There is also a need to build a system in which mediumterm interests do not run counter to long-term interests, but intersect with them,coinciding, organically integrating into the picture of the world that foreign ministriesare trying to create.The category of national interests should, therefore, be based on the geopoliticalrealities in which the state exists, meet the values of the country's traditions, its culturaland confessional identity (ideally – in the harmonious coexistence of many cultures andconfessions within and without a particular nation), its role in the international politicalarena reflecting and reconciling its self perception in the past, the present and the future.The very essence of the value system, which at a certain stage begins to embody thecrus of state/national interests, and the national historical aspirations determine thearchetypal features and inalienable characteristics of the society, and typically expresscultural continuity of the nation throughout its history.
Only thus construed nationalinterests can serve as the solid foundation of a state’s foreign policy. It is for this reasonthat those involved in the discourse about the content of national interests shouldinevitable include people thinking in terms of the categories of the nation as ahistorically identical and evolving whole, its material and spiritual heritage, ideologicalattitudes, values, traditions, and historical memory.Historism is another indispensable quality of national interest. It implies that thiscategory is changing in connection with the evolution of the whole system ofinternational relations. Challenges and needs at different stages of the historicaldevelopment of society will differ not only in form, but also in content over time. Forexample, today the threat from international terrorism for some European countries(Belgium, France) is a much more significant problem than aggression of other states,particularly neighbours.Relying on the above, it can be summarized that national interests as a state projectperform two basic functions: instructive and formative.Sound foreign policy is a rationally developed course of action, based on thecorrectly interpreted “national interest”.
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