I saw no evidence of this in St. Petersburg. It is very true Putin made no secret that in the talks he was going to advance and defend Russia’s national interest (a phrase he used so many times during his joint press conference with President Bush on Saturday that, if suitably sampled, could make a wonderful advertisement for the journal I edit) — and that he was not going to automatically accept the U.S. perspective on any given issue. Having said that, recreating the G-7 in 2006 would not have been more effective. Since the disappearance of the USSR, the notion of “the West” + Japan forming a tightly integrated security and economic bloc has been weakening, and that was clearly on display in St. Petersburg. Trans-Atlantic divergences mattered just as much; Putin on his own could not throw a monkey wrench into the works if he truly faced a united Seven. Excluding him would still have resulted in a laborious search for consensus in carefully worded documents expressing “concern.” – Nikolas K. Gvosdev writes in the article “«The diamond smoke» of St-Petersburg’s summit”, published in the US journal “National Review”, 19.07.2006.
In the conclusion of his article Gvosdev writes:
Is the G-8 process irrelevant, then? It depends on your criteria. The original “Group of Six” convened in 1975 to deal with very concrete and specific trade and financial issues triggered by the energy shocks in 1973-74.
Over the years, it has evolved into more of a forum for discussion, unencumbered by the more formal strictures of bodies like the U.N. Security Council. It certainly provides a chance for not only the leaders and principals but even for staffs to interact in informal settings. It is important to have such channels in place, but I understand the frustrations with the G-8, particularly American ones. After all, the U.N. never worked as FDR intended it to. NATO and EU expansion have both produced much more unwieldy bodies. The G-7/G-8 always offered a beacon of hope: a small group comprised of critical countries that should be able to act decisively. But a three-day meeting, even in a setting like St. Petersburg, cannot substitute for the real problem: the lack of a shared strategic vision — as well as agreement on the best way to put it into practice — among the major powers. If this summit was expected to revitalize the G-8 process and convincingly demonstrate its relevance as a body of action — then I leave unconvinced”.
We consider the words italicized in the last cited paragraph to be the most important to clarify the reasons of the UN and ex-G7 incapacity in the past. Perhaps the backstage wheeler-dealers of G7 transformed this organization into G8 in order to prolong the former way of western countries existence, putting pressure upon the head of the post-soviet Russian State during G8 summits, thus resolving the crisis of the UN and ex-G7 inefficiency as the regional localized the UN alternative.
The idea of G7 transformation into G8 is in the basis of a strategic concept, stated in 1948 in the Directive 20/1 of the US National Security Council dated 18.08.1948 y. and in the subsequent political documents of the US developing its states:
“Actually, our main goals towards Russia add up to two goals:
a). To nullify the might of Moscow
b). To conduct the fundamental changes in the theory and practice of foreign affairs, that is followed by the Russian government.
… we are not limited by the certain time in order to achieve our goals in the peacetime.
… we shouldn’t feel guilty destroying the concepts inconsistent to the international peace and stability and changing them with the concepts of tolerance and international cooperation. It’s not our business to think over the internal consequences after the establishment of such concepts in other countries, and what is more we shouldn’t think that we are responsible for these facts…If the Soviet leaders decide that the new concepts of international relations are inconsistent with the maintenance of their power in Russia, it will be their, but not our problems. Our duty is to work and to contribute to the new events implementation… Being the government we are not responsible for the internal situation in Russia…
…In the peacetime our aim is not the destruction of the Soviet government. Naturally, we are looking forward to creating an atmosphere, unfavorable to Soviet leaders. Perhaps, they will lose their power in such atmosphere. However we should stress it again that it is not our business…
The thing is to make and to maintain the Soviet Union depressed in political, military and psychological spheres in comparison to the external powers beyond its control.
… We shouldn’t hope to achieve an absolute implementation of our will on the Russian territory, as we tried to do in Germany and Japan. We should come to understanding that the final adjustment should be political one.
…In case of the worst variant implementation, i.e. the reservation of the Soviet power over the Soviet territory we should require the following:
a). the implementation of military clauses (the relinquishment of armament, the main districts evacuation and etc.) in order to cause the military impotence;
b). the implementation of clauses in order to create an economic dependence on the rest world.
In other words, we should create automatic guarantees to provide an atmosphere, so that even non-communist and friendly regime:
a). shouldn’t have a serious military might;
b). should be dependent on the external world in economic sphere;
c). shouldn’t have the real power over the main national minorities;
d). shouldn’t establish any kind of an iron curtain.
In case this regime is hostile towards communists and friendly with us, we should do our best not to impose these conditions in an offensive and disparaging way. Our duty is to impose these conditions by all means in order to protect our interests”.
The post-Soviet Russia involvement into G7, that transformed G7 into G8 corresponds to the statement at the beginning of the last cited paragraph. Actually, the requirements of the US Directive 20/1 of the National Security Council were satisfied with the transformation G7 into G8, but the problem of the West is not resolved because of the fact that this Directive 20/1 was worked out on the basis of such global politics, that had been losing its efficiency since 1917[8]. That’s why the transformation of G7 into G8 leads to other consequences: in particular the G8 Summit in Strelna revealed new possibilities of humankind development. It is still reflected in the tendencies and thus couldn’t be expressed in its documents.