The tragic collapse of the Soviet Union makes it normal for every patriotic, or simply nostalgic, Russian to furtively stroke the grandiose map of the USSR with an abiding hope that one of these days, when things get back to "normal," the Union itself will be back too, just like it was before.
I understand this wishful thinking, but strongly doubt that the Union could ever be back in exactly the same form. Not because this grand goal is no longer attainable, but because it may not be in Russia’s best interest in the new millennium, and because a much better alternative in terms of Russia’s national interest may now have become preciously feasible.
The post-cold war world has, indeed, changed quite dramatically, and the fact that Russia has lost her place as the other superpower in a bipolar world and thus has been “diminished,” may not have been so bad, after all, considering that her antagonist has been diminished as well, and this loss of America’s great adversary may actually have denied the United States her own position of leadership over her half of the world. It was the existence of two competing superpowers, more than anything else, that had bestowed upon America her superpower status. But being the sole superpower today is a far more contestable proposition, because the unquestionable legitimacy of America’s leadership in a bipolar world does not transfer to the world, where the dialectics of thesis and antithesis no longer apply. A unipolar world is an oxymoron (because polarity is a positive-negative game by definition!), and there are only two practical solutions to the loss of bipolarity, one being its restoration, and the other, the invention of an artificial concept of multipolarity, which kills the clout of world leadership by creating a multiplicity of world leaders, thus dramatically diminishing the value of the political term “leader,” and all that it denotes.
Having said that, Russia is in no hurry to reinstate her official superpower status vis-à-vis the United States, and in no hurry either, to even partially restore the old USSR, although she has the mechanism for doing it through the CIS, the rather loose organization, which was formed immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and includeD the members of the former union, with the exception of the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. (Georgia is also out today, but only temporarily, waiting for the political demise of Mr. Saakashvili.)
In no hurry, even though Belarus is openly begging for her readmission, Armenia is close to begging for its own too, the predominantly Russian Kazakhstan wouldn’t mind returning into the fold, and others could also be persuaded, with different grades of ease. Not that Russia does not want her dominion back at all, indeed, she does, but she wants it back on a different set of terms.
Currently, each CIS member has a vote at the United Nations, eleven or twelve in all. How many votes will there be left if the Union is restored? Consider Stalin’s hard-fought (and won!) battle for the USSR's multiple UN representation (three votes, instead of one!) at the end of World War II. At that time, he was able to convince Russia’s Allies that the Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Belarus had earned their votes (on behalf of the USSR, of course!) by virtue of their immense suffering, and of their colossal contribution to victory in the war against Hitler. In our time, no argument can convince the world nations, even Russia’s closest friends, that a reconstituted Russian Empire merits more than one UN vote, let alone the old three or more. But the total number of these votes matters a lot, and I cannot imagine that Russia would ever settle for less votes than what she can get right now with little effort on her part, just by letting her bloc of UN voters vote her way. And, incidentally, that number is currently much larger than twelve!
And so does the future Union look: as a bloc of world’s independent nations, more numerous than the old Soviet Empire ever was, all aligned with Russia, and voting her way. As for the ongoing talks with Belarus about reunification, I shall volunteer the suggestion that the relationship of the two sisters will become as close as technically possible, but, yes, without Belarus losing her precious UN vote. Even in Ukraine, where the Eastern part is historically Russian, and threatening separation from Western Ukraine to rejoin Russia, and the ancient Russian capital of Kiev is Russia in all historically sensitive Russian eyes, and simply "has to return into the fold," I am not foreseeing a full reunification under the best of circumstances, except that the Crimean Peninsula may eventually be reannexed to Russia because of its strategic value to its former owner, but even this possibility is arguable. (…Lest this important detail is unknown, forgotten, or ignored, Crimea had indeed been an oblast within the Russian Federation until in 1954[!] Comrade Khrushchev, on a whim, or, as some would say, on a clever [far too clever] political inspiration, transferred it to Ukraine. It must also be noted that the population of Crimea speaks Russian, and the Ukrainian language to them is a somewhat confusing dialect of the Russian language. Further details of these convoluted relationships are provided in the History section, where they are discussed at much greater length.)
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