Ensuring peace becomes the norm.

AuthorSultanmurat, Ermentai

While the demise of totalitarianism might have been a logical and natural conclusion of a whole period in world history, bringing great relief to many nations which regained their independence and identity, it did not make resolution of a number of geopolitical and global problems any easier. The need to deal with them effectively became only more evident. In addition, the new States almost immediately faced a set of unexpected challenges which highlighted their weaknesses and dependence on the world community.

Kazakhstan - having been part of the Russian empire and, most recently, of the former Soviet Union for two and a half centuries - declared independence in 1991, thus occupying its proper place in the world. It became a Member State of the United Nations in 1992. President Narsultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, in addressing the General Assembly in the fall of that year, elaborated on the principles of his country's foreign policy. He also put forward a number of initiatives relating to problems of the post-confrontational era, such as the convening of a conference on interaction and confidence-building measures in Asia; creation of a Euro-Asian union; peaceful settlement of conflicts and disputes in the post-Soviet space; Kazakhstan's refusal to inherit part of the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union; and the ratification of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Those lofty pronouncements, however, did not come from a wealthy and affluent nation attempting to bring up the rest of the world to its high level of development and security. Quite on the contrary, we needed help from the international community in the attainment of even the declared goals.

There was also another aspect that we realized only afterwards. In those earlier days, the newly independent States, including Kazakhstan, believed that their major challenge was to rapidly rid themselves of everything associated with the Soviet system. Nobody wanted to think of the consequences. Hastily, and perhaps without second thought, we dismantled all that we thought was part of the totalitarianism altogether, not even trying to transform the already existing social infrastructure into a new, democratic one.

As it turned out, it was a costly haste in the name of civilization. It led to the loss of a tangible part of national wealth, a base of productive forces. As a result, the majority of post-Soviet countries, with few exceptions, was taken many decades back in a number of fields.

We...

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