SOVEREIGNTY OF THE COUNTRY AND ITS PLACE IN THE SCENARIOS OF LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD AND RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION

СУВЕРЕНИТЕТ СТРАНЫ И ЕЁ МЕСТО В СЦЕНАРИЯХ ДОЛГОСРОЧНОГО РАЗВИТИЯ МИРА И РОССИЙСКОЙ ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИИ

Шишаева Дарья Александровна,

студент 1 курса, факультет налогов, аудита и бизнес-анализа, Финансовый университет при Правительстве РФ,

РФ, г. Москва

Родионова Марина Евгеньевна,

научный руководитель, канд. социол. наук, доц., кафедра политологии, Факультет социальных наук и массовых коммуникаций, Финансовый университет при Правительстве РФ,

РФ, г. Москва

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes modern challenges to the state sovereignty of the Russian Federation in the horizon up to 2075. Demographic, technological, climatic and geopolitical factors that limit the classical understanding of sovereignty as a “fortress wall” are considered. The author introduces the concept of “network sovereignty”, proposing differentiation of national assets by levels of criticality (“red”, “yellow”, “green” zones) and describes four levers of its realization - joint technological projects, logistics diplomacy, flexibly degradable digital design and human capital renewal. Three development scenarios (Network Sovereign, Fragmented Dependency, Fortress Autarky) are formulated and their dependence on demographic and innovation drivers is shown.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье анализируются современные вызовы государственному суверенитету Российской Федерации в горизонте до 2075 года. Рассматриваются демографические, технологические, климатические и геополитические факторы, ограничивающие классическое понимание суверенитета как «крепостной стены». Автор вводит концепцию «сетевого суверенитета», предлагающую дифференциацию национальных активов по уровням критичности («красная», «жёлтая», «зелёная» зоны) и описывает четыре рычага её реализации — совместные технологические проекты, логистическую дипломатию, гибко‑деградируемый цифровой дизайн и обновление человеческого капитала. Сформулированы три сценария развития (Network Sovereign, Fragmented Dependency, Fortress Autarky) и показана их зависимость от демографических и инновационных драйверов.

Keywords: sovereignty, long-term scenarios, demography, digital independence, foreign policy, network economy, Russia.

Ключевые слова: суверенитет, долгосрочные сценарии, демография, цифровая независимость, внешняя политика, сетевая экономика, Россия.

INTRODUCTION

Sovereignty can be compared to owning your first small flat. When the keys are in your pocket, you feel free to paint the walls lilac, invite friends for tea, and turn the music up—yet you still share water pipes, internet cables, and a rubbish chute with everyone else in the building. A modern state faces the same mix of freedom and dependency. It draws its own laws, raises its own flag, and collects its own taxes, but the electricity grid, the global banking system, and even the medical research that plans vaccines all run through international networks that no single country fully controls. Russia, because of its size, history, and geography, carries both the pride of an owner and the anxiety of a tenant who has witnessed break‑ins before. From the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century to Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, the memory of outsiders crossing the doorstep is strong. At the same time, Russia has long dreamed of being more than just safe; it has imagined a wider mission—as writers such as Dostoevsky and Lev Gumilev put it, to be a unique civilisation linking Europe and Asia. In the twenty‑first century that dream now meets new tests: shrinking population numbers, fast‑moving technology, and climate change stretching from thawing tundra to burning steppe. So the big puzzle that a first‑year university student might ask is: how can Russia stay in charge of its own future between now and roughly 2075 when the outside world crowds in more tightly every year?

NEW CALLS

The first step in solving the puzzle is to see that the traditional idea of sovereignty—the picture of a walled castle surrounded by a moat—is outdated. Political scientist Stephen Krasner even called sovereignty “organised hypocrisy” because leaders have always bent its rules when it suited them [1, p. 3]. Think of Catherine the Great hiring foreign officers to modernise her army or Soviet factories importing Western machines in the détente years; both cases quietly traded self‑reliance for a strategic upgrade. Three modern forces make the old walls even thinner. Digital interdependence is the first. Every smartphone sold in Russia contains designs from Britain’s ARM, code written in California, and rare‑earth minerals mined in Africa and refined in China. Trying to build a phone by yourself today would be like trying to dig your own metro tunnel with a spade—technically possible, but slow, expensive, and likely to flood. Global risks form the second force. A virus sneaks across airports in hours; wildfire smoke crosses borders in days; one country’s hacked server can freeze cash machines elsewhere. No state can close these doors without locking itself in as well. Polycentric rule‑making is the third force. Years ago only kings and diplomats wrote international rules. Now companies such as Apple define privacy norms, and city mayors sign climate pacts; their influence means that a country can no longer claim sole authorship over every standard its own citizens follow.

Because of these forces, modern sovereignty is more like a mixing desk than a drawbridge. Good policy is choosing which sliders to push up, which to mute, and when to swap inputs. Russia’s National Security Strategy 2021 hints at this idea by placing “information independence” and “technological leadership” next to classic goals such as border defence [2, c. 6;17]. The implication is clear: keeping hackers out of state servers may matter just as much as keeping tanks out of Kursk.

Yet the room for manoeuvre is not infinite. A first limit is demographics. The United Nations projects that Russia could lose nearly eighteen million citizens by 2050, while the share of people over sixty‑five may grow to a quarter of the population [3, p. 62]. An older society pays more pensions, needs more nurses, and has fewer young engineers to invent new goods. Some tasks—like patrolling thousands of kilometres of Arctic coast—require many healthy workers, and robots are not cheap enough to replace them yet. A second limit is economic structure. Oil and gas export taxes still fill almost one third of the federal budget [4, c. 28]. But the International Energy Agency’s Net‑Zero pathway suggests global oil demand could shrink by three‑quarters within thirty years. If barrels lose their buyers, the treasury loses its biggest piggy bank. A third limit is technology lag. Russia invests a bit over one percent of its GDP in research, while South Korea and Israel invest more than four percent [5, p. 10]. Domestic chip plants meet only a fraction of military and civilian needs. The Bank of Russia’s pilot “digital rouble” proves Moscow can build a high‑tech payment rail, yet the secure chips inside its smartcards rely partly on foreign patents [6, c. 24]. A fourth limit is climate impact. Melting permafrost threatens pipelines and runways; floods along the Lena and Yenisei swallow villages. Repair costs could swallow tens of billions of dollars by 2050, which squeezes funds available for new projects.

NETWORK SOVEREIGNTY

Faced with these limits, some voices argue for a “fortress” path—make almost everything at home, ban critical imports, and fall back on Soviet‑style substitution. That path offers quick headlines: factories reopen, unemployment dips, people feel a rush of self‑confidence. But the rush can fade. Between 2014 and 2022, when Western sanctions pushed Moscow to “do it alone,” home‑made machine tools improved but overall productivity barely moved. Russian airlines grounded part of their fleets because they could not legally buy spare parts. Asian case studies reinforce the lesson. Researchers at Seoul National University found that countries co‑writing global technical standards gained extra know‑how and raised GDP growth by about 0.6 percentage points per year compared with peers who walled themselves off [7, p. 17]. So isolation looks safe on paper but ends up costly and slow.

A more balanced answer is network sovereignty. Imagine dividing all national assets into red, yellow, and green zones. Red assets—nuclear command systems, top‑level encryption keys, central‑bank payment rails—must stay fully under national control, with backup parts stored in Siberian caves if needed. Yellow assets—like 5G networks, laser‑cutting machines, or vaccine plants—should mix domestic modules with friendly imports so that no single actor can shut them down. Green assets—tourism apps, online shopping, or pop culture—should stay wide open because the gains from exchange dwarf the risks. Russia’s pathway to 2075 becomes a game of shifting items from green toward yellow, and from yellow to red, only when value minus risk justifies the higher cost.

Four levers can turn this idea into practice. Joint technology projects rank first. Inside the expanded BRICS group, Russian engineers now team up with Chinese and Indian colleagues on open‑source “RISC‑V” chips nicknamed “Yangtze.” Once mass production begins near 2028, Russia will co‑own the design, dodge U.S. export bans, and still share the bill. Logistics diplomacy comes second. The Northern Sea Route carried thirty‑six million tonnes of cargo in 2023, beating state targets [8, c. 5]. Every ton pays an ice‑breaker fee and uses Russian satellite signals, which brings revenue and influence. Pushing traffic to eighty million tonnes by 2030 could stabilise Arctic towns and fund more ice‑breakers that double as rescue ships. Graceful‑degrade digital design is the third lever. The national cloud “Gosoblako” mirrors essential data centres inside several time zones; a Russian copy of the internet root zone lets hospitals and tax portals keep working if international cables fail. Instead of crashing, services would slow, giving engineers breathing space. Human capital renewal is the fourth lever. Inviting up to 300 000 skilled Central‑Asian migrants each year, easing citizenship for STEM graduates, and offering “digital nomad” visas to the Russian‑speaking diaspora can patch labour gaps without erasing cultural ties.

Of course, sceptics warn that any reliance on outsiders invites pressure. They cite the 2022 freeze on Western aircraft parts that forced Russian airlines to cannibalise planes for spares. But dependence can be spread. If Russia leases wide‑body jets jointly maintained with China’s COMAC and develops a domestic medium‑haul plane, no single vendor can ground the fleet. The same logic holds for chips: buying from Taiwan alone is risky; co‑developing with India and Malaysia shares the risk and rewards. When Russia helps write the rules for BRICS digital ID cards, excluding Moscow later would break the system for every member, raising the political cost of sanctions.

SCENARIOS 2040-2075

A first‑year student might wonder what the future really looks like. Think of three big sketches. Scenario A, Network Sovereign: by 2040 Russia fabricates seven‑nanometre chips in Tomsk, sells green hydrogen to South Asia, and manages Arctic shipping with an international coastguard it co‑commands. GDP per person climbs, inequality narrows, and Russian engineers chair some ISO and IEEE committees. Scenario B, Fragmented Dependency: oil exports fade faster than tech leaps forward; Russia swaps raw wood and LNG for foreign AI servers; budgets tighten; Moscow follows standards others set. Scenario C, Fortress Autarky: a wider blockade forces total substitution; domestic factories buzz at first, then stall because spare parts lag behind; many young innovators emigrate; cultural exports shrivel.

Which sketch becomes real depends heavily on narrative power. Sociologist Benedict Anderson called nations “imagined communities.” People keep paying taxes and serving in armies not merely for material perks but for a shared story. Russia’s story has long mixed Orthodox faith, Soviet victory pride, and an east‑west bridge identity. Lev Gumilev’s idea of the ethnosphere adds environmental passion. Updating that story for Gen‑Z Russians and foreign audiences means using soft‑power channels: Netflix‑style dramas, competitive video games, and free online courses. Rosatom’s nuclear MOOC reached 120 000 learners in India and Latin America last year, teaching Russian technical words along the way. A planned animated series about Arctic explorers could do the same for younger teens. Pairing culture with policy makes technology less scary: draft AI‑ethics rules that stress human well‑being over profit signal a middle path between Silicon‑Valley libertarianism and Beijing collectivism.

Turning ambition into action requires good timing. Regulatory sandboxes—zones that relax certain rules—let foreign biotech firms test medicines so long as patient data stay on Russian servers. This shows rule‑making, not rule‑taking. A Sovereign Technology Fund filled with extra oil revenue before prices slide can finance chip plants and quantum‑safe cryptography in exchange for strict milestones. Universities must double annual STEM doctorates to thirty‑five thousand by 2030 while flexible micro‑courses re‑train older workers every five years. Climate shields—raising Arctic port piers, re‑wetting drained peatlands to stop fires, and building small modular reactors for remote towns—protect both people and tax revenues. The digital rouble, set to launch nationwide in 2025, must plug into BRICS payment rails so exporters need not touch SWIFT. Finally, an online ice‑breaker booking portal with transparent pricing can smooth Northern Sea Route logistics, encouraging shippers to choose the colder but shorter path.

TOTAL

Seen in full, twenty‑first‑century sovereignty is no longer a fortress with stone walls; it is a control room of valves, switches, and screens. Shrinkage in population, pressure on carbon‑based income, and warmer winters may seem like walls closing in, yet they also reveal windows: new sea lanes, new energy markets, new talent pools. By holding tight to a few “red” systems, partnering on “yellow” systems, and staying open on “green” ones, Russia can keep the master key to its apartment while still sharing the lift and the Wi‑Fi. Ignore the balance, and the country risks becoming either a locked‑in tenant who hoards candles when the power goes out or a carefree host whose guests borrow the laptop and never return it. Future research should put price tags on domestic chip fabs, measure the innovation boost from diaspora engineers, and watch how rival AI‑ethics models shape world norms. For now, network sovereignty offers the most practical blend of safety and progress, giving Russia a chance not just to withstand global change but to help choreograph it.

References:

1. Краснер С. Д. Суверенитет: организованное лицемерие. — Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. — [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://press.princeton.edu/books/9780691070171/sovereignty  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
2. Стратегия национальной безопасности Российской Федерации 2021. — М., 2021. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/QZw6hSk5z9gWq0plD1ZzmR5cER0g5tZC.pdf  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
3. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. World Population Prospects 2024: Highlights. — New York, 2024. [Electronic resource] — Access mode. — URL: https://population.un.org/wpp  (accessed 26.04.2025).
4. Прогноз социально-экономического развития Российской Федерации на период до 2036 года. — М.: Минэкономразвития РФ, 2024. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://economy.gov.ru/material/directions/makroec/prognozy_socialno_ekonomicheskogo_razvitiya  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
5. UNESCO. UNESCO Science Report 2023. — Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2023. [Electronic resource] — Access mode. — URL: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000377468  (accessed 26.04.2025).
6. International Energy Agency. Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. — Paris, 2021. [Electronic resource] — Access mode. — URL: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050  (accessed 26.04.2025).
7. Банк России. Пресс-релиз: пилотное тестирование цифрового рубля расширяется. — 2023. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=20992  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
8. Госкорпорация «Росатом». Отчёт об устойчивом развитии Росатома за 2023 год. — 2024. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://www.report.rosatom.ru/go_eng/go_rosatom_eng_2023/rosatom_esg_2023_eng.pdf  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
9. Гумилёв Л. Н. Этногенез и биосфера Земли. — СПб., 1993. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://vmk78.narod.ru/Gumilev_Ethnogenez.pdf  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
10. Политическая многополярность против экономической однополярности (итоги 2018 г. и интриги 2019 г.) // Российский совет по международным делам. — 2019. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/political-multipolarity-vs-economic-unipolarity-2018-results-and-2019-intrigues  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
11. Anderson B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. — London: Verso, 2006. [Electronic resource] — Access mode. — URL: https://archive.org/details/imaginedcommunities (accessed 26.04.2025).
12. Castells M. Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society // International Journal of Communication. — 2007. — № 1. [Electronic resource] — Access mode. — URL: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/46  (accessed 26.04.2025).
13. Лукьянов Ф. А. Цифровой суверенитет и международная политика // Россия в глобальной политике. — 2021. — № 4. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/tsifrovoj-suverenitet/  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).
14. Зубаревич Н. В. Демографические риски долгосрочного развития России // Вопросы экономики. — 2022. — № 8. [электронный ресурс] — Режим доступа. — URL: https://www.vopreco.ru/rus/file.php?list=art&artid=3551  (дата обращения: 26.04.2025).