To Deal with the West, Moscow Must have Western Studies Specialists, Fursov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 3 – Russia has German studies and experts on Germany. It has French studies and experts on France. But it does not have Western studies and thus experts on the West as a whole, Andrey Fursov says, because the only way Russia can advance its own interests is if it understands the precise nature of its opponent.

            The senior Russian scholar at the Moscow Institute for Fundamental and Applied Research argues that the lack of the field of Western studies in Russia today and the consequent lack of Russian specialists on the West as opposed to parts of it represent serious handicaps (dzen.ru/a/Y4Tciwp3LiOLB2vI reposted at centrasia.org/newsA.php?st=1669907880).

            According to Fursov, a special field of scholarship on the West is “vital for us to have the conceptual language adequate to existing reality so that we can correctly understand the emerging world and be able to compete for a place in it.” If Russia does not develop such expertise, he suggests, it risks falling further behind and losing the competition.