On reflecting the experience of the past in fundamental policy decisions guiding legal regulation

Abstract

The decisions of the domestic sovereign power regarding the collapse of the USSR and overcoming the international isolation of Russia organized by some states are evaluated as examples of ignoring and reflecting this experience. The reasoning is as follows. In the first case, due to the ignorance of the leaders of the domestic sovereign power, the experience of preserving a single state by the former North American English colonies in order to avoid conflicts between them, including armed ones, expressed in the formation of the United States, is not taken into account. Such ignorance is considered as one of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR. In the second case, the experience of the transformation of the system of international relations after the collapse of the Roman Empire is taken into account, which made it possible for not the strongest states to better realize their own interests by developing ties with several of the most powerful countries established in the world at that time, which implies the impossibility of international isolation for each of the latter. Due to the similarity of this transformation to the transition from US domination in the international arena after the collapse of the USSR to the modern “multipolar” world, not the strongest states now have the opportunity to realize their own interests better than under the noted domination, communicating with all the “poles” of today’s world, including Russia. This explains Russia’s current success in interacting with so many countries. As for the fight against the discussed ignoring of the experience of the past, although it is impossible to completely exclude it due to the fragmentary nature of the established history and the physical impossibility for a person to know even the known, it is proposed to raise the political culture of the participants of the sovereign power, which is guaranteed by a high-quality political science and legal education. This applies not only to decision-makers, but above all to their advisers-scientists, to whom they have to turn for knowledge of politics due to lack of time for independent knowledge of the past. At the same time, the forms of treatment may be different.