National Security And National Interests: Phenomenological Characteristics

Abstract

The article raises the questions of the phenomenological characteristics and legal correlation of the concepts of "national interests" and "national security". The doctrinal and conceptual features of the consolidation of national interests in the modern Russian legal system are highlighted and the priorities for the formation of a system of national interests are identified, the optimal ways of forming a system of national interests through an integrated model are proposed, which ensures the adequate inclusion of objectively national interests, the creation of legal mechanisms for their protection and implementation. The effectiveness of international legal mechanisms for ensuring the national interests of Russia on a regional and global scale has been investigated and evaluated, the priorities of international legal cooperation in the context of ensuring national security and protecting national interests have been determined. The problem of effectively ensuring national security is currently one of the key problems for Russia, being, in fact, both a condition and a goal of reforming in all spheres of state and public life, which, ultimately, should be subordinated to the comprehensive strengthening of Russia's sovereignty. preservation of its territorial integrity and observance of national interests. The author analyzes the issues of the formation of the historical, philosophical and legal definition of the concept of security in a retrospective aspect. It is concluded that the protection of national interests is, in fact, the main content of national security.

Keywords: National interests, national security, theoretical and methodological approach, implementation mechanism, ensuring national security, protecting national interests

Introduction

The relevance of the research topic is due to the theoretical and practical significance of problematic issues related to the optimization of the processes of formation and functioning of the mechanism of legal support for national security and the implementation of national interests in the context of modern Russian statehood.

This study is the author's attempt to systematically analyze the conceptual, regulatory, organizational and instrumental-functional aspects, which together form a mechanism for ensuring national security and national interests of Russia. The range of issues raised and considered in this work indicates the multifaceted nature of the problem under study, its scientific and applied significance, as well as a high degree of demand for the results obtained during the study.

Problem Statement

Scattered ideas about the state interest and the organizational and legal mechanisms for its implementation received a well-known conceptual integrity in the works of Hobbes (1989), Hegel and Locke (1988), Kant (1966). In Russian legal science of the pre-revolutionary period, certain issues related to the mechanism for ensuring state interests were considered by such leading criminologists and legal scholars as Gradovsky (1873), Novgorodtsev (1901, 1908), Ilyin (1911), In the Soviet and modern period, Abalkin (2014), Alekseeva (2015), Afinogenov (2020), Baburin (2000), Belkov (1994), Bushuev (2018), Verbitskaya (2005), Vozzhennikov (2016), Zelenkov (2003), Idrisov (2002), Molchanov (2017), Pastukhov (2010), Sokolov (2013), Trukhanov (2016), Khmelevsky (2011), Tsygichko (2007), Shakhovsky (2020), Shcherbakovsky (2019) addressed to the general theoretical and law enforcement aspects of this problem. Noting the sufficient scientific study of certain problematic issues related to the understanding, essence and content of the phenomena of "national security" and "national interests", it should be noted that until now in the domestic legal science there are no works devoted to the complex perception of the structural and functional aspects of the mechanism of ensuring national security through the processes of realizing national interests in modern Russia. The presented scientific work is intended to fill this gap.

Research Questions

In theoretical and legal science, political practice, the implementation of national interests is closely related to the problem of national security. The term "security" itself has a fairly broad scope of application. At the level of public consciousness, the concept of "safety" is defined as the absence of danger, the state and measure of the subject's protection from threats, damage or evil and is used in relation to a variety of processes, both natural and social. At the same time, it reflects not only the specific signs of the phenomenon of safety in a particular field of activity, but also includes that general, stable, which is characteristic of all areas of society's life. The general point is that security, as a condition and strategy of protection, is aimed, ultimately, at the survival of the social system, individual, society and state.

The object of the research is social relations developing in the field of ensuring national security through the implementation of the national interests of modern Russia. The subject of research in the complex is made up of concepts and principles that characterize the concepts of "national interest" and "national security"; factors that pose a threat to the national security of modern Russia; formal and substantive aspects of the formation, structure and functioning of the national security system of the Russian Federation; the state of scientific developments in the field of social and legal relations, as well as promising areas of optimization in the designated area of social and political life.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study was to create a theoretical and legal model of the mechanism for ensuring national interests within the framework of the concept of national security of the Russian Federation. To achieve this goal, a set of tasks was solved: various aspects of the category of "national interest" were considered in relation to theoretical and legal research; the ideological and philosophical origins of the concept of "national interest" were analyzed, as well as various aspects of the relationship between national interests and national security in modern Russia; the phenomenological characteristics of national security and national interests were presented.

Research Methods

When solving the tasks, the author relied on modern methods of cognition, identified and developed by philosophical science and approved by legal practice. The research is based on the principles of cognition of social phenomena, which make it possible to reflect the relationship between theory and practice, the form and content of the research subject, the development process and qualitative changes in the phenomena under consideration. In the course of the study, priority was given to special legal methods of cognition, among which the methods of comparative legal analysis, theoretical legal modeling, legal diagnostics, interpretation of legal texts, and legal statistics should be distinguished.

Findings

The conducted research allows saying that security is one of the most important conditions for the existence of any system, it cannot act as a goal (for a democratic system of values, such a goal is the welfare of society and its individual citizens). But being a condition for achieving the goal, security simultaneously expresses a certain state of the social system and is directly related to the protection of state interests.

Thus, we can say with confidence that national security is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that requires consideration: in the spatial relation as a part of international security, it is used to refer to security within a particular country (its borders); applied to the national interests of citizens of a particular country it is used as a position in which the most essential interests of a person and society are protected from threats that may appear within the state and coming from outside; applied to threats of a military nature it is used as a state of protection of the state from the likelihood of a war or from other challenges of independent evolution; applied to the independence of a country it is used as a position in which the integrity of its territories is protected and the opportunity to be an independent subject of interstate relations is provided.

The key methods of studying the content and essence of the category of "national security" currently existing in Russian science are identical to the prevailing understanding of its essence in the world. Modern scientific thought has identified the main patterns of the formation of this concept and proved that in the structure of power in Russia, this category is used in its most progressive sense. This serves as a guarantee that government agencies will take into account different nuances of the process of creating conditions for the implementation of national security, starting with its classical components (defense, state security) and ending with the currently relevant components (security in relation to the preservation of cultural values, security in the economic sphere, social security).

Conclusion

Regarding the current state of the mechanism for ensuring national interests, one should state its low efficiency due to the fact that the elimination or noticeable neutralization of a significant part of the existing threats does not occur. Nevertheless, it can be noted that the modern Russian state is making quite definite efforts to improve the mechanism for ensuring national interests and ensuring national security.

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