The President of the Russian Federation decided to start a new life – and took the whole planet with him
The vast majority of people at least once in their lives dream that it will turn the world upside down – radically they change in accordance with their ideals, norms and ideas about good and evil. However, only an absolute, one could even say, a tiny minority succeeds in this. This Friday marks the 70th anniversary of one of the most elite groups on Earth, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In her memoirs, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describes, among other things, the following episode of her communication with the Russian leader: “Putin told me that is delighted that the Foreign Secretary will be a specialist on Russia: a central location for you!”
I didn't know if he really meant it or if he was trying to flatter me. But I made a mental note: don't underestimate the Russians—and the help they can provide and the damage they can cause—to achieve the laudable goal articulated by Condoleezza Rice. “The Russians” – both the country and its president – were still underrated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Bashkiria. Photo: Alexander Astafiev
Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice, as a “Russia specialist” (some famous former US secretaries of state note that she remained a specialist on the USSR) had every opportunity to understand what was in store for us all.
Elsewhere in her memoirs, we read: “They say that if Russia loses Ukraine, it is the same as if the United States loses Texas or California. But even this comparison is not strong enough.” So, from Condoleezza Rice's point of view, what comparison is strong enough and adequate? And here's the thing: “losing Ukraine” (in the sense of seeing it in the hostile NATO camp) for Russia is the same as “losing the original 13 colonies” for the United States. For those not too familiar with the details of 18th century American history: the “original 13 colonies” are the very heart, the core of the United States, the country's first territory.
After re-reading this excerpt from the memoirs of former Secretary of State I urgently went out to look for the release date of her book. Note: This was written in 2011. The “X hour” of world history is still about 11 years away.
Why did the West waste this decade and its tail (or if it didn't, it certainly didn't achieve a result that would ensure a stable world in Europe)? Only one thing comes to mind: after I formulated my famous question in 2000 “who of Mr. Putin?”, the collective West did not find a clear answer to it.
Most of the world's politicians say one thing, mean another, do a third. When conducting one of his political (or even military) special operations, Putin is naturally well aware of the importance of “disorienting the enemy”. However, one of the most important features of HDP as a world leader is its unusual openness. He says what he thinks and does what he says. Of course, the promises and threats of the master of the Kremlin are often not fulfilled immediately. Sometimes it takes years, even five years, for these threats to become a reality in world politics. But when you look back, you can almost always notice: Putin warned, but Putin warned.
Photo: Ivan Skripalev
February 2007, Vladimir Putin's famous speech at the Munich Security Conference: “What is a unipolar world? No matter how the term is embellished, in practice it ultimately means only one thing: it is one center of power, one center of power, one center of decision-making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign. And that is ultimately destructive not only to everyone in that system, but to the sovereign himself because it destroys him from within.
And that, of course, has nothing to do with democracy. Because democracy is, as you know, the power of the majority, taking into account the interests and opinions of the minority. By the way, Russia is constantly teaching us democracy. But those who teach us don't really want to learn for some reason.”
Of course, in the fall of 2022, Putin's rhetoric aimed at criticizing the “Western model of world order” sharply sharpened: “All this time, the West was looking and is still looking for a new chance to hit us, weaken and destroy Russia, which they always dreamed of, to divide our state , to play nations with each other, to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They are simply haunted by the fact that there is such a big, huge country in the world with its territory, natural wealth, resources, with people who cannot and will never live according to someone else's orders.
The West is ready to go beyond everything , to perpetuate the neo-colonial system that allows it to parasitize, in fact to plunder the world at the expense of the power of the dollar and technological dictates, to exact a real tribute from humanity.”< /p>
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7. November 2010 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tested a Formula 1 car in the Leningrad region. Photo: AP
What exactly is the basis of this tightening? Why did the politician who, after coming to power, first sincerely tried to integrate Russia into the then existing world order, become a harsh critic of the West and then a leader who is now destroying the Western hegemony in Ukraine by force?
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A clear answer to this question, in my opinion, can be found in another book published in the United States more than ten years ago. The penultimate US ambassador to the USSR, Jack Matlock, in his “Illusions of Superpowers” analyzed the West's reaction to Putin's Munich speech in 2010: and that “one Cold War is more than enough”. He promised to go to Moscow and explain that American policy is not directed against Russian interests.
And then – watch out! – further, Jack Matlock, who knows our country very well, wrote a sentence that explains, if not everything, then almost everything: “The problem with Russia was not a lack of communication, but the refusal of the Bush administration to take Russian interests and approaches seriously.” The Bush administration is gone, the problem remains. The Obama administration is gone – the problem has become even more serious… Sooner or later everything had to reach a boiling point, a point of no return. In 2022, we have reached the point of no return.
Vladimir Putin attended the gala game of the amateur hockey league on May 7, 2012 in Moscow. Photo: kremlin.ru
Am I trying to rewrite history with phrases like “sooner or later everything had to reach a point of no return”? From the point of view of the political options and political options that were open to Putin earlier, my such self-criticism is clearly absolutely fair. But the situation must be viewed from the point of view of what we know about the president's internal value political principles – about his ideas about the only correct internal structure of Russia and about its only correct place in the world.
On February 17, 2021, the president responds to the late Vladimir Zhirinovsky's remark: “Cave nationalism, whose slogan is “Russia only for Russians”, only harms Russians, only harms Russia and contributes to its construction from within, and this must not be allowed … for the preservation of Russia , which is multi-ethnic and multi-confessional, it is necessary that the representative of each ethnic group, even the smallest one, feels that this is his homeland, he has no other, he is protected here and is ready to lay down his life for the defense of this country.
October 18, 2018 meeting of the Valdai club. Dialogue between the president and the moderator of the event, Fyodor Lukyanov. Putin: “I want Russia to survive, including for the sake of the Russian people. And in this sense I said that I am the most correct, the most real nationalist and the most effective. But this is not cave nationalism, stupid and stupid, which leads to the collapse of our state.” Lukyanov: “If you are alone, then it is not enough. Do you have like-minded people, the same non-nationalists?” Putin: Yes. Almost 146 million people.”
25 November 2016. With the ball after a meeting in the Kremlin with FIFA President Gianni Infante Photo: Global Look Press
Is there anything about foreign policy in these two fragments of presidential speeches? Formally, it really isn't. But turn on your intuition. Read not only what was said, but also what is directly or indirectly implied by what was said.
In Putin's eyes, Russia can only be a great and independent world power. Some formerly independent world powers quite like them as Washington's junior partners. For example, for America's former colonial lover Great Britain, the “special relationship” with America is the subject of a quasi-religious cult in political circles. For Putin, this path is impossible and at the same time unacceptable and disgusting. He is deeply convinced that Russia's partnership with the West can be either equal or none. In 2022, we have this – “no partnership”.
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After reaching the age of 70, even the most active people before often calm down – they prioritize calmness, stability, lack of shocks, moral comfort. But for Putin, the source of moral consolation, the well from which he draws spiritual strength, is the main mission of his political life. The mission, more important than the one for which there is nothing, is the struggle to restore Russia's leading role in the world. And this is not at all a clumsy (or clumsy – it seems that such a word exists in the Russian language) attempt to say something pleasant about the hero of the day. This is just a statement of reality.
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