The results of the week. Circus of lame ducks

The annual Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (Swap) is an extremely useful event. Firstly, because it is almost the only expert platform in the country where carriers of fundamentally different views perform. Secondly, the choice of the topic of discussion very accurately demonstrates a change in the main trends in Russian foreign and domestic policy. I remember how a few months before the official proclamation of the “rebooting” the head of the foreign policy department precisely at the swap assembly suddenly stated that Russia is an integral part of the Euro -Atlantic community than plunged into a stupor of professional wrestlers with the West. Thirdly, the Assembly of the swap gives an idea of ​​the state of minds in what is customary to call the Russian elite.

The Assembly, passing in the last weekend, was somewhat disappointed. Maybe the chosen topic is to blame for this - they discussed the role of culture in modernization. Each of the speakers spoke of something of his own-from the Orthodox matrix of Russian national consciousness to the habit of double and the mandatory veneration of the authorities developed within the framework of this very matrix. It was obvious that people were talking about too much. Another was struck: the notebooks of the swap speakers, who are not feeding, do not Poy, but give me only to declare their position, both days were silent in a rag. Moreover, the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (unfortunately, I can’t give direct quotes) was extremely vague even for a diplomat.

“Why are you surprised? - one of my wise experience of interlocutors grinned, - everyone has one thing on his mind. And this is not a culture and not foreign policy at all. Everyone considers his own personal Exit Strategy. ” This is a military diplomatic term that implies the country's exit from the fighting with the least losses (it is currently most often used in relation to the upcoming NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014). And I realized that outstanding liberal and conservative thinkers are oppressed by the same thought: how to survive without serious losses to the inauguration of the next president. Then in May, of course, he will be called a light of democracy and a great lumber of thought. The thing is how to guess it here and now.

But go guess when both participants in the tandem (one of which, about horror, as if in a few months will turn out to be a “lame duck”), arranged some strange dance with amazing verbal twists, which should show a potential competing friend for a “serious conversation”. Answering a hundred and fifth time to the question about the presidential election in 2012, Medvedev suddenly spoke, scary to say, about his differences with Putin: “We can simply see methods and ways to achieve this prosperity in different ways. But this is democracy, this is competition. ” What, huh? Competition with V.V. True, the question remains, and who, in fact, will summarize this competition. So I see, in August in Sochi Vova and Dima are found in August in order to discuss the economic and social situation in the country and decide who will have to fade away the next six years. And Vladimir Vladimirovich says: “Yes, as the only voter in the country, I admit that in the process of honest political competition you, Dima, defeated me. Your chatter on innovation and modernization looks preferable to my roar about maintaining stability by any means. Come on, the right. " He will say, hug, wept. And he will allow the FSO officers to release the future president from his residence ...

But this will happen only at the end of summer. In the meantime, the intrigue must be maintained. No, not because the national leader himself does not know how to get out of the situation, which he created. Everything is much simpler. “But before the election is almost a year, and this bustle around the elections does not contribute to the normal organization of work. Now, if we now give some wrong signals, half of the administration and more than half of the government will stop working in anticipation of some changes, ”the prime minister said, casually evaluating his own abilities in the selection of personnel.

Putin pretends not to see: the closer to the elections, the more the Russian elite falls into a stupor. Everyone is puzzled by the way, as if by any action or a word, not to offend the future chief boss. After all, it is possible that all these dancing of lame ducks is another check that the retired KGB lieutenant colonel, out of habit, arranges to associates. He was curled up in front of me by 20 centimeters, and in front of Medvedev - at 21, we cross out from the list. And if they crossed out (and someone is crossed out for sure), then here is another Exit Strategy-to take money and legs. It is far from the fact that the new president will let someone leave as easy as Luzhkov. And God forbid, in the spring - floods, and in the summer - fires again. No one will move a finger. Indeed, during the period of election schizophrenia, excessive efficiency may turn out to be a minus for a particular official.

Tired of all this, the right word. The elite was exhausted. Tandem rushes. Give autocracy!

Collage hedgehog