The hawk of the world

More recently, Sergey Borisovich Ivanov was considered one of the most promising figures of the domestic elite. For a long time they connected the “tough” line of Russian foreign policy, which found its extreme embodiment in the famous Munich’s speech by Vladimir Putin in 2007. However, the speech of Ivanov himself last year in Munich surprised experts with the softness of the formulations, the willingness to make concessions to the West. And the domestic political status of the First Deputy Prime Minister has experienced certain adjustments over the past year. Now Ivanov is flying to Munich again to designate the foreign policy priorities of Russia to an influential international club. Is it worth waiting for a return to the hard line?

NOTPIC SIVIVIK

From today's positions it is not easy to understand what was based on the image of Ivanov as the “main hawk” of the Russian Federation . It is enough to analyze the rather frequent public performances and an interview with Ivanov of the period of 2000-2007 to make sure of the doubtfulness of such a thesis. One of the most serious challenges of that period was the notorious expansion of NATO east. Ivanov’s most inadvertible expression on this occasion is “ we were simply deceived .” However, in an interview with Spiegel (2006), Ivanov says literally the following: “ The Baltic countries, as sovereign states, have the right to determine in which military-political blocs they are or not to be ... I do not dispute the right of any independent state to enter or not join NATO. And Russia is not that it cannot, but it will not counteract this. This is not our question . " It is enough to project this statement to the current situation with the possible entry into NATO Georgia and Ukraine, and the question of Ivanov’s “habitability” will hang in the air.

We add that it was when Ivanov to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation that the Ministry of Defense “surrendered” Lourdes and Kamran and hastened to withdraw GRVZ from Georgia without ratification of the State Duma. However, public opinion stubbornly made a native of the “power structures” from Ivanov’s “weapons”.

Some Ivanov’s statements give reason to believe that his approach to “security” was not only more global and strategic than this is characteristic of the military, but also quite pro -Western. “ I do not see the point for Russia to maintain a large number of troops there (in the Leningrad Military District. - K.B. ),” he said in an interview with Spiegel magazine. “ After all, they are needed in the south, in the Far East .” It is appropriate to recall that Ivanov was one of the first - back in 2000 - paid attention to the problem of strengthening the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and the need to support the Northern Alliance .

Thus, the “doctrine of Ivanov”, if it is generally appropriate to talk about it as an independent intellectual trend, considers Islamic fundamentalism, international terrorism and (probably) growing military potential of China as the main threats of Russia's security.

True, in the summer of 2007, the tone of Ivanov’s rhetoric has changed dramatically. In July 2007, he stated that Russia has an “asymmetric response to the deployment of pro in the Czech Republic and Poland” - “place missile weapons in the European part of the country, including Kaliningrad”. However, the experts rightly considered that this statement was made within the framework of the actual presidential campaign.

The victim of black PR

As soon as the prospects of Sergei Ivanov to be appointed “successor number one” took real forms, his numerous opponents who launched a discredit campaign against the first vice were activated in the media and expert communities. Everyone remembered Ivanov: both the failed military reform, and the case of Andrei Sychev, and even the construction company “Social Initiative”, which, as it turned out, was attitude to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. An incident with the son of Ivanov, Sergey, who knocked down a pedestrian on the roadway, was removed from the archives. The scale of the campaign could not but cause surprise.

In the conditions of the information attack, the first Deputy Prime Minister himself was certainly interested in maintaining and even emphasizing his image of the Hawk, which was on protecting the interests of Russia in confrontation with the West. But this position was used by Ivanov’s opponents to discredit it in the eyes of the forces in the West to which they listened in the Kremlin. ("Putin's successor will be even more warlike than Putin himself.")

Of course, the main addressee of the campaign of the Anti -Yivan PR was not the electorate, but Vladimir Putin himself: it was to him that the idea was imposed that Ivanov was potentially “uncommunicative”.

Shortly after Dmitry Medvedev was elected a single candidate from the Party of Power, Ivanov made his “pigeon” Munich speech, which designated the next change of his image. Western experts (and a number of Russian) expected from him the development of a tough line, designated in 2007 by Putin, but their forecasts did not come true. Ivanov, in particular, said that Russia will achieve its strategic goals not by creating any military units, but by developing multi-vector cooperation with other countries. It is important that this statement sounded from the lips of a person with whom many associated the integration of Russia into the SCO structure.

Bureaucrat vs politician

According to political scientist Igor Bunin, Ivanov was not so much a “hawk” as a man who was instructed to portray a “hawk”.

“ At that time (2007) , he was a symbol of the hawk line. But - a symbol. He was entrusted, or he took on this symbolic role. But after this hawk song is over, I think he will say how everyone else should say , ”the political scientist said.

The fact that Ivanov does not have his own firm position is also convinced by the famous journalist Julia Latynina. “ Sergey Borisovich Ivanov cannot be suspected of having his own views, just as it is impossible to suspect of his own views, say, Sergeant Glukhov. Views imply a certain understanding of reality. And this person says: “I don’t know”, “they didn’t report me” and “you want to discredit me .”

However, it seems that this is an extremely simplified look at the problem. Sergei Ivanov, obviously, is the expressor of the views of a fairly influential group of technocrats of a completely western sense (to which Putin himself can be attributed). This group, which focuses mainly on old Europe (Germany, Great Britain, France), differs from both pro-American liberals and hypothetical patriots-Eurasians. It should be noted that Ivanov himself never publicly identified himself with this group, but his position regarding the “Western” and “southern” threats speaks for itself.

In this sense, the Munich speech - 2008, perhaps more consistent with Ivanov’s worldview, than the “hawk” role that they tried to impose in 2007. However, with Ivanov’s departure from the hard line, a rare possibility of diversification of political roles in the top leadership of Russia was lost. For all its convention, the Medvedev-Liberal, Ivanov-hawk, Putin-statesman-arbitrator, made it possible to calibrate foreign-policy tools depending on topical tasks. Now the space for the maneuver has dramatically narrowed. According to Igor Bunin’s forecast, from the current speech of Ivanov in Munich you should not wait for sensations. “ Speaking in Davos, the Prime Minister pronounces a rather liberal, open to the west and acts, rather, like a Westernist ... Therefore, if Sergey Ivanov will go to Munich, and will come up with a repeat of Putin’s Munich’s speech, and will pronounce the thesis opposite to Putin’s thesis, it will be nonsense .”

A completely enlightened, technocratic -thinking bureaucrat in 2007 received the rare opportunity in Russia to become an influential politician. However, he preferred the loyalty of political independence . Perhaps this corresponded to the features of his character and his real position on international issues, not very different from the one that is customary in Russia to be called "liberal".