Former and O. Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar believes that if the American-style world scenario comes true, it will only be partially realized. He told Vlast columnist Nargiz Asadova what this part would be like.
"It's a stupid idea and it will never work"
— Will America be able to maintain leadership in the world by 2020?
— By 2020, it will be the world’s largest economy in terms of GDP, current exchange rates and even purchasing power parity. This is not only possible, it is highly probable. It is extremely unlikely that the world will remain monopolar. The fundamental question is how America and the West as a whole will be able to adapt to the fact that their share in world GDP will gradually decline. It will still be very large by 2020. But it will be significantly less than today. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is not, as you understand, my ideological hero, but when he wrote about uneven development as the most important factor provoking conflicts, if you look at what was happening from the point of view of today's knowledge, he was deeply right. This is truly a serious challenge, and primarily in relation to the elites of those countries that are leading.
— How will relations between the United States and China develop?
— The growth of China’s share in world GDP, like the growth of India, is a given. Overall, China was about 20-25 percent of the world economy for the previous three thousand years based on everything we know. It ceased to be so due to modern economic growth in Western Europe, and then in the Western European colonies. China is now simply gradually regaining its share of global GDP. What will restore is more than likely. That India, which also had about 20 percent of the world economy for several millennia, will regain its share is again more than likely. In this situation, it will be impossible to maintain peace from an economic point of view in the form in which it was formed after the Second World War. It is true that new breakthrough solutions will be needed. Obviously, this will not be easy to do due to the inertia of decision-making in a stable democracy.
— Will the US dollar remain a reserve currency?
— The reserve currency is indeed the US dollar to a large extent. This is a reflection of the fact that America's military capabilities are not comparable to those of other countries. If you look at how exchange rates react to an increase in some world tensions, then the traditional reaction in most cases is an increase in the exchange rate of the American currency. Precisely because financial market participants believe that the dollar is supported, among other things, by the military power of the United States. Unlike, say, Europe. If something is bad in the world, unless it is related to the American problems themselves in Iraq, the dollar rises. In this regard, of course, it is fairly certain that America will not be as militarily dominant a country in 20-30 years. The fact that in connection with this we will live in a different financial world is also obvious.
— But even there is a saying: “The dollar is a dollar in Africa too.” They don’t say about the yuan, “it’s a yuan in Africa too.”
“We’ll live to see people say: “The ruble is a ruble in Africa, just like the yuan is a yuan in Africa.”
— So there will be a lot of reserve currencies?
- Yes. In 20 years there will be more reserve currencies. There will be first class currencies, naturally, the dollar and the euro, the yuan and the yen. There will also be secondary currencies - the Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, ruble, pound sterling, real, also absolutely convertible, in which part of the reserves is held, just as we are now increasing our investments not related to the dollar and euro. What's important here is that it will be a different world that no one really understands for sure. The world has gone through a series of large-scale financial crises over the past 15 years. Perhaps the largest were the Mexican crisis, the debt crisis in Latin American countries in the early 1980s, the Mexican crisis of 1994, and the Southeast Asian crisis that spread to Russia and Brazil in 1997-1998. It is important to understand that very qualified economists, including those who worked in the bodies responsible for global financial stability, did not foresee any of them. The management of all three crises, in my opinion, was of very high quality, in all cases the right decisions were made to minimize long-term negative consequences. But the smartest people in the world I know did not foresee either this, or the other, or the third crisis. This simply shows that we live in a very uniquely structured world. You must always be flexible, you must always be ready for trouble, ready for crises and ready for the fact that you must give non-standard answers to non-standard questions.
— What non-standard answers should Russia give in conditions when the powerful United States is on one side, and China is growing stronger on the other?
“We are interested in good relations with America, we are interested in good relations with China, we are not interested in anyone playing the Russian card. If you allow yourself to be put in such a position, then after that your interests are at risk in any dispute between the main players of the 21st century world. And these will indeed, most likely, be America, Europe and China. Yes, we will be a fairly large and important player in the world, but we are structured in such a way that we do not need alliances directed against anyone. We don't need alliances with Europe against the States. This is a stupid idea and will never work. We don't need alliances with China against the States. We don't need alliances with the United States against China. We need a flexible foreign policy that allows us to adapt in this changing world and act in accordance with our national interests, and not with anything else.

"In the late Brezhnev period, oil prices were much higher"
— The scenario says that by 2020 the demand for energy resources will increase significantly in China, the USA, and Europe. The Russian elite is already beginning to blackmail Europe, saying that if you don’t want to sell us your pipes, we will sell gas to China. What could such a policy lead to?
— In my opinion, such a policy is stupid. The smartest thing I've heard about oil prices came from my good friend Anne Kruger, a wonderful economist and first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Anya said that as long as the vast majority of analysts and market participants believe that abnormally high oil prices are for a short period, they will remain high. When the majority of market participants believe that they will be abnormally high for a long time, they will collapse. Which is the absolute truth. This is due to how the market is structured, how commodity markets are structured in general, and how the oil market is structured in particular. In technical terms, the elasticities of supply and demand in these markets are radically different in the short and long term. That is, if tomorrow the price of gasoline triples, you will curse the government with terrible curses, but you will not stop driving to work. But if you realize that this is going to last for a long time, you will seriously think about switching to a car that is fueled by gas, hydrogen, whatever. Have we seen abnormal oil prices? Yes, during the late Brezhnev period they were much higher than now, in real terms. And then everyone thought: now we will finish them off. This was the day before they fell eightfold. Doing the same thing again? In my opinion, you have to be a stunning idiot to do this.
— In accordance with the scenario, by 2020 Europe will become an unconditional ally of the United States. Is this possible?
— Anti-American sentiment is very strong in Europe, because there are a large number of people who sincerely and deeply do not like America. Therefore, it is quite difficult to imagine a Europe that would immediately side with the United States in any world conflicts. This is the first one. Second: Europe itself is now in a state of quite deep political crisis after the referendums in France and Holland.
— Some talk about the socio-economic crisis of Europe.
— There is no deep socio-economic crisis in Europe now. There is another problem - Europe, like the United States, like Japan, is faced with global challenges of the first half of the 21st century. An aging population, a reduction in the working-age workforce, an increase in the number of pensioners, an increase in healthcare costs against the backdrop of limited financial opportunities. The need for migrants who are wanted as bus drivers and not wanted as neighbors.
— Who will be responsible for security in the future multipolar world?
— There is no basis for an accurate forecast. If we discuss this topic at the scenario level, we must understand that, after all, the USA, Europe, China, India, and Russia are, despite all their problems, fairly stable countries with developing economies. They are not interested in escalating conflicts among themselves, which could lead to military confrontation. But there are other countries that are not stable, that have serious social and cultural problems, and where there may be outbursts of the kind of radicalism that characterized the first half of the twentieth century. Neither the United States, nor Europe, nor Russia, nor China needs a surge of Islamic fundamentalism that results in wars, nuclear blackmail, and the threat of terrorist attacks. In this regard, we may not love each other, but we have objective interests. Did Churchill love Stalin or the Stalinist regime? But on June 22, he said he would do anything to help the Soviet Union. He simply understood perfectly well that we were in the same boat. If we look at the issue from a strategic point of view, we, Americans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese, have a common interest in ensuring that the process of transforming Islamic societies into prosperous and stable societies goes smoothly. But it would not result in a series of dangerous confrontations and conflicts.

Magazine "Kommersant Power" No. 21 dated May 29, 2006, p. 42

"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was deeply right"