Triumph of Caesar

Some observers directly write that Vladimir Putin is preparing for a big war. I don't believe it. Even the most frostbitten politicians are unlikely to consciously choose such an exotic method of suicide. However, this does not mean that war is completely impossible. Her threat is large enough today.

Apparently, the main goal of Putin’s performance at the session of the UN General Assembly will be an attempt to justify the Russian intervention in Syria. However, the true cause of Russian intervention is not the desire to take part in the fight against the Islamic State (as the President of Russia will most likely be approved), but the new expansionist course of Russia's foreign policy. Back in the early 1990s, the ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky wrote the book "The Last Throw to the South" , in which he outlined a new (in fact-well-forgotten old) direction of Russian expansion to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Then it seemed to the fantasies of the marginal, now it is the Russian political mainstream. Putin’s Syrian campaign was inspired by such thoughts, which creates another growth factor for the military threat in the world.

Total militaristic propaganda gave rise to a cheerful hysterical hysteria in Russian society, with which the authorities cannot but be reckoned with. After Crimea, people demand from their Caesar new triumphs. Putin will have to fight and win in the Donbass, in Syria or in some other place, otherwise the population will be disappointed in it. This is a vicious circle from which it is so easy to get out.

After all, the Nazi elite did not want a new world war. Hitler initially sought to return to Germany what he considered his own, that is, the territory of the German Empire and part of the lands of Austria-Hungary, which the Germans (including the Austrians) lost as a result of defeat in the First World War. Hitler hoped to return these territories without a new global clash with former opponents. And at first it succeeded: Austria, the Sudeters, the Czech Republic were captured almost without resistance, in Austrian and Sudetian cases - even with the enthusiasm of most local population. Further, the Führer wanted to return Germany Danzig and the Polish Corridor. At the same time, Hitler, until the last, hoped that the Englishmen and the French would force the Poles to agree to German demands and would not be a military clash with Poland ( he writes about this in memoirs , for example, Joachim von Ribbentrop).

The fact that Putin of a big war, of course, does not want, does not mean that his policy does not lead to war

However, this does not mean that Hitler was not to blame for the unleashing of the war. On the contrary, it was the policy of Germany to the war, determined by the personal qualities of the Fuhrer and his views on the world. It is absolutely clear that even if the Poles agreed to German demands in 1939, this would only have fallen to Hitler's appetites, and he would continue the expansion. And the fact that Putin of the Great War, of course, does not want, does not mean that his policy does not lead to war. Just the opposite, Putin’s policy really threatens to preserve the world. Putin, like Hitler in the past, believes that he takes "his": Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Donbass. But for him - not only these relatively small enclaves, but also the whole of Ukraine, and in general everything that was previously under the control of the Russian Empire or the USSR. Therefore, Putin will try to gradually squeeze all new "original Russian lands", as well as any strategically important territories (such as Syria), until the Kremlin regime crawls. Such a political course is inevitable, it is due to the worldview and personal qualities of the ruling Russian elite and its leader.

The incompetent elites who have emerged from the criminal world or power structures (which in some countries is almost the same), are often carried away by semi -craft ideas that make them lead an aggressive policy fraught with military clashes. Such elites form dictatorial regimes, the leaders of which, having concentrated power in their hands, lose their adequacy and ability to self -criticism. Such countries become a source of a military threat, this applies to Italy of the Mussolini era, and Hitler Germany, and to the Stalin USSR, and to the regimes closer to us in time, Libya under Gaddafi or North Korea under the Kima family.

The same reasons why the Nazi bonzes led the world to war today give rise to a military threat from Putin's Russia. The first of them is a focus on strength and the usual criminal practices. For many years, Hitler and his entourage fought for power by criminal methods, with the same methods they turned the country into a terrorist dictatorship. It is no accident that there were many former criminals among the Nazis. The Putin’s elite is also criminal and corrupt, it is criminal even from the point of view of its own laws that it openly tramples. The murders of Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Nemtsov - only the apex of the iceberg terror visible to the world against the objectionable. The secret Putin war against Ukraine can be qualified as a particularly dangerous crime not only according to international law, but also under Russian law. Acting on the world arena the usual methods of criminal violence for themselves, the rulers of Russia (like Hitler Germany in the past) create a real threat to a global war.

Another source of inadequate aggressiveness is ignorance that generates faith in delusional conspiracy theories, archaic primitive views on the world. Hitler firmly believed in the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy against Germany. The role of world Jewry in Putin's mythology is given to the United States. It is in the mythical American conspiracy against Russia that Putin sees the reason for most of his problems: from the Ukrainian revolution to falling oil prices. All this would be harmless eccentricity if Putin had not been an authoritarian ruler of a nuclear power. A permanent confrontation with the American "windmills" can develop into a real military clash.

The belief of dictators in different geopolitical nonsense is no less dangerous: about the living space for the Germans, the "Russian world", the confrontation of the continental and Atlantic countries, the "Eurasian" and "Atlantic" civilization. These myths, replacing the dictators that lack a fundamental education in them, fit well on criminal experience, which makes others divide others into potential enemies and victims. Hitler did not understand that Germany, in order to provide himself with food and other resources, needed not a new living space, but a scientific and technical revolution (as the Federal Republic of Germany later demonstrated). Putin does not realize that Russia needs not new territories of the "Russian world", but the development of the creative and entrepreneurial activity of the population, capable of solving the problems facing the country.

Another problem that poses a threat to war is the mania of the greatness of dictators. In conditions of complete uncontrolled power, it leads to reckless decisions. Like a blind driver, the dictator rushes into the abyss. So it was with Hitler; The same, I am afraid, is happening to Putin. The aggressor is not able to unleash a large war without the connivance of the surrounding world. The policy of the aggressor country resembles the behavior of an arrogant boyfriend attached to the beauty: "It already allows you to kiss myself-I will try to fill it into bed." While the aggressor does not encounter hard development, it will advance. The Russian president has repeatedly demonstrated that any concessions are perceived by him as an invitation to expand the expansion. But the patience of the international community is not infinite.

Putin goes to New York to talk about the world, while trying to justify the new Russian expansion, this time in Syria. Apparently, he will impose himself for the world as a fighter with an Islamic threat. Apparently, he hopes in this way to get the remission of old sins (primarily in Ukraine) and carte blanche to continue expansion, including the expansion of the Russian military presence in the Middle and Middle East. However, the Putin regime is not able to play a peacekeeping role. The usual lies and violence as methods for achieving imperial goals cannot lead to the world.

If even Putin sincerely wanted peace, it would not hurt him to go to a new war

All this combination is a trivial deception, a two-way trap. It is clear that Putin does not need stability in the Middle East - it works to reduce oil prices and therefore Russia is extremely disadvantageous. But the aggravation of the conflict leads to the realization of the main dream of the Russian leadership - to increase oil prices. It is unlikely that Putin will fight against his interests. Therefore, any military intervention of Russia, no matter what the sauce it is submitted, will ultimately work for destabilization, so that the chaos reigning in Syria will spread to Saudi Arabia, an important player in the global oil market.

The new Putin's adventure is tracing paper from Hitler's foreign policy. Only as the main pan -European threat was the place of the Islamic State occupied the USSR, and the place of Islamists - the Communists. Hitler also sold himself to the Western elites as a defender of Europe from the "Bolshevik (in the Putin’s version -" Islamist ") barbarism," and not not fertile. Democratic countries turned a blind eye to the rearmament of Germany, on the first aggressive actions of the Nazis, hoping to use the revived German military power against the USSR. What was their disappointment when, having signed a pact with Stalin and then capturing half the European Europe, Hitler deceived bourgeois sympathicians. Any tactical actions of Russia in foreign policy are only elements of the implementation of its expansionist strategic course. Whatever this course is covered, it leads to an increase in the military threat.

If even Putin sincerely wanted the world, this would not hurt him to go to a new war. The issue of peace and war will not be solved by someone’s subjective desires, but the objective logic of what is happening. Putin wants this or not, but the very existence of his regime poses a threat of a great war. If Putin has enough time and resources to continue expansionist policy, sooner or later it will lead to a global armed conflict.

However, fortunately, Putin's resources are limited. Therefore, there is a chance that they are exhausted before the Russian president has time to bring the situation to the disaster. But it is important to understand: only a tough collective deterrence policy pursued by an international community can prevent a war.

Igor Aidman - sociologist and publicist