"The future appeared as the progress of weapons"

Why did Putin's message be warlike? Does it mean that there is no need to wait for reforms? Is it possible to judge the fourth period? Political scientists answered the New Times questions

Photo: ntv.ru

Why did the message turn out so belligerent?

Ekaterina Shulman:

The message cannot be called warlike if you consider it as a whole text. But the part that concerned our latest weapons outweighed everything else in expressiveness, although the rest was more in time and in terms of text. The militaristic component is so expressive that it pulls all attention to itself, moreover, only in this part there was novelty, since we heard everything else in one form or another in previous messages.

Kirill Rogov:

In peaceful summons, Putin is quite few that there is. The economy is in prolonged stagnation, no special successes are visible, there are no innovations testifying to the reform of society and its advance forward. All topics are very problematic, so such a mobilization-moderation topic was chosen-that is, the future appeared, first of all, as the progress of weapons.

Alexey Makarkin:

If you discard the second half, then we can say that the message turned out to be reformal. Two halves complement each other, which corresponds to the mood of society - it wants everything at once: hospitals, schools, and missiles. It is this society that will vote on March 18.

Abbas Gallamov:

In fundamentally, nothing has changed: and earlier on Putin’s agenda, foreign policy over the internal, and the power component over the peaceful one dominated. Obviously, Putin believes that this is exactly what the Russian voter and the outside world, which, according to the president, respects only power - will not love us, let them be better afraid. Therefore, the slogan “strong president is strong Russia”, and the corresponding speech. But it is unlikely that the ordinary voter will like this: there is no longer an internal feeling of happiness, the outer agenda has fed up, household problems dominate, and the root of evil is clearly not only in America

Why not proposed any institutional reforms?

No one expected the announcement of institutional reforms. Such things in our political tradition are never announced, they happen unexpectedly. But now our political system is not in the state to radically reform itself.

Probably, these reforms are not supposed. Something was said about the business, changes in the priority of the budget, the goals were indicated in the package of institutional reforms. But the reforms in themselves are not part of the Putin ideology. He does not see the need for reforms, so there was no such block.

Our people are afraid of reforms, so the easiest way to reduce their support in the elections is to say the word “reform” before the election. If you say that institutional reforms are needed, people will not understand this. About superpower is another matter, we can talk in the intonations of the XXVI Congress of the CPSU Central Committee, or you can talk modernly - video with infographics.

Putin does not force anything to carry out institutional reforms: neither the mood of voters, nor the pressure of elites, nor an external threat.

What conclusion can we draw about the fourth period from this program?

The experience of previous messages says that the correlations between the agenda of the next year and the message are not particularly observed. The most dense correlation was before the announcement of the 2012 May decrees. But, for example, in the message for 2014, nothing was said about what eventually became the main events of this year. Therefore, I would not extract direct forecasts for the future six years. In addition, the declaration is one thing, and the possibilities are slightly different.

It is noticeable that the ideology of Putin’s program is partly similar to the Soviet Union of the 1970s and the ideology of the Brezhnev stagnation: military-industrial complex, support on its own forces and maintaining confrontation with the West as a dominant of state construction.

I think that there is a certain frame and goals, and what specific solutions will be - a question. Today, a certain general vision and plan sounded, but the real policy will be based on those possibilities that are - in other words, on funds in the budget. Foreign policy would be pragmatic: today Putin made it clear that he should not interfere, but showed that you can agree on something.

Russia remains in line with its traditional paradigm - the country in the ring of enemies, not the time for disagreements, we must rally and give them a rebuff.