Where does the foreign policy of Russia lead

Twenty years ago, having begun its legendary rising from the knees, Russia without hesitation elected the United States as a role model and a role model. This was partly logical: who else could be equal to a huge country, measuring its greatness in rockets and warheads. Partly, of course, there is no: in everything else, from the system of public administration to housing, roads and income of citizens, Russia is to compare with countries that I will refrain, not wanting to injure the feelings of compatriots.

One way or another, today, when the whole civilized world has taken up the guilty of Russia without guilt, it continues to earnest the right to live strongly without looking at the norms of international and national laws, morality, ethics and other old -fashioned nonsense. Before the anti -utopia of George Orwell Russia, perhaps, is still not yet, but to the caricature state packed by Vladimir Voinovich, but, as it seems, is a stone's throw, as it seems.

The era of half -life of a governing consciousness

In such tragicomic circumstances, the foreign policy of Russia essentially finally turned into hostage to its archaic fantasies and complexes. What is not there!

Here is a mania of greatness , encouraging to consider the missile-nuclear potential as the main trump card of current policy. “Do as we want, and not at eating you from the face of the Earth” - that’s the whole message that seeks to convey to the rest of the world, grunting all the new weapons.

But the persecution mania , forcing:

• To be afraid of every bush, to calculate how to get up, the flying time of enemy missiles and proceed from the fact that, having achieved even a minimal or simply situational superiority over Russia, the adversary will immediately attack it;

• To believe that the external and internal enemies of Russia have long conspired by its unique collegiality and no less unique statehood, opening the way to power atheists, homosexuals, cosmopolitans and other evil spirits;

• Suspect of treason of Russian citizens who doubt the wisdom of its policy. Russia already seems close to qualifying such an involuntary attitude to the words and actions of the country's top leadership as a grave thought of thought.

In the treasury of strategic thoughts about the main thing there is a place and a complex of inferiority , which gives rise to fear of the collective West, which is not even an hour:

• He will do something that the Kremlin will clearly not say goodbye to the Kremlin. He will come up with, for example, some extrasensory technologies that allow to suppress the will of our leadership and inspire him with harmful thoughts and incorrect solutions. Or he will make the hated name of the “Berlin patient”, which is even worse. (According to the source, the US National Scientific Foundation attributes the extrasensory perception to pseudoscience. Not otherwise, traces notice.);

• He will completely refuse to use oil and gas as sources of energy. What then to do Russia? Where to get money for new palaces and rockets?

With the dreams that Russia lives today, not everything is also safe. For example, she would like to stake the sphere of influence, which includes the former Soviet republics (according to the classification of Voinovich, “the sons of the most hostility ring”) and the former European satellites of the USSR (“Fraternal ring of hostility”). It is difficult to fulfill this treasured dream: the countries of the “fraternal ring” entered the NATO excessively, that is, they were lost irrevocably, some unhealthy fermentation in the “son of the Ring”. In Ukraine, which is actually the same Russia, the Bandera Buza has been stretching for the second ten years, in Belarus, which is also Russia, the regime of a close dictator for incense breathes. The distinctive countries of the former Central and Central Asia are gradually looking for a counterbalance in Russia in the east and in the West. In the countries of the former Transcaucasia, now the South Caucasus, the picture is a little different - the typical "sowl" of independent states, and each has their own cockroaches.

In general, the “vaccinations” Moldova and Georgia brought little Russia closer to the reintegration of the Soviet Empire. I had to seriously take up Ukraine, without which, as you know, there is no empire. But there everything went wrong. The annexation of Crimea brought down the international reputation of Russia to minus values, and the peninsula itself turned into a suitcase without a pen: either drought, then a flood, and steal as the last time. In the Donbass-in general, some gangster "walk-field". And everyone wants to eat.

Lonely power

All of the above is only a saying. Ahead is by no means a fairy tale, but the harsh truth of the life of a superpower, which has become a world outcast.

But how well it began! Chronologically, the last leadership of the USSR managed to overcome deep systemic alienation in relations with the collective West. Someone will not pretend to notice that the new Soviet policy was partially dictated by the circumstances of insurmountable power-deep internal problems of the USSR and its devastating defeat in competition with Western antipodes. And it will be right: about the same paradigm, the post -war Japan went to the revival. And Germany made a similar path even twice, the first time - catastrophically mediocre, but the second time - very successfully.

On this, however, analogies end.

The unique ambiguity of the Russian situation was that, as the USSR interpreter, on the one hand, it continued to feel like a winner in the Second World War with the international status, self-esteem and ambitions, and on the other hand, it was bankrupt in all articles, which, of course, was very burdened.

In such, to put it mildly, conflicting circumstances, the Weimar Syndrome, which Russia immediately picked up, was extremely difficult. Even today, he feds the thirst for compensation for the real and imaginary humiliations of the first years of the formation of democracy. It is worth adding to the above that

The current Russian authorities, which strangled democracy, cynically uses such moods in society to justify almost all of its actions in Russia and beyond.

With the onset of zero years, the list of ailments that Russia suffers was replenished with a classic “Dutch disease”, which ensured an increase in large account of unprofitable “oil and gas” money during the stagnation of non -resource sectors of the economy. The glory of the Russian authorities declared Russia an energy superpower, having planned to turn its inexhaustible bowels into an external expansion tool. And at first she even succeeded in this. But then, as often happens with leading and enviable countries, Russia's ambitions exceeded its possibilities.

The result of rather awkward efforts to revive the former imperial greatness of the USSR was the international isolation of Russia. Of course, not as deaf as, for example, in North Korea or some Belarus: do not communicate with the unkind superpower, openly proud of turning the rest of the world into nuclear ash, at least unreasonable. But they now enter into contact with Russia only as necessary. And only on issues directly related to it.

However, the unenviable position of the outcast in which Russia was, oddly enough, gives it some advantages over normal countries forced to make contact with it.

Firstly, the level of expectations for today's Russia is so reduced that even microscopic positive changes in its behavior or just a hint of them can encourage other Western “partners” to think about some “reward”.

This is a well -known technique that the same North Korea successfully uses. Russia also knows how: just remember how,

Having pulled off the troops to the Ukrainian border, she, as it were, as a reward for not putting them into business, received a proposal from the US president to meet at the top. After that, the troops partially withdrew.

Secondly, the outcast is a little more than its negotiation partners. He may agree or refuse to discuss any of the issues proposed to him, may require a absurdly large reward for relatively small concessions. And perhaps the main thing: the very fact of negotiations is always the success of an outcast, sometimes much depending on their result.

Conflict with Ukraine as a mirror of Russian politics

Russia demonstrated all the above -described osogo characteristics in their concentrated and devoid of half -tones in its long conflict with Ukraine.

At the time of its hot phase between Russia and Ukraine, there were: a friendship, cooperation and partnership agreement (dated 1999), an agreement on the border (from 2004), an agreement on the status and conditions of the stay of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia in Ukraine (from 1999), extended until 2042 by the Kharkov agreement (of 2010). All of the listed documents were signed by the senior leaders of both countries, in the proper procedure, the ratification procedure passed and, according to international law, became mandatory for execution.

Having joined the Crimea in 2014 and provoked a conflict in the east of Ukraine, Russia threw all these documents into the basket and since then categorically refuses to discuss the facts of their violation obvious to everyone, including itself. Which is understandable, because in essence, Russia has nothing to object to Russia.

Instead, Russia insists on compliance by Ukraine of the so -called Minsk agreements signed in February 2015 by representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE, as well as puppet “leaders” of Donetsk separatists without indicating who they represent. In fact, the Minsk agreements written on the knee, the ratification procedure, as you know, did not pass, due to which their legal status is not entirely clear. Well -known, however, what

The representative of Ukraine signed the Minsk agreements under the threat of the extermination of its military group, surrounded in the Debaltsev region with well -armed troops operating under the guise of local rebels.

By virtue of this, duty discussions about the mandatory Minsk agreements for Ukraine do not look convincing. And they only enhance distrust of everything that Russia says and does. The minted formula of the satirist “immediately think poorly, instead of understanding” almost perfectly reflects the perception of our foreign policy in the modern world.

In the language of the gateway

What is not suspected of Russia! Cyber ​​attacks, custom -made killings, drug trafficking, support for cannibalist regimes, systemic human rights violations, propaganda of hatred, corruption ... which is more in these suspicions - truth or fiction - no one really cares. This is a reputation. Which for so long, with persistence, Russia has been earned.

What remains to do in such a situation? All deny, rude and laugh it off.

• “Try, prove. What are the cyber attacks, what killings and poisoning?! They didn’t do anything like that, they lived honestly and glatedly, ”Russia laughs strainedly in the face of Russia's enemies.

• "What is such a Malaysian" Boeing? " The one who fell in the Donbass, because he is heavier than the air? So this was when it was! “Russia is fooling around and, having made a strict face, adds:“ But your consequence is not a decree for us. ”

• “And stop clinging to us with this type. What is his last name? Oval? - Russia continues to have fun. - This small crook was given to you! He went abroad for rest and treatment, quit her, and there is a term hanging on it. Returned - get. And do not interfere in our internal affairs. We are not obliged to report to you. So go forest. Yes, by the way, the OSCE is what? "

In a word, easily recalling the language and manners of the gateway, Russian foreign policy became closer to the people's zombie, but further from civilization, even stylistically. The authorities and the wide popular masses (abbreviated - shirnarms) like it, and the enabled foreigners who cannot even pour even poison, they only shake their heads. Maybe they got into their ears? However, this is their problem.

The Kremlin spirit of the time

It's a shame that in all this shameful bacchanal even rare, no, the rarest samples of the sane policy that Russia sometimes demonstrates. One of these samples was Russia's actions in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict around the Nagorno-Karabakh. This conflict, as you know, has no solution and even with difficulty lends itself to management. There are few people who want to take up a hopeless business. But Russia took up and at the very least achieved the result. The war was stopped, the safety of the Armenian population of the Nagorno -Karabakh and the corridor connecting it with Armenia was provided by the lands annexed by it outside the Enclave returned to Azerbaijan, and Russian peacekeepers were appointed a guarantor of all agreements, with the consent of the conflicting parties. Moreover, this time without quotes that are required when Russian "peacekeepers" play along with one of the parties. It seems, however, that such a local success of Russia will have little effect on its relations with the countries of Western democracy.

These, by and large, are not exactly the same to our country's understanding of the country: someone is clearly negative, someone with a share of positive and hope for the best. By tradition, dating back to the early Soviet times, our policy has always been aimed at the operation of disagreements between Western countries on relations with the USSR. With the onset of the nuclear century, the leitmotif of this policy was the crafty thesis that the countries of Western Europe will be the first and main victim of a military clash between the USSR and the United States, to which Soviet missiles is a stone's throw. In the early years of Russian democracy, this thesis was forgotten, but after its defeat was reanimated with a cynical scope that Soviet leaders did not dream of.

The latest example of the Russian strategy for the division of the collective West countries was the article in the German weekly Die Zeit, which came out of the pen of the Russian president. There is little truth in this essay.

What are, for example, the discussions about the “anti -constitutional armed coup in Ukraine”, which was allegedly “organized by the United States and limply supported by European countries”! How are these reasoning related to the process of expansion of NATO, the “Relarus of the Cold War”? Mass protests in Kyiv, better known as Euromaidan, were a response to the decision of the Yanukovych government adopted under the unprecedented pressure of Russia on the actual termination of the preparation of the Association of Ukraine with the European Union. Maybe the European Union has already joined NATO?

Who actually organized the “Crimea’s exit from Ukraine”? Isn't Putin himself, proudly recalled how he made the decision “On the beginning of the operation to return Crimea to Russia”?

I don’t remember what happened before - the publication of Putin’s article or Merkel’s proposal to resume the European Union -Russia summits interrupted in 2014. One way or another, the obvious chronological proximity of these two events suggests that they were a product of some kind of coordination of Russia's efforts with Germany and the France that joined it. The decision of the European Union to resume summites with Russia would be a good gift for the Kremlin. But it did not work out. The European Union is a democratic organization, not afraid to object to a mighty Germany.

However, perhaps it is not worth exaggerating the meaning of the described disagreements. In the fundamental issues of foreign policy, members of the collective West look at the plus minus the same way. There is nothing to be surprised here: in full, having revived the philosophy and the practice of the Cold War, Russia with their own hands pushes them to consolidation. In the old days, this consolidation was called the discipline of the Cold War. Today she has no name for now, but the essence of the matter does not change. The Cold War 2.0 is already gaining momentum. Sooner or later, the ideological heirs of George Kennan will justify the need for a new policy of deterrence of Russia, an organization of the type will arise by a way ... And everything will be repeated again.

However, it is likely to be suicidal for all participants in the global nuclear war. What Putin confirmed, talking about the British destroyer "Defender", supposedly "invaded the territorial sea of ​​Russia" in the Crimean area.

In fact, the British did not violate anything: for a short time, the Defender, which ended up in the territorial sea of ​​Russia, just took advantage of its right of the peaceful passage provided for in Article 12 of the Federal Law “On Internal Sea waters, the territorial sea and the adjacent zone of the Russian Federation”. This right is guaranteed to foreign ships and warships in the territorial sea of ​​any country. However, Putin would not be Putin if he had not added something sensational to his story. How else to regard his words that there was no war, even if Russia sank this very “defender”?

The latest missile destroyer, comparable in combat power and displacement with the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser "Moscow" is not Ukrainian boats, with whom Russia fought with "success" several years ago. A hypothetical attack on the British ship would have very severe consequences for Russia - both purely military and political. The world would still be a step closer to a big war. Although I, I repeat, would not have happened anyway. There would be such a “struggle for peace” that there would be no stone on a stone. Шансов победить в этой «борьбе за мир» у России было бы еще меньше, чем когда-то у СССР. И только не надо рассказывать сказки о нашем грядущем союзе с Китаем как средстве от всех напастей.

Поставив точку, зашел в социальные сети, а там «Российская газета» предлагает ознакомиться с новой статьей Сергея Караганова, в которой маститый политолог с упоением рассказывает о грядущей победе России в новой холодной войне. Вот уж, думаю, действительно, всегда в масть.