“The main threat is that the West will start doing stupid things when everything falls apart in Ukraine”
Twelve months ago, the expectations of Russian citizens for the coming new year were quite modest. I remind you of a typical joke of those days: What did you ask Santa Claus? – Like what? Mercy! Let's make a note for the future: pleasing Santa Claus with your minimalist requests is a potentially very profitable strategy. There is a chance to receive “gifts” much higher than expected. Russia is celebrating the New Year 2024 on a wave of cautious optimism. On the Ukrainian front, which is extremely important for the country, there is a clear smell of a turning point. But it is clearly premature to assume that the hardest part is already behind us. For example, this is the statement by the prominent Russian international political scientist Timofey Bordachev that struck me during our interview: “The only hypothetical threat is that if everything really falls apart for the West in Ukraine, they will get confused and may start doing stupid things.”
Everyone's New Year's traditions are different. Someone with friends definitely goes to the bathhouse. And I’m definitely doing an interview with Timofey Bordachev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, program director of the Valdai Club and one of the most prominent Russian international affairs experts. This tradition began on the eve of the start of the North Eastern Military District with forecasts that turned out to be very prescient. Question: “What are the chances that in the near future 2021 will be perceived as 1913 is now perceived – as the last peaceful year of the “Belle Epoque”? Answer: “One great philosopher said: “International relations develop in the shadow of war.” For me this is an axiom.” And here is the third part of our series of conversations.
— To be honest, I haven’t heard this joke. And if we rely on forecasts for the state of the Russian economy, which were made not only by our government, but also by international institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, then there was absolutely no reason to think that 2023 would be bad. It was better than 2022 because there was a fairly rapid adaptation to new foreign economic and foreign policy conditions. In addition, in 2022, Russia’s new partners outside the West looked around themselves and created ways to work with us so as not to suffer too much themselves. In 2023, all this began to work relatively well. So, from my point of view, 2023 turned out to be a very successful year for Russia: the military-political confrontation with the West became operational, there were fewer emotional breakdowns on that side, and less nonsense was said in America and Europe. Here, too, we began to understand that it is pointless to make claims to the natural course of history regarding our unrealized dreams.
— An important event in international life in 2023: the phenomenon of the so-called World Majority has fully revealed itself. This is such a structural phenomenon, many countries – most, in fact, except for the formal satellites of the United States – that think about their own interests. Not about our, American and Chinese interests, but about our own. Selfish, in a sense. But since it is the West that most needs the rest to “toe the line,” this mass independence is objectively useful for Russia and not useful for the West. India is at the forefront of this movement – it is not involved in the conflict, like the United States, Russia, China or the European Union, but in the context of this conflict it does what it considers necessary. And no one will move it. This is definitely a very positive process in international politics.
– Yes, our neighbors are also becoming more mobile, capricious in some ways, more demanding. To us, first of all, because for them the main thing is us, Russia. All sorts of American friends in the Persian Gulf are becoming more demanding of Americans; they are friends with us, for example. Blinken, unhappy, rushes around the world, trying to persuade everyone, do you think he enjoys this? No, none, he would gladly command from Washington. The hegemon is weakening, so he is forced to constantly communicate with everyone, it’s just that no one listens anymore. And he doesn’t listen at all. And our friends in the CIS are becoming more demanding of us, communicating with the Americans, the Chinese, and Europe. This doesn’t give us much pleasure either, and sometimes it even irritates us. And you will still have to learn how to work with this somehow. Although it should be easier for us than for Americans – we have less pride and almost no arrogance. Another important positive event in 2023 is that the West has slowly begun to realize the risks of a major confrontation with Russia. In this sense, Sergei Aleksandrovich Karaganov spoke very timely with his characteristic insight regarding the fact that Russia could use nuclear weapons. In the West they began to understand that conflict is not a game.
— From the point of view of the economy, consumption and income growth, our prospects for 2024 do not look threatening, rather the opposite. In foreign policy, the country will follow a firm course along the lines that were created and are operating at the end of 2023. I don't see any serious problems strategically. The only hypothetical threat is that if everything really goes wrong for the West in Ukraine, they will get confused and may start doing stupid things. But here the whole bet is on our restraint, on the President first of all, on the wisdom of Russian foreign policy, which never “breaks wood.” There are now no visible reasons for Russia to face significant new threats internally and externally.
— This question, due to objective reasons, is the most important for readers. But also the most difficult. It is directly related to what is beyond my competence, that is, military affairs, the military side of all history. I am inclined to formally treat the issue of “Russia’s success in Ukraine” and see it as the implementation of what the President is talking about: “demilitarization and denazification.” Success is when the territory of Ukraine, no matter what its physical area, cannot pose a threat to the security of Russia. It is “he cannot”, not “he will not want”. Because wanting is a temporary concept, Finland also did not want to be against us for 75 years, and then they wanted differently. And “he can’t” is forever. There are no wings, which means the bird does not fly. This is probably the optimal result of SVO. And it’s difficult to say what this will require physically – a fracture can occur unexpectedly. This is exactly what happens most often. Maybe in 2024, or maybe in five years, or even more.
— Western newspapers started talking, first of all. And then our experts picked it up. We don’t have a good sociology of American society, for example. Or European. If this is the case, we can assume that this is not their war. The situation in Ukraine does not threaten American society in any way. Everyone understands this, as is the case with Europe. I’m not sure, by the way, that the situation is the same in the case of Taiwan. There economic interests are immeasurably greater, and China is still a fundamental challenge for the United States precisely in the issue of access to world resources and wealth. Economic interdependence between the United States and China is extremely high. But even in 1913, the largest trade in the world was between Germany and Britain – this did not stop them from fighting a year later. Therefore, we can have no doubt that if Russia is consistent in its actions, the United States will easily “merge” the Ukrainian regime, as it has done repeatedly in other cases. They are generally not used to starting everything “from scratch” and worry little about tactical defeats. Americans in general should learn to learn to embrace failure—they never get discouraged. Moreover, at the next elections there will be some kind of rotation at the very top. And new people will completely calmly give up “bad assets.”
— What do you mean by “real benefit”? Will Trump work for Russian rather than American interests? No, it will not. But no one in their right mind expects this. The question is how clear and free the enemy is in his actions. Trump is freer than Biden – there is no “overhang” of old obligations within the country and the elite, there is no huge number of idiots who need to be hired, in general everything can be more lively. This doesn't mean there won't be risks. But let’s finally understand that real international politics always involves risks and threats, because everyone is for themselves and every state thinks about its citizens and nothing else. Of course, interests collide. I would like to quote the recently deceased Kissinger: “the statesman understands the possibility of universal catastrophe, but acts on the basis that his country is immortal.” A world where there are no threats can only be a totalitarian dictatorship of one state. The Americans tried to build such a dictatorship on a global scale and they failed. We live on. I don’t think Trump will be worse: he is a wealthy man, has a family, grandchildren and all that. Trump's whole life is not tied to politics, like Biden's.
— This is also a difficult question for me, since I am not an Americanist and have never been deeply immersed in the peculiarities of this culture and society. The staff there, frankly speaking, is so-so. If it had been different, they would have found someone newer than Biden and Trump. But in this sense, they suffered from the end of the Cold War – the real threat disappeared and smart, bright people stopped going into politics. Everyone went into business, where there is money, yachts, beautiful girls and so on. After 1991 in America and Europe, those who were completely unfit for anything entered politics. The worst material. And there are problems with the renewal of the elite, which in Russia occurs through administrative methods through the creation of various state career elevators for officials. This is not the case in the West – everything seems to be going as it should be in a democracy, but it turns out that the average age of members of the US Senate is very advanced, to put it mildly. There are younger politicians in Europe, but they are purely a product of the negative selection of the 1990s. I studied with many of them in the mid-1990s in Belgium – it was really a period of decline in interest in politics, foreign policy, all the smart ones went into business, and not into public service. Therefore, now we will have to wait 15–20 years, when those who already understand that the world has changed grow up.
“This is all purely their internal story.” We here don’t even know what they mean by the concept of “dictatorship”. It looks like a rather clumsy attempt to intimidate voters – but we don’t know what they’re afraid of? Probably their political strategists know better. It won’t be any worse for Russia, that’s for sure. This is the most important thing. What American citizens will experience there doesn’t really matter to us.
“Armenia has never fought for Russia or gone through hardships, as the US allies in Europe or the Japanese do now in their relations with us. Therefore, here the concept of “ally” is also relative. I don't think Russia will lose its military base in Armenia, which is what really matters. I don’t think that the Armenian authorities will leave the Eurasian Union because… a significant part of their economic achievements rests on this; all growth under Pashinyan rests on this. No one can offer them the benefits of access to the market comparable to ours, and the economic bloc in the Pashinyan government is very strong and reasonable. I don’t think that the Armenian people will become less friendly and close to us, one of the closest. They are going through difficult times now – they have fallen into the millstones of history, incl. connected with big Russian politics. We need to understand this and evaluate what is really necessary for us in Armenia, and what is of a ritual nature.
– No, I do not think so. Russia's presence in the region did not rest on Karabakh – it would even be humiliating for us. Russia remains the most important partner in the region because it is generally the largest and strongest country here. The most economically powerful one, with whom everyone wants to trade and receive investments from us. Anyone can be carried away, especially in the South, where there is temperament. They can also try how Russia will react to minor attacks. But so that Transcaucasia without Russia is beyond reality. We do not know now how Azerbaijan will build its foreign policy after Karabakh. There are strong concerns about Turkey there; sometimes Erdogan acts very coolly. They don’t want to depend completely on one of the partners – that’s true. And Russia, which does not put much pressure on anyone, will, of course, remain an important player there. But we, like everywhere else, need to quickly get used to playing a more complex game: to include in our plans not only the bilateral Russia-Armenia or Russia-Azerbaijan, but also the role of Turkey and Iran. In general, I would suggest seeing the former space of the USSR as broader than our bilateral relations with its republics.
— We touched on this a little earlier when we talked about the World Majority. President Tokayev is in a difficult position – the transition period will not actually end. The West is pressing, Russia is the most important partner. In other words, Tokayev’s conversation in Kazakh is, firstly, his internal matter. Secondly, this is a much smaller manifestation of independence than Saudi Arabia joining BRICS. The world majority is like that – it shows its character to those on whom each country most depends. Russia, unlike the United States, respects the sovereignty of its partners and allies; we have this habit in principle. Therefore, it should be possible to work with them in new conditions. Although there will be minor conflicts. The main danger for us is that the countries of Central Asia may not be able to keep internal contradictions under control. There are more stable governments: Uzbekistan is in first place here and, note, it pursues a very friendly policy in relations with Russia. Where the government is weaker, more internal tension arises and attempts to flirt with nationalists are dangerous. Especially given the fact that we do not see data on reducing poverty in Kazakhstan or strengthening basic infrastructure there.
< p>— There was such an appropriate expression on the Internet: “feeding the troll.” This is when you start arguing with someone whose only goal is to throw you out of balance and nothing more. Our newspapers, unfortunately, often respond to such trolling from the Balts. I would not do this – the military will send their signals in any case, and in the framework of this interview we will not be able to convince the Estonians to behave differently. To be honest, I don’t see any specific actions that could create a reason for war. They themselves will not, and the Americans will not allow them to risk their (American) reputation like that. But there are also positive events – people remain people, and professionals remain professionals: in August, during serious thunderstorm fronts in the Baltic, Russian civil aircraft flew a thunderstorm through the airspace of Estonia and Sweden, no one stopped them, of course, and the navigation services of all countries did your business.
– No, I don’t think so either. Here Russia and NATO come into direct contact. There is no space where one can fight without touching one’s own territory. First of all, this is important for the United States, since they have a lot of obligations that they gained by expanding NATO. The only theoretically dangerous direction is Belarus, since it is an ally of Russia, but legally not its territory. But here too we are creating convincing reasons for the West to be calmer. In other words, the strength of Russia’s position in a hypothetical case of direct conflict, no matter where – in the Baltic, in Belarus, in the Bering Strait – regardless of the specific theater, is already the same as globally. That is, it instantly goes into the phase of a direct clash with NATO with all that it entails. No one in the West will agree to this. But to avoid any temptations at all, Russia is strengthening its military positions in Kaliningrad and creating a separate corps in Karelia. Shows that he takes everything as seriously as possible.
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