This failed "soft power"
After the collapse of the Russian foreign economic policy in the Ukrainian and Armenian directions, discussions about the quality of Russian “soft power” erupted in the Russian expert community with a new force. The chief specialist on this topic, the head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, compatriots living abroad, and international humanitarian cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) Eleonora Mitrofanova was asked at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum: what’s the reason for the failure of the Russian Federation? soft power in Ukraine?
Celebrating the 90 anniversary of Rossotrudnichestvo at the University of Malaya. Kuala Lumpur, 16 December 2015 Source
Her answer not only did not satisfy anyone, but also caused an avalanche of counter questions. It has become absolutely clear that the meaning of the concept of “soft power” in the heads of representatives of Russian foreign affairs agencies has not been clearly formulated until now. Perhaps this is precisely the reason for such crushing failures.
But without forming a basic concept and a roadmap for its implementation in practice, it is impossible to move forward, otherwise it will be an endless attack on the old rake, and the “registration of defeats and surrenders” in foreign policy will continue. But before proceeding to the formation of a concept, it is necessary to analyze what the head of Rossotrudnichestvo thinks about this.
“The Americans did a very good job,” Eleonora Valentinovna said at the forum. So I want to add: unlike us. Well, in the absence of professionalism in the field of "soft power", it is really difficult to blame Americans. They have achieved what they stubbornly sought for many years in the post-Soviet space, sparing neither strength nor resources. Their soft power just allowed them to brush away the previous regimes that suit us perfectly in the strategically important areas of the post-Soviet space. And now we have fascizoid Ukraine under our side and unpredictable Armenia in Transcaucasia, for which, judging by the information blockade, there is still a fierce undercover struggle. Well, this is quite in our style: to bring the situation to a critical and almost irretrievable, and then with tremendous efforts to correct the situation that seems hopeless. True, it is absolutely incomprehensible where our specialists and experts have been all this time and what they were doing (and Western and Western experts have been busy with Ukraine and Armenia for decades). Eleonora Valentinovna tries to answer this question. “We don’t have that kind of money (like the Americans. - S.K.),” she said. - We do not buy anyone. We have a completely different system of work ... "
The fact that the other (judging by the results and results), we already understood. The question is, how much more effective is it than the American one, where, according to her, are everyone and everyone buying it? And here the unwritten rule of Mossad comes to mind - far from the richest, but one of the most effective intelligence services in the world. “Our opponents have American dollars and gold, and we have Jewish golden brains,” say the Israeli knights of the cloak and dagger. And these brains are a very serious alternative to dollars. And where were our “golden brains” all this time? Why did they save in front of American dollars? And I would also like to remind Eleanor Valentinovna that the famous "Cambridge Five" worked exclusively for the idea, and not for money. All members of this group held high positions in British counterintelligence, and with the money they had on historical There were no problems at home. But the appeal of the communist idea turned out to be stronger than the power of money.
And the American communists, the consorts Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were subsequently electrocuted, were also fascinated by our idea. That is why they rendered the Soviet state invaluable assistance. Why have we not yet offered our situational partners and allies an idea that would be stronger than the power of the golden calf? Or are our brains not golden enough? The question remains open.
According to Eleonora Mitrofanova, the Americans distributed $ 1,5 billion to various organizations in Ukraine, while Russia in principle does not engage in “undermining regimes”. But from this point on in more detail, as university professors say, wanting to catch at the evil student’s exam.
First, I don’t think that our American “partners” reported to Eleonora Valentinovna what amount they spent to change the regime to (c) Ukraine. Therefore, there is a persistent suspicion that this sum is determined empirically, that is, from the ceiling. But what partners have spent is undoubtedly. And the fact that they, unlike us, were not sharpened to improve the attractiveness of their country, but to change the regime, is a fact. Secondly, even if they really spent one and a half billion, this amount came over for more than twenty years of their work in Ukraine. This is not so much if you blur the entire amount over the years. Thirdly, if we make a couple of our homegrown oil-bearing (aluminum, etc.) oligarchs, whose wealth fell like a flowerpot from a window sill, get rid of a couple of their yachts, islands, offshore or any Chelsea "- here's the required one and a half" yard ". I think a friendly Ukraine would cost these victims.
And finally, fourthly. The most important thing. And why, in fact, with our "soft power" we are not engaged in the "undermining" of unwanted regimes? And if this regime is fascist-Bandera, imprisoned for the physical elimination of representatives of the Russian world on its territory? Maybe you shouldn’t play muscular young ladies when outright fascists come to power in our geopolitical underbelly from the “partners”? I am deeply convinced that if Hitler, Goebbels and a couple of their active minions at the dawn of coming to power would block oxygen, World War II could have been avoided. But we are muscular young ladies, pure and innocent, and we are not engaged in “undermining the regimes”! As a result, that regime was about to undermine the whole world. The result of our herbivorous observation of its formation is a bloody wheel running across Europe full of human bones. But we did not undermine the regimes, limiting ourselves to dozens of non-aggression pacts. That period of the activity of the USSR Embassy in Germany entered the history of diplomacy under the name “Paktomania,” which, of course, does not honor the national diplomacy of that time.
“With all this, the Kiev cultural center - it sits here on the Arbat, in excellent conditions - no one here ever touched them, we had continuous problems from the very beginning,” the head of Rossotrudnichestvo complained. In fact, in international diplomacy there is an iron rule of the “mirror reaction”. Eleonora Valentinovna, a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations who has worked all his life in the system of international relations, cannot but know him. So, maybe somehow deal with this center? And then it turns out the game with only one goal, causing a feeling of complete impunity among the representatives of the junta Maidan.
At the end of her speech, Mitrofanova promised that the format of the work of the entrusted organization in Ukraine would be rethought. “We will review the format of work in Ukraine,” she said. - I do not think that we should make heroic sacrifices. We will not stop work, as we will not obstruct the work of the Ukrainian center in Moscow. But the number of events and the total activity of the center will be reduced. In a sluggish form, everything will happen. "
In fact, judging by the disastrously failed results in foreign policy, it was in the “sluggish” mode that Rossotrudnichestvo in Ukraine had been working for the last twenty-odd years. And if it worked in the “tempo of the storm”, as a representative office of the same organization in Armenia, then, judging again by the results, it was “an empty boil in action”.
So it is necessary to go not to the declared "sluggish" format, but to a fundamentally different one. Otherwise, the “registration of defeats and capitulations” in our foreign policy will continue further, and the number of regimes eager to launch the wheel of bloody bones in the Russian world (as in the Donbas or in Georgia during the five-day war) will multiply before our eyes. And not at all sluggish speed ...
Celebrating the 90 anniversary of Rossotrudnichestvo at the University of Malaya. Kuala Lumpur, 16 December 2015 Source
Her answer not only did not satisfy anyone, but also caused an avalanche of counter questions. It has become absolutely clear that the meaning of the concept of “soft power” in the heads of representatives of Russian foreign affairs agencies has not been clearly formulated until now. Perhaps this is precisely the reason for such crushing failures.
But without forming a basic concept and a roadmap for its implementation in practice, it is impossible to move forward, otherwise it will be an endless attack on the old rake, and the “registration of defeats and surrenders” in foreign policy will continue. But before proceeding to the formation of a concept, it is necessary to analyze what the head of Rossotrudnichestvo thinks about this.
“The Americans did a very good job,” Eleonora Valentinovna said at the forum. So I want to add: unlike us. Well, in the absence of professionalism in the field of "soft power", it is really difficult to blame Americans. They have achieved what they stubbornly sought for many years in the post-Soviet space, sparing neither strength nor resources. Their soft power just allowed them to brush away the previous regimes that suit us perfectly in the strategically important areas of the post-Soviet space. And now we have fascizoid Ukraine under our side and unpredictable Armenia in Transcaucasia, for which, judging by the information blockade, there is still a fierce undercover struggle. Well, this is quite in our style: to bring the situation to a critical and almost irretrievable, and then with tremendous efforts to correct the situation that seems hopeless. True, it is absolutely incomprehensible where our specialists and experts have been all this time and what they were doing (and Western and Western experts have been busy with Ukraine and Armenia for decades). Eleonora Valentinovna tries to answer this question. “We don’t have that kind of money (like the Americans. - S.K.),” she said. - We do not buy anyone. We have a completely different system of work ... "
The fact that the other (judging by the results and results), we already understood. The question is, how much more effective is it than the American one, where, according to her, are everyone and everyone buying it? And here the unwritten rule of Mossad comes to mind - far from the richest, but one of the most effective intelligence services in the world. “Our opponents have American dollars and gold, and we have Jewish golden brains,” say the Israeli knights of the cloak and dagger. And these brains are a very serious alternative to dollars. And where were our “golden brains” all this time? Why did they save in front of American dollars? And I would also like to remind Eleanor Valentinovna that the famous "Cambridge Five" worked exclusively for the idea, and not for money. All members of this group held high positions in British counterintelligence, and with the money they had on historical There were no problems at home. But the appeal of the communist idea turned out to be stronger than the power of money.
And the American communists, the consorts Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were subsequently electrocuted, were also fascinated by our idea. That is why they rendered the Soviet state invaluable assistance. Why have we not yet offered our situational partners and allies an idea that would be stronger than the power of the golden calf? Or are our brains not golden enough? The question remains open.
According to Eleonora Mitrofanova, the Americans distributed $ 1,5 billion to various organizations in Ukraine, while Russia in principle does not engage in “undermining regimes”. But from this point on in more detail, as university professors say, wanting to catch at the evil student’s exam.
First, I don’t think that our American “partners” reported to Eleonora Valentinovna what amount they spent to change the regime to (c) Ukraine. Therefore, there is a persistent suspicion that this sum is determined empirically, that is, from the ceiling. But what partners have spent is undoubtedly. And the fact that they, unlike us, were not sharpened to improve the attractiveness of their country, but to change the regime, is a fact. Secondly, even if they really spent one and a half billion, this amount came over for more than twenty years of their work in Ukraine. This is not so much if you blur the entire amount over the years. Thirdly, if we make a couple of our homegrown oil-bearing (aluminum, etc.) oligarchs, whose wealth fell like a flowerpot from a window sill, get rid of a couple of their yachts, islands, offshore or any Chelsea "- here's the required one and a half" yard ". I think a friendly Ukraine would cost these victims.
And finally, fourthly. The most important thing. And why, in fact, with our "soft power" we are not engaged in the "undermining" of unwanted regimes? And if this regime is fascist-Bandera, imprisoned for the physical elimination of representatives of the Russian world on its territory? Maybe you shouldn’t play muscular young ladies when outright fascists come to power in our geopolitical underbelly from the “partners”? I am deeply convinced that if Hitler, Goebbels and a couple of their active minions at the dawn of coming to power would block oxygen, World War II could have been avoided. But we are muscular young ladies, pure and innocent, and we are not engaged in “undermining the regimes”! As a result, that regime was about to undermine the whole world. The result of our herbivorous observation of its formation is a bloody wheel running across Europe full of human bones. But we did not undermine the regimes, limiting ourselves to dozens of non-aggression pacts. That period of the activity of the USSR Embassy in Germany entered the history of diplomacy under the name “Paktomania,” which, of course, does not honor the national diplomacy of that time.
“With all this, the Kiev cultural center - it sits here on the Arbat, in excellent conditions - no one here ever touched them, we had continuous problems from the very beginning,” the head of Rossotrudnichestvo complained. In fact, in international diplomacy there is an iron rule of the “mirror reaction”. Eleonora Valentinovna, a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations who has worked all his life in the system of international relations, cannot but know him. So, maybe somehow deal with this center? And then it turns out the game with only one goal, causing a feeling of complete impunity among the representatives of the junta Maidan.
At the end of her speech, Mitrofanova promised that the format of the work of the entrusted organization in Ukraine would be rethought. “We will review the format of work in Ukraine,” she said. - I do not think that we should make heroic sacrifices. We will not stop work, as we will not obstruct the work of the Ukrainian center in Moscow. But the number of events and the total activity of the center will be reduced. In a sluggish form, everything will happen. "
In fact, judging by the disastrously failed results in foreign policy, it was in the “sluggish” mode that Rossotrudnichestvo in Ukraine had been working for the last twenty-odd years. And if it worked in the “tempo of the storm”, as a representative office of the same organization in Armenia, then, judging again by the results, it was “an empty boil in action”.
So it is necessary to go not to the declared "sluggish" format, but to a fundamentally different one. Otherwise, the “registration of defeats and capitulations” in our foreign policy will continue further, and the number of regimes eager to launch the wheel of bloody bones in the Russian world (as in the Donbas or in Georgia during the five-day war) will multiply before our eyes. And not at all sluggish speed ...
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