On the "Great Chessboard" - black and white
Pan's debut, Russian gambit
The cult book "The Grand Chessboard" by Zbigniew Brzezinski was published twenty-five years ago - in 1997. How many years this ardent anti-Soviet and Russophobe wrote it, only he himself knows. And although by that time the USSR had already ceased to exist, the fragments of the former Union still posed a danger to the West.
Today, despite the fact that much has changed, first of all we are talking about Russia, which Brzezinski called a “black hole”. By this, he admitted that he sees in our political and cultural tradition some features that cannot be described in terms of Western thinking.
Remember Tyutchev's line "Russia cannot be understood with the mind." We consider it positive, but from the outside Russia, which cannot be understood, is seen as a “black hole”. By the way, Brzezinski's book is on a par with such works of political thought as Aristotle's Politics, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.
Brzezinski analyzed the geopolitical situation in the world and especially on the Eurasian continent. He modeled possible options for the behavior of countries and their alliances in the future and recommended the most appropriate response to them by the United States in order to maintain their position as the only world superpower.
The geopolitical models and forecasts that Brzezinski considered were relevant until February 24, 2022, when Russia began the NWO. The special operation, this sharp gambit, immediately changed the balance on the chessboard.
How exactly? Is it good for Russia or bad? Let's try to figure it out. But first, a little about the game of chess, you need to know how and on what we play.
From opening to endgame
Many people think that the main thing in chess is the mind. But not everyone believed and believe so. Edgar Allan Poe once remarked that
Denis Diderot was of the same opinion:
By the way, if chess is based on the mind, then the machine already smarter than a human. For the world champions have been losing to computers for some time now - the machine simply counts faster and more. Or maybe it happened because intelligence is not required for chess? It is enough to own a certain number of algorithms and quickly count the moves.
Indeed, chess has been played for many centuries. All the moves have long been studied, recorded and put into the computer. It is enough for novice chess players to know and remember what move should be made in a particular case. Note that the game excludes the possibility of a happy accident, sometimes helping in life. In chess, only the opponent's mistakes help. It is a game without mercy, without charm, without joke.
It is believed that chess was invented by the ancient gods of war. Their meaning is the art of war, the triumph of the victor. The game originated in India, went through westernization, when the vizier turned into a queen, the war elephant became a bishop or officer, the chariot became a siege tower (tour), and the horse acquired the features of a European knight.
In fact, chess is a cruel game of killing, where the main thing is to kill everyone! In the party, even the one whose own army has almost completely died is considered the winner. Why? Yes, because in chess only one king should be defended, pawns simply go to waste.
In the Middle Ages, it was believed that chess was closer not to military affairs, but to the art of government, and their study could be useful for the future political elite.
military chess
Today's military and geopolitical chess is an even more complicated game, the whole planet serves as a board for it, and numerous countries with their own history and interests. But the basic principle remains the same - you need to have a clear game plan and look for the best moves in order to win.
The war machine itself has become more complex, and there is no longer a distinction between legal and illegal methods of war. There is no division into the army and the population: everyone fights, only some - openly, others - secretly, some - continuously, others - at an opportunity. And there is no more division into a warring and a peaceful country.
NATO supplies equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, transmits intelligence data, and military experts travel from there to lead the fighting. All countries of the alliance de facto became belligerents, considering and calling themselves peaceful and even peaceful.
The concepts of “hybrid” and “sanctions” war have appeared. And the war itself is no longer a purely military enterprise: there are more politics in it than tactics, it must be won both by troops and propaganda. Moreover, the conduct of information warfare is becoming no less important than the art of war.
And propaganda should contribute to the combat successes of one's own and to the demoralization of the enemy. This is how military chess is today.
What's on the board? Here the changes are simply global. And here are just a few.
Check from SCO, check from Sweden
Let me remind you that the SCO was founded by the leaders of six countries - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. They were followed by India and Pakistan, and on September 17, 2021, Iran. The procedure for admission to the organization of the Republic of Belarus has begun.
The SCO observers are Afghanistan and Mongolia. SCO dialogue partners are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Turkey. Even Turkey has expressed a desire to join the SCO. Memorandums of partnership in dialogue with Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were signed at the summit in Samarkand.
Procedures have been launched for granting the status of dialogue partners to Bahrain, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar and the United Arab Emirates. The total population of the SCO countries is almost 3,4 billion people. This is about half of all people living on the planet. At the same time, the SCO is not NATO, not a military bloc, it is an organization focused on broad international cooperation.
And there, in NATO, Sweden and Finland rushed, obviously frightened by the prospect of Russian expansion. However, it was not Turkey that thwarted everything, promising to say no to the Scandinavians for supporting separatist Kurds, but Sweden itself.
In Stockholm, they found a way to avoid joining the alliance, recalling that according to Swedish law, the kingdom can only enter into a military alliance if two different governments and two different parliaments vote for it during their election period.
And if Stoltenberg declares that Sweden can join the alliance even tomorrow, then in fact this can happen no earlier than in eight years. This is no longer a check, but a checkmate from the Swedes, and if Sweden does not join NATO, then Finland, most likely, will disown. No one wants to risk a direct confrontation with Russia.
Smothered checkmate in Italy
A stale checkmate is when the king has no moves left. In Italy, with the kings, you know how, they hanged the Duce there. Upside down. And the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, George Meloni (pictured), said that the first results of the parliamentary elections speak of the desire of Italians to see a centre-right government.
The leading role there will belong to her party. She noted that in the European Union one can no longer call oneself a mother, or a Christian, or an Italian, or a woman. Other options are offered: be Citizen X, Gender X, Parent #1, Parent #2.
Meloni said.
And then I immediately remembered that when he was the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Andrei Fursenko claimed that
Are the “ideal consumers” grown up by the Bologna system fleeing from mobilization to different countries of the world because it is possible to consume correctly and qualifiedly not in the army, but in a cozy cafe somewhere in Brussels or Strasbourg - the capitals of the EU.
...and a sacrifice of quality
Meanwhile, in England and the European Union, they are already seriously fearing not a crisis or a recession, but a collapse of the economy. The pound sterling has fallen to historic lows against the dollar, and the City of London is already issuing grim warnings that the British economy may have plunged into a currency crisis.
And although the decline in EU GDP is not inevitable, but its risk has increased, admitted the other day the European Commissioner for Economics Paolo Gentiloni. The EBRD has already sharply worsened its growth forecast for the economies of the region in 2023 due to disruptions in gas from the Russian Federation.
The question is, what kind of growth is there if quality is so mediocrely sacrificed in the EU. In chess, this is when a rook is traded for a minor piece, and in economics, affordable Russian gas is traded for dubious liquefied gas from the United States. And in the simplest way - by blowing up the pipes. One thread, however, was left, as they say, for brood.
And what will be the forecast for the decline in GDP and recession after undermining the three branches of the Nord Stream, in general, it is impossible to say yet. Who arranged this sacrifice, but rather, is it just a checkmate to the European Union? Warsaw, Kyiv, Washington or "private saboteurs"? There is no answer yet.
Undermining idle gas pipelines in Russia does not cause additional damage. Therefore, the obvious goal of sabotage is the internationalization of the military conflict with the expansion of hostilities on the territory of third countries. The risks of destruction of industrial infrastructure and disruption of export supplies are obviously increasing. As well as the risk of the collapse of the EU economy.
It should be recalled that in February, US President Joe Biden, following negotiations with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, promised that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would not work if Russia invaded Ukraine. Biden added:
By the way, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, rejoiced at the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, he wrote on social networks:
Who is left with the endgame?
But traditionally, Britain accused Russia of undermining the gas pipeline. Yes, yes, we are shelling ourselves and destroying what we have built. On the other hand, the information war always accompanies the usual one. And now the world is faced with a combination of different wars: information, hot, sanctions…
- Nikolai Vavilov, a specialist in the department of strategic research at Total Research, has no doubts.
And the moment for sabotage was not chosen by chance. Indeed, on September 25, several thousand Germans went to a rally in support of the launch of SP-2, and gas prices began to decline in view of this prospect. “So the time has come for action.”
Each of the parties to the conflict believes that they will win. But, as usual, behind-the-scenes negotiations are underway. That does not cancel the victory on the battlefield. But the players have the opportunity to change the game. No, we are not talking about throwing all the pieces to the floor and hitting the opponent's head with the board. Although such a move is possible.
We are talking about changing the game of chess to a game, for example, of cards. Say what you like, but our grandmasters have not yet gotten the hang of winning chess by engaging in information and sanctions wars.
Thus, Russia did not actually impose retaliatory sanctions, did not confiscate Western assets, and did not introduce state asset management of companies that left the Russian Federation. Yes, and the special operation is somehow strangely neat.
- Anna Kozyreva
- cont.ws, dzeninfra.ru, miro.medium.com, i.huffpost.com, eurasian-defence.ru, detectivebookshop.ru
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