The lesson of political alchemy from Vladimir Putin
Perhaps the main feature of the message of Vladimir Putin is his emphasis on the fact that Russia and the Russians have to change. The passing 2015 year was very important in terms of understanding who we are, where we are going and what we want from the political leadership of our country. After the fateful 2014 of the year, when the elite and the people decided together that it was time for the country to regain the status of a superpower, it was very important to make sure that we - the country, the people, the political elite - are ready to pay the bills stories. Independence, self-esteem and the right to decide their own fate are very expensive. The calculation of our enemies was simple and pragmatic: the Russians, realizing that they would not enter eternity on soft pillows, would prefer the dream of Parmesan to the real black bread of the builders of a great empire. In the end, most recently the last incarnation of the Russian Empire was betrayed, in exchange for jeans and Coca-Cola - well, why is Parmesan worse? This time the script did not work. Over the 2015 year, the Russians did not repent of their choice, and the Russian management elite finally consolidated around the president. Russia, in word and deed, has confirmed its application for participation in the repartition of the world order. The decision was made and secured by the return of the Crimea. There is no way back, and now you can seriously talk about global rates, goals and methods for achieving them.
Putin made it very clear that we live during the creation of new trade blocs and the development of new breakthrough technologies, and positioning Russia in the context of these processes will determine its place in the future global division of labor. Taking up a worthy place in the world of the future is the main challenge for our country.
Despite the howls of liberal and pseudo-patriotic propaganda, the Russian authorities are stubbornly trying to convey to society one very important idea: there will be no "hot war." Western liberals frighten society with the prospect of a disarming strike by the United States and demand that they surrender. Psevdopatrioty wind up a tantrum and also frighten society with the inevitability of a global "hot war", to which Russia is supposedly not ready. They reproach Putin for the lack of "mobilization", although in the mouths of the pseudo-patriots, this only means that they are unhappy with the fact that Putin does not want to give life to the ardent gorlopan blogger, personal dacha and Mauser with the right to kill his personal ideological opponents.
There will be no hot global war, as in the present conditions it will lead to causing unacceptable damage to all participants. We will have to live and win in the era of hybrid wars, which are characterized by the equivalent value of the military, economic, technological and informational component. In order to take a worthy place in the post-war structure of the world, Russia will need to change, transform and grow above itself. The president remembered Mendeleev knowingly. The text of the presidential address is a kind of “Putin’s periodic table”. Vladimir Putin, one after the other, outlined those "elements" with the help of which the future of the country will be shaped.
These elements are worth considering in more detail.
Self Esteem and Tranquility
These two elements must be inextricably linked and balanced, because otherwise our opponents will be able to carry out successful provocations against us with grave consequences. If we are too calm and do not react to external stimuli, then we will be beaten with impunity, and if we stand up for our right to self-respect based solely on emotions, we will fall into the set traps time and again and look as stupid as now looks like Erdogan. Once again, the public was presented with Putin’s proprietary formula - “cold revenge without stupidity”, which the president put on in a half-laughable form:
"But if someone thinks that, having committed a vile war crime, killing our people, they get off with tomatoes or some kind of restrictions in the construction and other industries, then they are deeply mistaken. We will remind you again and again that they did. And they will regret their actions more than once. We know what to do. "
Army and MIC
Even the strongest economy is not worth a penny if financial strength is not associated with military force. The president has publicly thanked our military and defense industry workers, for it is through their efforts that Russia keeps itself in a small and elite club of states that have the opportunity to independently decide their own destiny and defend their interests anywhere in the world.
The Russian army and the military industrial complex are also clear evidence that the president’s evolutionary approach to solving complex national problems works despite the lack of elements of the show. This is a very important point that is completely ignored by many commentators. After each speech by the president on social networks, a sigh of disappointment is heard - these are fans of "shootings in Red Square" sighing about another missed opportunity to "finally do everything right."
Look at the Army and the MIC and compare with what was 10 years ago. If some futurologist had predicted 10 years ago that it would be prestigious to be a military man, hazing would be eliminated, and the Russian Army would become modern, prestigious, respected and fashionably good, no one would believe him. At best, they would have said something like: "if all the generals are imprisoned and shot, the ensigns are dispersed, and the generals' dachas are bulldozed to the ground and show it on TV, then yes, something may change!" Putin is a unique master of evolutionary change without showing off, campaigning and organizing uncontrolled meat grinders that easily get out of control and begin to grind innocent and even their own creators. There were reforms in the army and there were hundreds of landings and resignations, which the media chose to ignore due to the fact that it was impossible to arrange this show. As a result, there is even some kind of surprise in society. “We suddenly had a great army!” - exclaim some, and especially gifted pseudo-analysts even try to convince society that this magically happened despite the efforts of the authorities to “disrupt the defense of the country”. But the thing is that they worked on the army for many years - without hysterics, but as hard as possible. The result is obvious.
A similar situation with the MIC. No public hysteria and campaigning, and long and hard work that requires significant human and material resources.
Putin’s great service to Russia lies in the fact that he clearly showed that the country can solve the most complicated problems in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary format. We have yet to assess and realize this, and the sooner we do it, the better.
2.0 State Capitalism
If the Army and the MIC are the lead fists of our Motherland, then the economy is gold in its wallet. In the context of a global hybrid war, the boundaries between the civil and military sphere are blurred. On the one hand, the export of security services can be an independent source of income, as well as a guarantee that once occupied markets will not burn in the fires of civil wars, external interventions and terrorism. On the other hand, even the ancients said that a rare fortress would resist a donkey loaded with gold, and this wisdom is confirmed in the current era of mass buying off of elites and the organization of color revolutions. It turns out that the army is the base of the economy, and the money is quite effective. weapon.
Today, the president has once again shown what the Russian economy should be in order to withstand the global hybrid war, and what’s important is not what he said, but what he didn’t say. From the official discourse, the “invisible hand of the market” has completely disappeared, the wisdom and prudence of which so used to rely part of the Russian establishment and the expert community. The state's hand comes to the fore, designed to support vulnerable sectors (construction, engineering, etc.), to allocate funds for industrial development and even to purchase up to 30% of the products of enterprises created through special investment contracts. The state will take on export support, with the help of the Russian Export Center, and even provide for the purchase of foreign technologies and patents that individual companies cannot afford. Russia is a country of wonders and non-linear thinking, and we personally observe how slowly and difficultly Russian “State capitalism 2.0” is taking shape, although it does not officially exist.
A few months ago, Vladimir Putin, responding to Yevgeny Yasin’s criticism, formulated this paradox as follows:
"We all know that even in the most market countries, countries with market infrastructure and economy, the state’s role in a crisis always rises. Well, always ... but we are not going to create state capitalism."
It turns out that there is no state capitalism, but there is an inevitable growth of the state’s role in the economy.
With the economy, everything will be fine. Not immediately and not quickly, and not easy, but the direction of movement is correct. Mechanisms to stimulate and support the economy are built, developed and gradually cleaned of corruption with the help of ONF. The result is sure to be.
Integration
Our time is the time of reformatting the existing world order and creating new trade and economic blocs, participation in which determines the future of specific countries and entire regions. The size of the available market determines the potential of production, and there is no getting away from it. Even the largest countries, such as China, are looking for economic integration in order to increase available markets, increase the depth of the division of labor and make production chains more efficient. It is impossible to isolate oneself, one cannot pretend that nothing is happening and one cannot be mistaken with the choice of an integration project. Kiev was wrong, and now about Ukraine, as about the dead: either it’s good, or not at all.
Next to Russia is the epicenter of the economic growth of our century - China and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. In relation to the PRC, you can use different strategies. It was possible to engage in the isolation barrier that the Americans are trying to build around China, but that would be disastrous stupidity. One could pretend that China is not around, but this is not much different from the first option. And it was also possible to use the desire of China to create a reliable corridor to Europe, having secured itself from the naval blockade by the United States. Putin chose the wisest and most profitable option - the closure of resource and transit commodity flows between Europe and China to Russia. In order to finally lay down the most profitable scheme for Russia and China, it is required to win the battle for Europe, and the Chinese-Russian tandem is actively working on it. In the dry Putin's statement that "an agreement was reached in principle on the conjunction of Eurasian integration with the Chinese initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt" there is a great deal of work and enormous potential for our country.
Speaking about economic integration projects, Putin described one more terrible nightmare for our overseas opponents with one phrase:
"I propose, together with colleagues from the Eurasian Economic Union, to begin consultations with the SCO and ASEAN members, as well as with the states that join the SCO, on the formation of a possible economic partnership."
Take a look at the map. If the SCO turns into an economic bloc, then it will have at its disposal most of the planet’s resources, half of the world's population and total GDP (PPP) - a little less than the EU and the United States combined, and if we take it honestly, it’s more than EU and USA. If you connect to this project at least part of the ASEAN countries, then the Western world in the near future will become just a periphery of civilization. This is an incredibly ambitious and very distant goal, but the path to it is quite possible to pass. Creating such an economic bloc would be the best gift to future generations of Russians.
People
People are the very element, without which all successes are meaningless and impossible. Without “human capital,” any other capital, whether financial or industrial, is nothing. Every concrete Russian is the very point where all the elements that the President was talking about intersect. For the sake of each particular Russian, rockets are created, fields are planted, bombers fly over Syria, and Russian diplomats build complex combinations. Together, we are the very alchemical melting pot in which in the fire of tests, difficulties and victories an image of Russia's future is created. Millions of individual destinies are woven into the common fate of the country. This is a great miracle - to observe and participate in the formation of a country aspiring to the future, and here it must be remembered that not everything comes down to material. Yes, maternity capital, engineering education, affordable medicine, macroeconomic stability and even myriad aspects of the material world are very important, but at least that’s what the president said in the words of the great Russian scientist and thinker Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev:
"Disunited we will immediately be destroyed. Our strength is in unity, in the army, in a complacent family, which increases the growth of the people, and in the natural growth of our inner wealth and peacefulness."
Our strength is in unity. It is this that is the guarantee of the great future of our Motherland, and it is about him that our president constantly tells us. In unity, our strength and, if we are united, we will surely be able to achieve everything we want.
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