We are wondering now, what in, it would seem, quite loyal to Russia in the CIS republics, such an army of American NGOs and intelligence officers emerged under the cover of diplomats. How could presidents, friendly to Russia, launch this whole subversive swarm. What were they thinking and where were their brains, did not understand, that they are preparing a time bomb for themselves.
How did it happen, that all the presidents of Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, not to mention Central Asia, caught up in this trap? How they opened the gates of their own cities to Trojan horses, not even hiding their filling? Why have we never made the conditions of resource diplomacy dependent on the freedom of American NGOs in these countries??
Yes, After the collapse of the USSR, Russia not only completely lost control over the republics, which was immediately intercepted by the United States, but she herself came under American control. But we have never disputed the right of local elites to a pro-Western vector., - because until 2007 they themselves went this way.
Chaos ensued in all post-Soviet countries after the overthrow of Soviet power. Consolidating weak presidents (but they could not be strong) sought only corruption, participating in it themselves more than anyone else. Little has been written about the role of corruption in the consolidation of post-Soviet elites, this story is still waiting for its researchers, but her factor is the most important.
We see all post-Soviet presidents by families, that they fought the most to preserve their personal assets in the West, since at home they could not provide this preservation. Their power has always been shaky, backed by the West, and the elite accomplices demanded the same for themselves, it was a condition of their loyalty. The West turned out to be the assets of not only all post-Soviet elites, but also all the presidents of the post-Soviet republics.
Except for Putin, whose money is still looking for, but can't find, attributing them to oligarchs from state corporations and creating a vast field for imagination.
But Putin is a KGB officer, he understood better than others the danger of such sources of power and the ephemerality of Western guarantees. It's hard to judge now, to what extent Putin was a sincere Westernizer in the first two terms, how much did he pretend, achieving compliance with the "operational environment", where he worked. The fact, that of all the post-Soviet heads of state, only Russia ended up with a president, able to restrict the work of Western NGOs, although even he has not yet been able to completely expel them.
Why Nazarbayev and Kocharyan let American NGOs into their countries? Why did Kravchuk do this, Hairy fur cap, Aliyev, Акаев, Karimov, Shevardnadze, Lukashenko? We see - they are all former Soviet top party functionaries. That is, they grew up in understanding the truth about the predation of the West and its habits. Why did they let the goat into the garden?
Because they themselves are up to their ears in corruption. And the position of London and Washington for keeping their money is more important to them, than the fate of your country, whatever they say in public. All their children and grandchildren pop up after their retirement in the West, bathing in luxury and surprising everyone with their perverse habits.
Consensus among post-Soviet elites, like in a gang, scattering after sharing the loot. They all recognize each other's right to dispose of their share., as they want. All further relations on resource diplomacy and the deployment of Russian military bases are built on this inertial consensus by default.. They are our bases - we give them non-interference in their drift to the West.
Russia is the only country in the former OVD (Organization of the Warsaw Pact, if anyone else remembers this socialist military bloc), where the most intense hidden war between the comprador and statist elites is taking place. Nowhere else in the former republics and allies of sovereign elites. There are nationalist, but nationalism is not at all synonymous with sovereignty. It turns out, that the nationalism of small and weak nations is only selfish and comprador.
Bribery is a weapon of the weak. And weakness is the presence of a split in the elites. It is overcome only by forceful suppression. It is necessary to build a system of checks and balances, but it must be built within the winning group. Seeking consensus between irreconcilable ideological enemies is to produce dual power, which becomes counterproductive in a crisis.
Abandoning consensus with compradors will allow for abandoning many methods of gaining loyalty using corruption. Corruption is when material incentives grow to sub-optimal sizes and stifles moral incentives. Moral incentives are ideology, which is prohibited in our Constitution. In this way, force (avoiding ideological divisions for the sake of consensus) turns into weakness (impossibility of consolidation without bribing the elites).
Now in Russia there is a spontaneous process of creating an ideology based on the synthesis of state capitalism and social justice. Crossing Keynes with Bernstein and Kautsky. You shouldn't be afraid of it, since all great ideas arise from attempts at crossing that, what seemed incompatible. If an idea comes up, a project will arise, which does not require corruption in the size of foreign policy to promote (as a euphemism for "resource diplomacy").
Bribery and blackmail are common operational tools. Police and intelligence agencies use them to subordinate agents and control their behavior.. But there are also ideological agents., and now they work with values. To deprive yourself of a value mechanism is to deprive yourself of an arsenal of weapons.. Appealing only to self-interest, you won't go far. There will always be one, who will pay more, and the whole strategy will collapse.
Money, power and ideas are the arsenal of the empire's influence. There is little money in Russia, little strength and almost no ideas. While, that all the initial data for their occurrence are abundant. Need political will to use them. If you hesitate with it, we will continue to wonder at everything that happens in the once friendly republics, watching the siege ring narrowing at our borders, and think, Where, what and when did we miss.
Alexander Chaldean
