By Pepe Escobar
October 24, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House -
"Asia
Times"-
The plenary session is the traditional highlight of
the
annual, must-follow Valdai Club discussions –
one of Eurasia’s premier intellectual gatherings.
Vladimir Putin is a frequent keynote speaker. In
Sochi this year, as
I related in a previous column, the overarching
theme was “global shake-up in the 21st century:
the individual, values and the state.”
Putin addressed it head on, in what can already
be considered one of the most important
geopolitical speeches in recent memory (a so-far
incomplete transcript can be found
here) – certainly his strongest moment in the
limelight. That was followed by a
comprehensive Q&A session (starting at 4:39:00).
Predictably, assorted Atlanticists, neocons and
liberal interventionists will be apoplectic. That’s
irrelevant. For impartial observers, especially
across the Global South, what matters is to pay very
close attention to how Putin shared his worldview –
including some very candid moments.
Right at the start, he evoked the two Chinese
characters that depict “crisis” (as in “danger”) and
“opportunity,” melding them with a Russian saying:
“Fight difficulties with your mind. Fight dangers
with your experience.”
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This elegant, oblique reference to the
Russia-China strategic partnership led to a concise
appraisal of the current chessboard:
The re-alignment of the balance of power
presupposes a redistribution of shares
in favor of rising and developing countries that
until now felt left out. To put it bluntly,
the Western domination of international affairs,
which began several centuries ago and,
for a short period, was almost absolute
in the late 20th century, is giving
way to a much more diverse system.
That opened the way to another oblique
characterization of hybrid warfare as the new modus
operandi:
Previously, a war lost by one side meant
victory for the other side, which took
responsibility for what was happening.
The defeat of the United States in the Vietnam
War, for example, did not make Vietnam a “black
hole.” On the contrary, a successfully
developing state arose there, which, admittedly,
relied on the support of a strong ally. Things
are different now: No matter who takes the upper
hand, the war does not stop, but just changes
form. As a rule, the hypothetical winner is
reluctant or unable to ensure peaceful post-war
recovery, and only worsens the chaos
and the vacuum posing a danger to the world.
A disciple of Berdyaev
In several instances, especially during the Q&A,
Putin confirmed he’s a huge admirer of
Nikolai Berdyaev.
It’s impossible to understand Putin without
understanding Berdyaev (1874-1948), who was a
philosopher and theologian – essentially, a
philosopher of Christianity.
In Berdyaev’s philosophy of history, the meaning
of life is defined in terms of the spirit, compared
with secular modernity’s emphasis on economics and
materialism. No wonder Putin was never a Marxist.
For Berdyaev, history is a time-memory method
through which man works toward his destiny. It’s the
relationship between the divine and the human that
shapes history. He places enormous importance on the
spiritual power of human freedom.
Putin made several references to freedom, to
family – in his case, of modest means – and to the
importance of education; he heartily praised his
apprenticeship at Leningrad State University. In
parallel, he absolutely destroyed wokeism,
transgenderism and cancel culture promoted “under
the banner of progress.”
This is only one among a series of key passages:
We are surprised by the processes taking
place in countries that used to see themselves
as pioneers of progress. The social and cultural
upheavals taking place in the United States and
Western Europe are, of course, none of our
business; we don’t interfere with them. Someone
in the Western countries is convinced that the
aggressive erasure of whole pages of their own
history – the “reverse discrimination” of the
majority in favor of minorities, or the demand
to abandon the usual understanding of such basic
things as mother, father, family or even the
difference between the sexes – that these are,
in their opinion, milestones of the movement
toward social renewal.
So a great deal of his 40 minute-long speech, as
well as his answers, codified some markers of what
he previously defined as “healthy conservatism”:
Now that the world is experiencing a
structural collapse, the importance of sensible
conservatism as a basis for policy has increased
many times over, precisely because the risks and
dangers are multiplying and the reality around
us is fragile.
Switching back to the geopolitical arena, Putin
was adamant that “we are friends with China. But not
against anyone.”
Geoeconomically, he once again took time to
engage in a masterful, comprehensive – even
passionate – explanation of how the natural gas
market works, coupled with the European Commission’s
self-defeating bet on the spot market, and why Nord
Stream 2 is a game-changer.
Afghanistan
During the Q&A, scholar Zhou Bo from Tsinghua
University addressed one of the key, current
geopolitical challenges. Referring to the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, he pointed out that, “if
Afghanistan has a problem, the SCO has a problem. So
how can the SCO, led by China and Russia, help
Afghanistan?”
Putin stressed four points in his answer:
- The economy must be restored;
- The Taliban must eradicate drug trafficking;
- The main responsibility should be assumed
“by those who had been there for 20 years” –
echoing the
joint statement after the meeting between
the extended troika and the Taliban in Moscow on
Wednesday; and
- Afghan state funds should be unblocked.
He also mentioned, indirectly, that the large
Russian military base in Tajikistan is not a mere
decorative prop.
Putin went back to the subject of Afghanistan
during the Q&A, once again stressing that NATO
members should not “absolve themselves from
responsibility.”
He reasoned that the Taliban “are trying to fight
extreme radicals.” On the “need to start with the
ethnic component,” he described Tajiks as accounting
for 47% of the overall Afghan population – perhaps
an over-estimation but the message was on the
imperative of an inclusive government.
He also struck a balance: As much as “we are
sharing with them [the Taliban] a view from the
outside,” he made the point that Russia is “in
contact with all political forces” in Afghanistan –
in the sense that there are contacts with former
government officials like Hamid Karzai and Abdullah
Abdullah and also Northern Alliance members, now in
the opposition, who are self-exiled
in Tajikistan.
Those pesky Russians
Now compare all of the above with the current
NATO circus in Brussels, complete with a new
“master plan to deter the growing Russian threat.”
No one ever lost money underestimating NATO’s
capacity to reach the depths of inconsequential
stupidity. Moscow does not even bother to talk to
these clowns anymore: as Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov has pointed out, “Russia will no longer
pretend that some changes in relations with NATO are
possible in the near future.”
Moscow from now on only talks to the masters – in
Washington. After all, the direct line between the
Chief of General Staff, General Gerasimov, and
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Todd
Wolters, remains active. Messenger boys such as
Stoltenberg and the massive NATO bureaucracy in
Brussels are deemed irrelevant.
This happens, in Lavrov’s assessment, right after
“all our friends in Central Asia” have been “telling
us that they are against … approaches either from
the United States or from any other NATO member
state” promoting the stationing of any imperial
“counter-terrorist” apparatus in any of the “stans”
of Central Asia.
And still the Pentagon continues to provoke
Moscow. Wokeism-lobbyist-cum-Secretary of Defense
Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, who oversaw the American
Great Escape from Afghanistan, is now pontificating
that Ukraine should de facto join NATO.
That should be the last stake impaling the
“brain-dead” (copyright Emmanuel Macron) zombie, as
it meets its fate raving about simultaneous Russian
attacks on the Baltic and Black Seas with nuclear
weapons.
Pepe Escobar
is correspondent-at-large at
Asia Times.
His latest book is
2030. Follow him on
Facebook.
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