[Ediitorial] An Interview From Another Perspective

 

An interview with Sergey Karaganov, a former advisor to Vladimir Putin, on a variety of important geopolitical subjects.

BM You talked about demilitarisation of Ukraine, but it seems that such a goal would not be achieved if the West continues to provide Ukraine with weapons. Do you think Russia will be tempted to stop that flow of arms, and does this risk a direct clash between Nato and Russia?

SK Absolutely! There is a growing probability of a direct clash. And we don’t know what the outcome of this would be. Maybe the Poles would fight; they are always willing. I know as a historian that Article 5 of the Nato treaty is worthless. Under Article 5 – which allows a state to call for support from other members of the alliance – nobody is obliged to actually fight on behalf of others, but nobody can be absolutely sure that there would be no such escalation. I also know from the history of American nuclear strategy that the US is unlikely to defend Europe with nuclear weapons. But there is still a chance of escalation here, so it is an abysmal scenario and I hope that some kind of a peace agreement between us and the US, and between us and Ukraine, can be reached before we go further into this unbelievably dangerous world. [...]

SK There are two answers to your question. One is that China’s economic influence in Russia and over Russia will grow. China has most of the technologies we need, and it has a lot of capital, so there is no question about that. Whether Russia would become a kind of a satellite country, according to the Chinese tradition of their Middle Kingdom, I doubt it.

If you asked me how I would describe Russia in one word, it is “sovereignty”. We defeated those who sought to rule us, starting with the Mongols, and then Carl [Charles XII] of Sweden, then Napoleon and Hitler. Also, recently, we had years of Western domination here. It was almost overwhelming. And nevertheless, you see what has happened: Russia revolted against all that. So I am not afraid of Russia becoming a part of a great China. The other reason I’m not afraid is because Chinese civilisation is very different. We have our Asian traits in our genes, and we are in part an Asian country because of this. And Siberia is at the core of the Russian empire: without Siberia, Russia wouldn’t have become a great country. And the Tatar and Mongol yoke left many traits in our society. But culturally, we are different, so I don’t think it is possible that we will become a subsidiary country. 

But I am very concerned about the overwhelming economic predominance of China over the next decade. People like me have been saying precisely [that] we have to solve the Ukraine problem, we have to solve the Nato problem, so that we can be in a strong position vis-à-vis China. Now it will be much more difficult for Russia to resist Chinese power. [...]

SK We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history, and it’s not just about war in Ukraine; it’s about the final crash of the international system that was created after the Second World War and then, in a different way, was recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we are witnessing the collapse of an economic system – of the world economic system – globalisation in this form is finished. Whatever we have had in the past is gone. And out of this we have a build-up of many crises that, because of Covid-19, we pretended did not exist. For two years, the pandemic replaced decision-making. Covid was bad enough, but now everybody has forgotten about Covid and we can see that everything is collapsing. Personally, I’m tremendously saddened. I worked for the creation of a viable and fair system. But I am part of Russia, so I only wish that we win, whatever that means.

BM Do you sometimes fear this could be the rebirth of Western power and American power; that the Ukraine war could be a moment of renewal for the American empire?

SK I don’t think so. The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power.

So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation. I think geopolitically the West will experience ups and downs. Maybe the shocks we are experiencing could bring back the better qualities of Western civilisation, and we will again see people like Roosevelt, Churchill, Adenauer, de Gaulle and Brandt back in office. But continuous shocks will of course also mean that democracy in its present form in most European countries will not survive, because under circumstances of great tension, democracies always wither away or become autocratic. These changes are inevitable.

[EDITOR] There are a lot of 'expert' opinions on the police action that Russia is doing in Ukraine and yet nobody ever asks the people who were born there. I was born in Ukraine--in the Crimea Peninsula--and still have family there. 

To understand what is happening in Ukraine is to simplify it with a simple idiom "Racism doesn't exist." Both Ukrainians and Russians are white and yet hate each other because of cultural differences that stem from WW2 and most recently in the CIA backed coop that installed a puppet in Ukraine in 2014. 

During WW2 the Ukrainians sided with Nazis and helped them fight the Russians--which the victorious Russians never forgave and never forgot. 

In 2014, the CIA over-threw the Democratically elected President of Ukraine and installed a series of puppet dictators. The current one, which has with authoritarian ideology, banned all opposing political parties and news channels and journalists (i'm guessing you never read this in the news)? Ukraine also banned Russian from being spoken in Ukraine and started a war in the Donbass region bombing and murdering innocent children and women. This 'war' has been happening for 8 years until finally a day after the Ukrainians bombed a children's hospital that Russia stepped in. 

Russia stepped in because Donbass is 90 percent Russian, just like Crimea is 90% Russian. Remember when I said "racism doesn't exist?" It doesn't, because culture matters and borders are a fake creation that change throughout history and Donbass want's to Democratically join their ethnic country heritage of Russia. 

None the less, we will have a WW3 because that is what the West wants. Just like America fabricated "weapons of mass destruction," babies in incubators, the Gulf of Tonkin, and just like FDR knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked months in advance. Russia will be instigated into a war. 

My curse is having been born in the Soviet Union, immigrating to America and watching America repeating the same exact mistakes as the Soviet Union. The worst part is that when I tell people, they dismiss me and call me terrible words. Make no mistake. I told my history teacher in High School (who now makes very good beer in Craig) that "China would become a 1st world nation by 2020 and Al Gore's Global Warming will never happen." He laughed at me and yet I was correct. 

War with Russia will happen and America will not win this war. Please prepare for food shortages and get out of debt as fast as you possibly can because by 2030 "America" as we know it will not exist. Sounds 'crazy" and yet I was born in a country (the Soviet Union) that no longer exists. 

When it comes to the Russia/Ukraine conflict, I promise you. I am an expert. What is happening does not bode well for America.