Russia in Global Affairs

For a long time, Russia preferred to rely on the principles of realism in foreign policy. However, the very fact that Russia has thrown an open challenge to the United States and its allies in the situation around Ukraine is a significant precedent. If the “Russian rebellion” is not suppressed, the blow to US prestige could be extremely painful. Such a blow would not necessarily bring down the US leadership. However, it can become a factor in its erosion.

The collapse of the USSR shows that its current idealization can only be the result of an ideological vacuum. Undoubtedly, the idealization and mythologization of the Soviet past, especially of the late Soviet period, is, above all, a consequence of the post-Soviet trauma. But this trauma was inflicted not on Russia alone, but almost on the entire post-Soviet space.

The events of 2022—the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and the subsequent economic war of the “collective West” against Russia—have aroused speculations that the St. Petersburg period of Russian history is over. Russia is secluding itself on an “island” and turning towards Asia. The period of rapprochement between Russia and the West is closing up. The country has chosen its own civilizational path, diverging from that of Europe.

The historical roots of the current crisis between Russia and the West are partly related to Russia's three hundred-year striving for the global power status, which has undermined the country’s stamina and deepened the gap with the West. Today, this striving requires Russia to revise the very foundations of its internal development and foreign policy.

It all begins with pushing the “guilty person” to the sidelines, that is, the one who must atone for his sins in church, get closer to eternal life, etc. The place of the guilty person is taken by a kind man, a “good savage,” who is not bad by nature, is not burdened with original sin, and, therefore, is not yet spoiled by society.

The problem of radicalization motivated by fundamentalist interpretations of Islam has been faced by countries around the world for several decades. And there are no reasons to say it may be resolved in the near future.

Putin a politician and leader, not an academician. His conservatism should be judged accordingly. It is a work in progress and is part but by no means the whole of the mental apparatus he brings to his role.

New ideological trends that have evolved among the American and European elites are gradually spreading to the rest of the world. They differ, but we can already talk about the emergence of an ideological system different from the one that prevailed in these countries just recently. It assumes the form of both new ethical concepts and rules, and pseudoscientific theories, and can be found in all spheres of life from scientific research to mass culture.

As an ideological imperative built on Cultural Marxist dichotomies of oppressor and victim classes (according to sex, race, language, religion, etc.) this effort to transform all human society supplies a missionary zeal no less relevant to American officials’ and their fellow travelers’ efforts than their aspirations of global political dominion.