2018: Time chosen, place as well
Krassimir Ivandjiiski
In the beginning of 2018, I will take you back to September 2017 when, while others were wondering if Putin would go on a new term, I wrote:
“Putin has already answered it, but hardly had someone noticed”: "What is a doctrine? Russia has always been in a difficult situation, and it had never been easy. What doctrine? We should work to ensure that Russia is stable, and just, and rich, and great. That Russia is simply to be. You can finish writing the rest by yourselves”. This is his assessment what doctrine and ideology shall be. One should work for Russia.
This lays on the scales when assessing Putin, and the pros began to weigh more over other things, especially over those from the past. This is the main vector and the answer to the question of who is actually Putin: a victim of the usurpation of power, its hostage or an accomplice. The answer is that Putin is a Russian patriot who has begun as a hostage to the ruins inherited by Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but who would not hand Russia to the mercy of the globalists and the winners of the Cold War.
It is imminent for him to step out of the system he inherited. This will be the most difficult part... Obviously, everything has already been decided. In recent months, Putin has given a lesson and has settled accounts with them all – Yeltsinists, oligarchs, siloviks and fellow party members. He is no more in debt to anyone. He is completely independent and he wants to become the President of people. This will be his last term and last chance. He will probably give at last a fight to corruption and will start resolving Russia's domestic problems to return its wealth, dignity and normality.
Will they allow him to do so? No way. The West will face him with fearsome resistance. Demonization of Putin will continue. The isolation of Russia will be intensified. The junta in Kiev will try to start a war. They will want to spoil the world football championship in Russia and to prevent its participation in the next Olympics.
But Russia had times that were more painful. In fact, it has never been easy for Russia. This is its permanent modus – never to be easy.
Will Putin take the next step as the President of people…?”
I recall these lines from September not to show that I have foreseen what will happen and that Putin will run and look for a mandate from the whole people, but because of another important question: what is to happen next.
I am giving an immediate answer - there are six even more difficult and dangerous years of conflict and uncertainty on the horizon.
Putin's decision to run for elections not as a party but an independent candidate has been discussed for a long time. It is not difficult to assume that the analysis has shown that new harsh years lie in store for the world.
That is why Putin has decided not to hand over the leading role to an heir. These six years will determine the entire 21st century. (Chinese leader Xi Jinping took similar position after recent 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist party).
Had the analysis been different, the Kremlin would go to another option. However, every option hides risks and the main one is the risk of making an error. If the heir makes an error and backs the wrong horse, it will determine the fate of Russia in a situation where mistakes can hardly be corrected.
Putin has decided that today was no time for risk. The die is cast and the stakes are high.
Russia enters the new stage of the Third World War both with Putin and with a new ultimate priority - "to go only forward and no-one to ever stop her".
With these words, Putin announced his candidacy and the new super task. This does not mean that the conflict with the West will go by the wayside, and vice versa. Russia will continue to be in a brutal clinch with the United States in defending its sovereignty and its national interests, and because it creates a new world order in the Southern and Eastern directions - from Turkey to China, from Iran to Japan, from Latin America to Africa.
A new world order built not on an American model, but with completely new architecture for regional and global security, based on SCO in Asia and BRICS in the world.
The above will be accompanied by an internal reconstruction of Russia and a massive rejuvenation of the elite with the entry of the younger generation.
Here things are really mind-blowing. Tectonic changes will be set against the systemic crisis of the West. Geopolitics will shift to Asia. Russia will begin economic and resource development of the Arctic, the Far East and Eastern Siberia. It will complete modernization of armed forces, the construction of a new military-industrial complex, rebuilding of machinery manufacturing and high-tech solutions, rocket and space industry.
In this field, Putin cannot be replaced. The essence is not in how many years a person stays at the wheel of the country, but in the vector of movement.
The conclusion is that at this point Russia has no other politician who can compare himself to Putin in prestige and competence, and who is able to offer a program to modernize the country.
Everything described here takes place within the framework of the Third World War. Exactly. Twenty years ago, as one of the first analysts in the world, I introduced the term World War III (or even Fourth if the Cold War is to be considered as Third).
At first, they mocked at that, but quickly understood what it was all about. The definition of the Third (or Fourth) World War is already on the agenda for what has been going on since 1990. Some still write, "The world is on the brink of a new world war". That is a mistake. The war is already going on, but in the presence of nuclear weapons when leading states can destroy each other in minutes. That is why the new war has a new form, mainly as a net of local conflicts in space and time.
From this point of view, we have several expanding fronts - the war in the Middle East that began in 2003 against Iraq and gradually swallowed North Africa, Libya and Syria; the conflict in Ukraine; the attempts to move the war to Central Asia and, recently, to the DPRK.
We have serious arguments to talk about a new world war with new hybrid characteristics, i.e. a war with different methods - military, economic, financial, informational, resource, psychological, etc. It is not important whether it will be defined as Third or Fourth. The importance is, as ever before, that the new world order is once again born by a world war.
That is why, against the background of classical geopolitics persistently imposed by the Anglo-Saxons, we introduced geopolitics of war and weapons, which I pay particular attention to because it came to the key place, although it has not yet gotten its theoretical summary.
If Russia wants to get out of the trap of the capitalist system, which it has been pushed into after 1990, Putin has to counter-pose different agenda. No mercy will be for Russia. It will have to fight. There is no other way out.
Here are two options – either Russia will regain its status a great power under Putin’s rule, or it will disintegrate and historical Russia will cease to exist.
Because of this, those who doubt whether the United States will wage war against Russia may no longer torment themselves. There will be war.
The place is chosen, the time as well. In the United States , England and Israel there are really lunatics who want to play the funeral march of the whole planet.
Unfortunately, Putin's new mandate shows that the world is continuing to roll down to a global conflict in which the West has such supreme commanders as Conchita Wurst.
Things will get much much worse before they get a little better.
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P.S. For more than 40 years, I start any new year with leading articles in different forms - printed, electronic, and visual.
Once again, at the beginning of the year, unforgettable landscapes mingle with the images of the dearest people and friends who are either still in the trenches or gone to the eternity.
They know I have not betrayed them and, as far as I can, I continue to do my job.
God only knows where we will get to. I hope him to be more merciful.
