The Ukrainian conflict explained in historical context: Interview with Sergei Glaziev, advisor to President Putin
The Saker
The Vineyard of the Saker
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 05:36 CDT
The world today is going through an overlap of a whole series of cyclical crises. The most serious of them is a technological crisis, which is associated with changes in the wavelengths of economic development. This is a period when the economy is changing its structure. The economic structure which has been driving economic growth for the last 30 years, has exhausted itself. We need to make a transition to a new system of technologies. This kind of transition, unfortunately, has always come about through war.
That’s how it was in the ’30s, when the Great Depression gave way to an arms race, and then to the Second World War. That’s how it was during the Cold War, when an arms race in space gave rise to complex information and communication technologies, which became the basis of a technological structure that has been driving the world’s economy for the last 30 years.
Today we are faced with a similar crisis. The world is shifting to a new technological system. The new system is humanitarian in nature and thus could avoid a war, because the main carriers of growth on this wavelength are humanitarian technologies. These include health care and pharmaceutical industries, which are based on bio-technology. They also include communication technologies based on nanotechnology, which is making a breakthrough today. And they include cognitive technologies that define a new sum of human knowledge.
If, as President Putin has been consistently putting forward, we were able to develop a mutual program for development, a general development zone with a preferential trade regime from Lisbon to Vladivostok; if we were to agree with Brussels to create a common economic space, a common area of development, we could find a sufficient number of breakthrough projects, from health to repelling space threats, to fulfilling our scientific and technical potential and creating a steady demand from the state, which would give a boost to the new technological system.
However, Americans have taken the usual path. To maintain their world leadership, they are inflaming another war in Europe. A war in Europe is always good for Americans. They even call the Second World War, which killed 50 million people in Europe and Russia, a good war. It was good for Americans because the US emerged from this war as the world’s leading power. The Cold War, which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, was also good for them. Now the US again wants to maintain its leadership at the expense of Europe.
This is being threatened by a rapidly rising China. The world today is shifting to yet another cycle, this time political. This cycle lasts centuries and is associated with changes in the global institutions of regulatory economics. We are now moving from the American cycle of capital accumulation to an Asian cycle. This is another crisis which is challenging the American hegemony. To maintain their leading position in the face of competition with a rising China and other Asian countries, Americans are starting a war in Europe. They want to weaken Europe, break up Russia and subjugate the entire Eurasian continent.
That is, instead of the development zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which is offered by President Putin, the US wants to start a chaotic war on this territory, embroil all Europe in a war, devalue the European capital, write off its public debt, under the burden of which the US is already falling apart, write off what they owe to Russia and Europe, subjugate our economic space, and establish control over resources of the giant Eurasian territory. They believe that this is their only way to maintain hegemony in the world and outplay China.
Unfortunately, the American geopolitics that we see on our screens are as if straight from the 19th century. They think in terms of geopolitical struggles of the British Empire: divide and conquer, pit nations against each other, embroil them in conflict, and start a world war. Americans, unfortunately, continue this old British policy to solve their problems. Russia has been chosen as a victim of this policy, while the Ukrainian people are the weapon of choice and cannon fodder in a new world war. First, the Americans constantly tried to target Ukraine in order to separate it from Russia. This tactics also comes from the days of Bismarck. This European anti-Russian tradition aimed to separate Ukraine from Russia, embroil them in conflict in order to take over the whole Eurasian space.
The idea was first expressed by Bismarck, then it was picked up by the British, and finally, by the main American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said on many occasions that Russia cannot be a super-power without Ukraine and that embroiling Russia with Ukraine will benefit America and the West. For the past 20 years Americans have been grooming Ukrainian Nazism aimed against Russia. As you know, they hosted the remnants of Bandera after the Second World War. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Nazis were brought to America and have been carefully cultivated and nurtured during the whole post-war period. This wave of immigrants descended on Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So by constantly targeting Ukraine they want to separate her from Russia. This is their main goal.
The idea of an Eastern partnership was used as a bait. It was first expressed by the Poles and then picked up by the Americans. The essence of the Eastern partnership, of which first Georgia became a victim, now Ukraine has become one, and soon Moldova will be one, is to sever their ties with Russia. As you know, we are building the Customs Union and a common economic space with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which will soon be joined by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Ukraine has been our long-standing partner. Ukraine is still in the ratification stage of the agreement with Russia, which no one in Ukraine has canceled yet. Ukraine is important to us as a part of our economic space and for our centuries-long ties and cooperation. Our scientific and industrial complex was created as a whole; therefore, Ukraine’s participation in the Eurasian integration is quite natural and vital.
The Eastern partnership was invented in order to prevent Ukraine’s
participation in the Eurasian integration project. The meaning of the
Eastern partnership is to create an association with the European Union.
What is the association, which was signed by Poroshenko with the
European leaders?
It’s a transformation of Ukraine into a colony.
By signing the agreement with the association, Ukraine loses its sovereignty.
It transfers control over its trade, customs, technical and financial
regulation, and public procurement to Brussels. Ukraine ceases to be a
sovereign state in its economy and politics. It’s clearly stated
in the association agreement that Ukraine is a junior partner of the European
Union. Ukraine must follow a common defense and foreign policy of the
European Union. Ukraine is obliged to participate in the resolution of
regional conflicts under the leadership of the European Union.
Thus Poroshenko is making Ukraine a colony of the European Union and pulling
Ukraine into a war with Russia as cannon fodder, with the intention of
igniting a war in Europe. The purpose of the association agreement is
to allow the European countries to govern Ukraine in the settlement of
regional conflicts. What is happening in Donbass is a regional armed conflict.
The goal of American politics is to create as many victims as possible.
The Ukrainian Nazi junta is an instrument of this policy. They are carrying
out mindless atrocities and crimes, bombing cities, killing civilians,
women and children, and forcing them to leave their homes, only to provoke
Russia and then to draw the whole of Europe into the war. This Poroshenko’s
mission.
That’s why Poroshenko is rejecting any peace negotiations and blocking all peace treaties. He interprets any statements by Washington about a de-escalation of the conflict as an order to escalate it. All peace talks, which have taken place at the international level, have brought a new round of violence. We must understand that we are dealing with a Nazi state, which is dead set on a war with Russia and has declared a general conscription. The entire male population between 18 and 55 years has been put under arms. Those who don't want to obey will get 15 years of jail. This Nazi criminal power makes criminals out of the entire Ukrainian population.
We have calculated that the European Union will lose around one trillion euros from sanctions against Russia, which were imposed on them by the Americans. This is a huge sum. Europeans are already bearing the losses. There is already a drop in sales of goods to Russia. Germany is losing about 200 billion euros. Our most rabid friends from the Baltic states will suffer the most losses. The damage to Estonia will be more than its entire GDP. The damage to Latvia will be about half of its GDP. But that isn't stopping them. European politicians are going along with the Americans without questioning what they are doing. They are harming themselves by provoking Nazism and war.
I have already said that Russia and Ukraine are the victims of this war, which is being fomented by the Americans. But Europe is also a victim because the war aims to target European welfare and to destabilize Europe. Americans expect that the European capital and brain drain to America will continue. That’s why they are setting the whole of Europe on fire. It is very strange that European leaders are going along with them. Let’s talk about the pressure from NATO and old Europe. The USA exerts a serious pressure on NATO countries. The French Bank has suffered. Is Russia hoping that Western Europe will resist the pressure and be able to assert its independent policy?
We shouldn’t just hope for it, we must work with the European leaders of a new generation, who are free from the American diktat. The fact is that an anti-Soviet political elite had been formed during the post-war years of the Cold War in Europe. Then they very quickly became anti-Russian. Despite the dramatically expanded economic ties and huge mutual economic interests between Europe and Russia, this Russophobia is based on anti-Sovietism and still remains in the minds of many European politicians. It would take a new generation of pragmatic European politicians to come to power, who would understand their national interests.
What we see today is European politicians who are acting against their national interests. This is largely due to the fact that Germany, which is the engine of European growth, is still an occupied country. American troops are still in Germany, and every German Chancellor still gives an oath of allegiance to the Americans to follow in the footsteps of their policies. This generation of European politicians has failed to throw off the yoke of the American occupation. Although the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, they maniacally continue to follow Washington in NATO expansion and capture new territories under their control. Despite the fact that they are already “allergic” to the new Eastern European members of the EU.
The European Union is already bursting at the seams, but this does not prevent them from continuing their aggressive expansion into post-Soviet territory. The new generation will, I hope, be more pragmatic. The last elections to the European Parliament showed that not all European citizens are fooled by this false pro-American, anti-Russian propaganda and by the constant stream of lies that is coming down on the head of the unfortunate Europeans. Traditional European parties lost in the recent elections to the European Parliament. The more we speak the truth and the more persistent we are, the greater will be the reaction. Because what is happening in Ukraine is the revival of Nazism.
Europe remembers the signs of the revival of fascism from the lessons of the Second World War. We need to awaken this historical memory so that they see in the Ukrainian Nazis, who are now in power in Kiev, the followers of Bandera, Shukhevych and other Nazi collaborators. The ideology of the current Ukrainian authorities takes roots in the ideology of Hitler’s accomplices, who shot Jews at Babi Yar, burned Ukrainians and Belarusians in Khatyn, and destroyed everybody without ethnic distinction. This Nazism is rising today.
Europeans must recognize their own death in this terrible confrontation. I hope that if we are consistent in telling the truth and bringing it to everyone who wants to know, we will be able to stop Europe from the threat of war. Most importantly, we need to stop external dependencies. Unfortunately, the Russian financial system today is heavily dependent on foreign capital. Not so much foreign by the fact, but by the form. We, having an open economy, initially relied on foreign investment. We ended up with our investors having gone abroad. Practically, we lose US$ 100 billion in non-taxable dollars each year to offshore zones. We only receive back a small part of the money that flows from Russia under the guise of foreign investment.
We need to create our sovereign financial and monetary system, which would allow us to rely on our own strength and provide as many resources for the economy as necessary for economic growth. We need to stop the outflow of capital and strengthen banking and currency control in order to stop this crazy off-shoring of our economy. We need to restore our capacity for strategic planning and long-term programs, and, most importantly, raise a new technological system.
This requires special measures to stimulate innovation and investment in the new economic structure. The most important thing is to create a financial mechanism of economic growth, of which I spoke earlier. We can, using our own internal resources, have long term affordable loans, which our businessmen today seek abroad and often mortgage their properties for. The foreign banks then review the loan terms, which, at each turn of the crisis, bring us under the threat of confiscation of the Russian assets by foreign creditors. In order to avoid this, we need to build our sovereign monetary macro-economic policy.
Dutch Intellectuals Apologize to Putin for Lies on MH17, Syria, Ukraine...