Russia
is the target of a multi-faceted, asymmetric campaign of
destabilization that has employed economic, political, and
psychological forms of warfare -- each of which has been specifically
designed to inflict maximum damage on the Kremlin.
PART 1
The
U.S.-NATO Empire, with its centers of power in Washington, on Wall
Street, and in the city of London, is on the offensive against the
BRICS countries. This assault takes many forms, each tailored to its
specific target.
The ongoing
soft coup in Brazil has recently entered a new stage with the
impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers’
Party. Simultaneously, the destabilization of the ANC-led government
in South Africa continues as political forces align to remove
President Jacob Zuma. These two situations illustrate clearly the
very potent forms of subversion via Western-funded political
formations and movements being employed against Brazil, Russia,
India, China and South Africa, the bloc of emerging economies also
known as BRICS.
However,
when it comes to a country as large as Russia, with its vast military
capabilities, consolidated and wildly popular political leadership,
and growing antagonism toward the West, the tools available to the
Empire to undermine and destabilize are in some ways more limited.
Indeed, in
the context of Russia, the popular mobilization pretext does not
apply, and so that weapon in the imperial arsenal is blunted
considerably. But there are other, equally potent (and equally
dangerous) methods to achieve the desired effect.
Russia is
the target of a multi-faceted, asymmetric campaign of destabilization
that has employed economic, political, and psychological forms of
warfare, each of which has been specifically designed to inflict
maximum damage on the Kremlin. While the results of this
multi-pronged assault have been mixed, and their ultimate effect
being the subject of much debate, Moscow is, without a doubt, ground
zero in a global assault against the BRICS nations.
Economic
war: Hitting Russia where it’s vulnerable
While Russia
is a world class power militarily, it is highly vulnerable
economically. For that obvious reason, this area has been a primary
focus of the destabilization thrust.
Russia has
for decades been overly reliant, if not entirely dependent, on
revenues from the energy sector to maintain its economic growth and
fund its budget. According to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration and Russia’s Federal Customs Service, oil and gas
sales accounted for 68 percent of Russia’s total export revenues in
2013. With more than two-thirds of total export revenues and roughly
50 percent of the federal budget, not to mention 25 percent of total
GDP, coming from oil and gas revenue, Russia’s very economic
survival has been as dependent on energy as almost any country in the
world.
In light of
this, it’s no surprise that the drop in oil prices over the
18-month period from April 2014 to January 2016, which saw prices
dive from $105 per barrel to under $30 per barrel, has caused
tremendous economic instability in Russia. Even many leading Russian
officials have conceded that the negative impact to Russia’s
economy is substantial, to say the least.
At the World
Economic Forum in January, former Russian Finance Minister Alexey
Kudrin explained that not only has the drop in oil prices badly hurt
the Russian economy, but the worst may be yet to come. Kudrin noted
the potential for prices to drop even further, possibly even below
$20 per barrel, and he warned that the impact to the economy will be
significant.
Specifically,
it’s not just the loss of revenue, but the negative effect on wages
and the currency which have many economic analysts and political
figures worried.
According to
the Russian Federal Statistics Service, real wages for Russian
workers have dropped significantly since the end of 2014, with steep
declines throughout 2015 continuing into early 2016. This has been
felt by ordinary Russians, whose wages have stagnated while inflation
causes prices to shoot upwards and who have had to endure
belt-tightening in terms of personal consumption, and at the national
level, where the Russian government has been facing a potentially
large budget shortfall for 2016.
It must be
noted, however, that recent months have seen an improvement in the
relative performance of the ruble, but the long-term outlook from
experts remains gloomy.
This has led
many Russian analysts and policymakers to advocate yet again for a
decreased dependence on energy revenues. They argue that the current
climate could force economic restructuring away from the critical
energy sector. Aside from Kudrin, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev
made the case for potential “structural economic reforms,” as did
Vladimir Mau of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy
and Public Administration.
Writing
earlier this year in Vedomosti, Russia’s leading business
publication, Mau explained: “The demand for oil as a commodity
depends on technological progress…And it’s not obvious that oil
as a fuel will be always in demand in times of economic growth. With
the change of the technological model, it is not ruled out that oil
will become just a stock commodity for the energy and chemical
industry.”
This last
point — how oil is used relative to the market — is the most
salient; in other words, it’s the financialization of oil. But the
analysis must go a step further and explore how the financialization
is, in effect, a weaponization process as oil prices become
increasingly the playthings of powerful financial institutions,
particularly the major banks on Wall Street and in the city of
London. And this is no mere conspiracy theory.
Source:
What we see in Ukraine is probably
another failure of various think tanks, mostly from Washington,
which they are funded, of course, by the international capital. It
seems that, apart from the fact that they have underestimated
Putin's abilities, they have also wrongly estimated that Russia
had passed permanently in the neoliberal phase and would be ready
to become an easy victim to promote their plans. According to
these plans, the ultimate goal would be probably to dissolve the
vast Russian territory in future and bring in power
Western-friendly puppet regimes, in order not only to conquer the
valuable resources, but also to impose permanently the neoliberal
doctrine on "unexplored" regions and populations.
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