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 3 -
Sanctions: The other economic weapon
The overall
impact of Western sanctions against Russia is a hotly debated
subject. Russian media tends to downplay the overall impact of the
sanctions, while the Western media paints a picture of imminent
collapse. Notably, Paul Krugman, the leading liberal doomsayer,
prognosticated in The New York Times in 2014 that “Putin’s Bubble
Bursts,” warning that Russia was headed for economic meltdown
thanks to the courageous sanctions regime imposed by the fearless
leader President Barack Obama.
In reality,
the sanctions had little immediate, direct impact on the Russian
economy, but the indirect bruising might be significant, particularly
over the medium- and long-term. Last year, the International Monetary
Fund issued a report, noting:
“IMF
estimates suggest that sanctions and counter sanctions might have
initially reduced real GDP by 1 to 1½ percent. Prolonged sanctions
may compound already declining productivity growth. The cumulative
output loss could amount to 9 percent of GDP over the medium term.
However, the report’s authors underline that these model-driven
results are subject to significant uncertainty.”
But, looking
beyond the raw numbers, one must realize that the policy
prescriptions outlined by the IMF and leading economists
internationally are perhaps the actual target for the West.
The IMF
recommended “reforming the pension system” (read: reduce
pensions), reducing energy subsidies, reducing tax exemptions, and
other measures, while also suggesting that education, health care,
and public investment be safeguarded. However, the subtext of the
recommendations is that austerity, which by its very definition
starves public programs of much needed funding, is the way to go for
Russia.
There are
likely strategic planners in Washington who recognize that the
political subversion model employed in Brazil and South Africa simply
won’t work in Russia. If nothing else, the failed “White
Revolution” protests of late 2011 led by Russian liberals and
various pro-Western political forces, demonstrated unequivocally that
the Russian state was prepared to prevent precisely this sort of
outcome.
And so it
seems that those who play on what former National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski famously called “The Grand Chessboard,” have
made their moves in an attempt to corner Russia economically. Whether
that strategy has been, or will be, effective likely depends on
perspective. While it alone will not bring about the Western pipe
dream of regime change in Russia, the Empire’s elites are banking
on the collective assault on Russia and the BRICS broadly to do what
political subversion alone could not.
Source:
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Globalization
and the introduction of a market economy has not produced the
promised results in Russia and most of the other economies making
the transition from communism to the market. These countries were
told by the West that the new economic system would bring them
unprecedented prosperity. Instead, it brought unprecedented
poverty: in many respects, for most of the people, the market
economy proved even worse than their Communist leaders had
predicted. The contrast between Russia's transition, as engineered
by the international economic institutions, and that of China,
designed by itself, could not be greater: While in 1990 China's
gross domestic product (GDP) was 60 percent that of Russia, by the
end of the decade the numbers had been reversed. While Russia saw
an unprecedented increase in poverty, China saw an unprecedented
decrease.
[...]
The
radical reform strategy did not work: gross domestic product in
post-1989 Russia fell, year after year. What had been envisioned
as a short transition recession turned into one of a decade or
more. The bottom seemed never in sight. The devastation-the loss
in GDP was greater than Russia had suffered in World War II. In
the period 1940-46 the Soviet Union industrial production fell 24
percent. In the period 1990--99, Russian industrial production
fell by almost 60 percent-even greater than the fall in GDP (54%).
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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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