Горизонт N1/830

RUSSIAN DENVER / HORIZON
8
By Leonid Bershidsky
The evolution of Russia’s National
Security Strategy – a document
whose latest version was
published on Dec. 31 – provides
valuable material for the study
of the angst, paranoia and befuddlement
now gripping the
Kremlin.
It’s well known that during
his third presidential term, Putin
has cultivated the image of
a Western enemy out to destroy
Russia. That this concept has
found a way into the strategic
document is not surprising or
particularly important. The significance
of the rewritten national
security concept is that, for the
first time in the 18 years since
President Boris Yeltsin signed off
on the first version, the Kremlin
officially regrets opening up the
country economically and culturally.
Yeltsin signed the first National
Security Concept, as it was
then known, in 1997. Even in
the first post-Soviet years, when
Russia did its best to integrate
into the Western world, the document
called the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization’s eastward
expansion a national security
threat because military groupings
near the Russian borders
“are a potential military danger
even in the absence of aggressive
intentions toward Russia.”
It wasn’t the drafters’, or Yeltsin’s,
biggest worry, though. The economy
was:
The economic crisis is the
main reason for the emergence
of national security threats to
the Russian Federation. It is expressed
as substantial production
decline, drops in investment
and innovation activity, the destruction
of scientific and technological
potential, stagnation in
agriculture, disarray in the payment
and monetary system, fiscal
revenue shrinkage, increases
Putin Makes His Isolationism Official
in public debt.
Yeltsin and his strategists were
right to be worried. Less than a
year after the National Security
Concept was approved, oil prices
dropped to about $10 per barrel,
Russia defaulted on its domestic
debt and suffered perhaps the
biggest post-Soviet blow to its
prestige. The country lay economically
helpless, and only a
sharp devaluation and an excess
of unused industrial capacity
allowed it to rise as domestic
production gradually replaced
imports.
The national security document
got a face-lift in 2000, after
Yeltsin resigned and Vladimir
Putin became acting president. It
still centered on economic challenges,
but it reflected a growing
concern with Western interference
and NATO expansion:
A shift, enshrined in NATO’s
strategic doctrine, toward the
use of military force outside
the bloc’s zone of responsibility
and without sanction from the
United Nations Security Council
carries a threat of destabilization
to the entire global strategic environment.
There were other not-so-subtle
changes, too: For example,
where the original concept talked
about the need for construc-
ВНИМАНИЮ ВЛАДЕЛЬЦЕВ КРУПНЫХ,
sage about NATO as a threat
СРЕДНИХ И МАЛЫХ БИЗНЕСОВ!
to Russian interest read as if
this mild nuisance could be
overcome with some assertive
Закаленный в победах доблестный отряд
diplomacy:
славных Russia вебмастеров is ready to develop газеты its "Горизонт"
объявляет relations о начале with NATO грандиозного on an equitable
basis электронной in the interests of общины
строительства...
единой русской Колорадо.
strengthening comprehensive
security in the Euro-Atlantic region,
the depth and content of
which will be determined by the
alliance’s willingness to consider
Russia’s legitimate interests.
The bravura tone appeared
justified. Russia was successfully
weathering the global financial
crisis thanks to its huge interna-
Economic problems take a
back seat to these threats. The
Kremlin is still concerned about
the commodity export dependence
but, on a part with it,
economic dangers include “the
inadequate protection of the
national financial system from
the actions of non-residents and
speculative foreign capital, the
vulnerability of its information
infrastructure” as well as “the
registration of a significant share
of corporate property rights in
foreign jurisdictions.”
Putin is also worried about
“the watering down of traditional
Russian spiritual and moral
tive decentralization that would
devolve more powers to the vast tional
Интернет
reserves,
сайты
oil was
ВСЕХ
getting
русских
values and
бизнесов
the weakening of the
country’s regions, the early Putin
version only talked about long-term и частных trend предпринимателей
looked favor-
multiethnic people through the
close to $70 per barrel, and the unity of the Russian Federation’s
building “a strong vertical of executive
able. на одном гигантском портале. external cultural and informacame
power,” a phrase that be-
The current version of the tion-related expansion.”
the leitmotif of Putin’s first Все бизнесы National Security могут Strategy принять is the участие The в 2000 проекте iteration of the national
security agenda spelled
presidential term. The amended most specifically anti-Western
document stressed the need for a one
СОВЕРШЕННО
to date. NATO and the European
Union от особенностей are accused of being других central видов power, рекламы. the state in all
БЕСПЛАТНО
out Putin’s plan to strengthen
bigger role for the state in независимо countering
all sorts of threats, both unable to ensure the security of its Soviet and czarist glory. The
military and economic. Unlike in Europe, and the EU refugee crisis
Новогодний is held up as proof. The подарок
U. S. isolationist, defensive intentions.
2015 iteration is a declaration of
the original, there was no Это mention
that an oversized military and EU, the document says, There is not a glimmer of hope
от газеты "Горизонт"
was too much of a burden for an backed “an anti-constitutional that Putin plans to fight Russia’s
economic woes by making
economically weakened country.
Для
coup”
этого
in Ukraine
надо
that
занести
“led to
информацию
a
All in all, Putin followed through deep split in Ukrainian society his country more accessible to
on his intentions, aided by a rise
о своем
and an
бизнесе
armed conflict.”
ДО НОВОГО ГОДА
foreign
по
capital
адресу
or deepening its
in oil revenues.
The document argues that the integration into global markets;
The next time Kremlin strategists
West www.gorizont.com/letmein
is out to topple “legitimate no, he plans to keep moving in
felt Russia needed a new political regimes,” which creates the opposite direction.
national security agenda was in instability and new hot spots. He still has time to do it. Even
2009, when Dmitri Medvedev Все вопросы Even the emergence по тел. of Islamic 720-436-7613
after the most adverse oil scenarios,
served as a placeholder president State is blamed on “the policy of
Russia has enough inter-
between Putin terms. His version
double standards practiced by national reserves to last through
was supposed to last until some states in the fight against the end of this year, and prob-
2020. Medvedev, who now serves terror.” Those “certain states” also ably, with frugal management,
as prime minister, is into windy “use information and communication
until the 2018 presidential elec-
forward-looking documents. Unlike
technology to reach their tion. Russians’ legendary pa-
the previous two iterations, political goals through public tience may fray, but it will probably
this one was somewhat boastful: opinion manipulation and history
last until then, aided by a
It claimed that Russia’s economic
falsification.” Russia itself, well-fed security apparatus. Even
decline had been reversed and with its state-controlled propaganda
if Putin cannot hold on to power
that its resource wealth was helping
machine that has replaced beyond that election, Russia will
to enhance the country’s international
private media for most of the do-
be a much more inward-looking
influence.
mestic audience, is implicitly not society when the time comes for
Even the traditional pas-
among the offending countries. political succession.
UKRAINE’S POROSHENKO PROMPTS MEME CRAZE IN RUSSIA AFTER TWITTER GAFFE
In one day Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko
has transformed himself
from his country’s President
to the cover star of almost every
major magazine, on Twitter at
least.
The Ukrainian leader, whose
country is currently caught in an
uneasy ceasefire with Russianbacked
separatists in its eastern
N01/830 от 01.08.2016 e-mail: info@gorizont.com Simply the best
Luhansk and Donetsk regions,
tweeted what he believed to be
an innocuous joke on Sunday.
He posted a photo of a
mocked-up copy of The Economist’s
latest front cover, which
originally showed the faces of
the world’s most influential figures
under the headline “The
World in 2016” with two notable
changes. The headline was
changed to 2017, and the face of
Russian President Vladimir Putin
was substituted with that of
Poroshenko.
Although Poroshenko
shrugged off criticism of the
move, claiming it was a joke, this
did not stop Russian
bloggers with
having a field day
of Poroshenkoinspired
memes.
By Monday
morning, the
phrase “The
Economist” was
trending in Russia,
and Poroshenko
had made
it on the cover
of fashion bible
Vogue, instead of
Kate Upton:
… and Rolling
Stone, ahead of
Megan Fox.
…Vogue again, though sporting
a different look:
Poroshenko even popped up
on two covers of Time, once with
his face first on the body of the
first man in space, Russia’s Yuri
Gagarin, then on the body of the
pope:
Before the day was through,
Poroshenko’s face even took the
place of Mona Lisa’s enigmatic
smile:
And finally, Mount Rushmore
lost one president in
Abraham Lincoln but gained
another one: