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 "<strong>Горизонт</strong>" 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 "<strong>Горизонт</strong>" 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/<strong>830</strong> 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:
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