Pundits Agree: Russia’s Foreign Policy in Near Abroad Was Disastrous, Loss of Ukraine a Wake-up Call

Sergey Mikheyev, top political analyst: Everything's clear, everything's been said many times. Regarding our response, all the objectives you've mentioned, from political to economic ones, depend on the model of the Russian economy. I'm convinced that a liberal market economy is unable to accomplish any of those objectives. It just can't. All those objectives fail within the framework of this model. We're crying because we gave up on some enterprises in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan. Why did we do that? Because they didn't make a profit. And the government doesn't invest in these things because the philosophy of the economy is different. Since the 1990's, we've believed in quick money. Nothing else matters. So we can cry all we want…

- Fast money that you can withdraw and reinvest in the West, so that you can go that way eventually.

 

- Saying "Oh, we gave up something," "China's advancing", but China's not advancing...

- The government... (drowned out).

- Let him finish.

- It's public interest. What's wrong with that? We gave up those assets across the USSR because private companies didn't want them and the government didn't insist, even though it hadn't been managing such companies for a long time. Period. Here's your liberal model of the last 30 years. And nobody plans to give it up. Kudrin is offering us a trillion-ruble project investment opportunity come hell or high water. But where do we get the money? Kudrin suggests we borrow a trillion rubles. Such a great idea. Who benefits from that? Those we borrow money from. That's why our model leaves us incapable of accomplishing our objectives. Same thing with our partners. We say: "You know, some other companies came, and their terms were better. And we couldn't offer better terms because we've had the same model since the 90's." Regarding China…

- We'll get back to China after a small commercial break. Our liberal model doesn't let us skip the commercials.

And we're back.

- Regarding China, they say, "Oh, pity us, those mean yellow Chinese are expanding." Well, who made you give up all that territory, huh? Did they attack us? Force us out? Nah, they picked up what we left. Well, there's the problem. OK, let's assume we stop dealing with China and say something like "Your Silk Road is an undercover expansion effort, and we don't want to end up eating with chopsticks." But that would be stupid. China's dynamically growing. They're offering us projects. Regarding cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Community, it was mentioned a year ago, and it was inevitable because it was a model that would win Russia's loyalty and participation; it's mutually beneficial. Shall we give it up? "Oh, China's so scary, it's sneaking up on us!" Yes, it is scary. Everyone's scary if you let them be. The US became so "scary" because we let it happen. And we constantly go on and on about how much stuff they have which they can throw at us. You know what I think? They're bluffing. Because they would need to raise the money, and because they lack professionalism, so on and so forth. So, I believe they're mostly bluffing. And our reaction to that is sometimes rather inadequate. They want to make us react symmetrically or super-symmetrically because they'd benefit from it. And we tend to take the bait for better or worse. So when it comes to China and these joined projects; China's economy is stronger than ours, but our military is stronger than theirs. Our political will could balance these things out. It's good that their new railroad will go through Kazakhstan. Why? Because in this case, Kazakhstan becomes dependent on Russia and China both. We turn it down and then what? Central Asia stops participating in the Chinese project? Won't happen.

Semen Bagdasarov, orientalist: Who said we'll turn it down? We won't turn it down.

- That's not what I'm saying. No, we shouldn't turn it down. We won't turn it down. I'm saying we need to treat this project more cautiously. I'm not rushing to extremes.

- We mustn't give it up.

- Please, don't interrupt me.

- It's a free discussion.

Sergey Mikheyev: It's a free discussion, but we're still talking about the "scary Chinese" attacking us. What's the plan? Treat them cautiously? Let's do that. With the resources that we have. Within the framework of our economic model, the issue is insoluble. We'll just be observing the changes. Kazakhstan is an issue, but I won't call it a major one. It's trapped between Russia and China. Americans have nothing to offer Kazakhstan. Yes, the local elites aren't happy about it. Yes, Nazarbayev will keep looking for a window to the West. Why? Because he needs it! He's trapped between Russia and China. He can't escape from that trap, but in order to feel a bit more independent and to troll Russia and China from time to time, he and his successors will be doing that. Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill though.

Regarding our allies, we've coddled them, to say the least. We've been doing that for 30 years. Why have we been doing that? Because in the 90's we didn't even think about that. What allies? Why do we need them? We were all standing in line to make deals with the West, writing numbers on our hands, comparing them with each other, seeing which number is closer to the front of the line. And that was it. Wrecking stuff was easy. Building stuff is a lot harder, especially when there's no consensus on this issue among the ruling elites. You are right, our military is back on track. It's formidable. But our economy still thinks and acts as it did in the 90's. Yes, there are state companies now, but they also work for profit. Profit is crucial. Why does China succeed where we fail? They have a different model. Don't lie to yourself saying that they have a liberal market, that's not true. They found a compromise between a liberal market and government regulation. We haven't really searched for a compromise. Sure, we've been trying a bit, but there was so much fuss about the new state companies being ineffective and faulty. "Let's sell it all off!" Maybe we could upgrade it? What did we do with the Soviet economy? We terminated it due to its ineffectiveness. But maybe we should have borrowed something and modernized it? It's been 30 years! I'm sure that during the last 30 years a lot of enterprises that we butchered could have been transformed into effective companies. The lucky survivors are operating just fine, and working well, as a matter of fact. That's the way. Regarding the compromise with the West that you're urging us to find, it would be great, but the situation and the terms must be appropriate. That's what's important. And stop worshiping the West. They want us to see them as the only beacon of light.

Andrey Sidorov, political analyst: I wouldn't say we were worshiping it. Our government hasn't been worshiping it for a long time. Yes, 80% of our businessmen and CEOs are Westerners. They believe Russia is a part of Europe. Who doesn't? Even Peter I, who smashed out a window to Europe, used to say that we needed Europe for 25-30 years and then we'd turn our... back to it. In this sense, the majority of our so-called "elite" believe they are Europeans and that we are a part of Europe. Even Europeans start to believe it if we constantly bring it up. They get really surprised when they hear that Russia isn't a part of Europe but a separate independent civilization.

- You claim that we don't worship the West. You ask why Ukraine went in that direction? Because we do worship the West. We didn't make that decision on Ukraine for a single reason: We were afraid our relations with the West would collapse. That's what we were afraid of. Crimea...

- Relations are already ruined.

- Wait a second, please. Crimea... We got Crimea against all odds. Despite everything, we got Crimea. Ukrainians claim we'd been planning it for 30 years. Unfortunately, that's not true. We hadn't been planning that at all. And that's not propaganda, that's the truth. I'd be happier if we had been planning it for 30 years. But we didn't even bother to. It happened against all odds. Everything else was basically a chain reaction. Why did it happen the way it did? Because our concept of foreign policy implies staying friends with the West because "we're lost without it." By the way, I didn't really get the "modernizing together" part. Why weren't we modernizing together before? Why wasn’t that a thing? Why? Let me finish, please. It didn't happen.

- Well…

- You can explain all you want, the fact is… it didn't happen.

- Not only did we modernize…

- So many lost opportunities!

- Realistically speaking, we have been modernizing in spite of their efforts to stop us. Regarding our defense industry, had Stalin said that we couldn't modernize without the West, 1945 — 1961 wouldn't have been so successful.

- The industrialization…

- That's why I'm saying 1945–1961. The last 8 years were after Stalin. But speaking about the period of industrialization, they were selling us goods against all odds. America distrusted us but still sold us goods. Neither side enjoyed exchanging technology. Our intelligence services operating in foreign fuel and energy sectors found and brought home all the classified research data that we needed.

- And that idea is haunting our ruling elite. The West, the West, the West! One step forward, two steps back. Let's wait for the World Cup. Let's wait for the elections. Let's wait for the next ones. Now, I don't support a war with the West. I don't believe a war against the US should be our life's goal or anything. But after 30 years, we still aren't free. Where's our modernization? They say we have to wait another 30 years for relations to improve. It's going to be 100 years soon. 30 years is more than a quarter of a century. Where's your effective liberal model? Where's your hyper-modernization? There's nothing. Nothing. But no, let's worship the West. And regarding our allies, unfortunately, we've already lost many. With all due respect, all those scenarios involving the Russian-speaking populations should have been executed in the 90's or 00's. Now, those leaders…

Semen Bagdasarov: Better late than never.

- Yes, better late than never, but at what cost? The leaders we used to establish relations with, who still remembered the Soviet school of thought, had their pros and cons. Our common history was a pro. But the power they received when the USSR collapsed was their most valuable possession and that was a big con. They would have never given it up. They tried to persuade us that we owed them. And we took the bait. Now, the situation is different. The new leaders have no common history with us. And we haven't worked with them in that 30 years. We need a different approach. 30 years were enough to change everything. Unfortunately, one can't count these things with a calculator. We donated more money to Ukraine than the US spent on their civil society and their media. The US invested almost nothing in Ukraine's economy over the past 20 years.

- We lost money on that.

- That's my point. Now we must decide what to do in this situation. Counting the sum with a calculator and promising to give it to them still means putting the economy in the center. It doesn't work. Yes, the economy is important. But focusing solely on profit is problematic. We tried working like that with Ukraine and failed. It didn't work.