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Электронное приложение к журналу «
Международная жизнь
»
Author : A. Ageev
General Director, Institute of Economic Strategies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Doctor of
Science (Economics)
IN THE LAST QUARTER of a century, it has become clear
that neither great powers nor small and average states nor even
the United States are happy with international chaos. Is there
a force strong enough to offer an alternative to the slipping
into an abyss of hopelessness and initiate adequate measures?
Which country except Putin's Russia can shoulder the burden?
Has the world found itself at the threshold of another Cold
War which offers no choice but a third world war?
Yevgeny Primakov is convinced that another cold war can be
avoided because the current alienation with the West is not
the cold war as we knew it in the past when two groups of
states occupied opposite ideological positions. This could have
developed into a hot war; today, the situation is different.
The following can be described as fundamental indicators of a war in progress: negative
repercussions in the form of lost potentials - military, demographic, economic, financial,
technological, territorial, infrastruc-tural, organizational, administrative, political, reputa-
tional, etc. If there are no losses there is no war.
WARS ARE WAGED for objective reasons yet from beginning to end they depend, to a
great extent, on subjective interpretations of reality (reflection) and "black swans" as un-
predicted or ignored events which cause important and long-term effects.
A BIG WAR is predated by deliberate removal of all barriers to the use of instruments
which rely on power in economic relationships. The potential, ability and readiness to use
them constitute the core of the global organizational capital of the United States and its
allies.
The Russian state and Russian society are living through a very intensive period of ac-
quiring a new attractor yet the strategic choice has not been made. The elites and society
remain mesmerized by a mainly fictitious possibility of following the old economic and
geopolitical paradigms, viz. integration in Western structures and transfer to it part of re-
sponsibility for Russia's civilizational future based on primitive model of state-monopolist
economy. The ideas about an alternative model based on much deeper consolidation
within the BRICS and MINT are taking roots.
One Hundred Years' War for the Right to Remain Russia