Big Politics Without Putin
- TELEGRAM CHANNEL "SIEVE OF SOCRATES"
- 20.11.2023, 11:21
Russia's role in the world is being downgraded.
The main international meeting of 2023 took place in San Francisco. Here at the APEC Summit, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed key issues on the current agenda. Russian President Putin was not present at the important event, which suggests that Moscow has fallen out of the process of real influence on global issues. The Kremlin's reputation has again come under attack due to Putin's non-travelling status after an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court. Consequently, just as in the case of BRICS, Putin's inferiority has left the Russian Federation out of favour in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, the regime's war crimes and the failed war against Ukraine put an end to Russia's global geopolitical ambitions.
Indeed, the meeting between Biden and Xi, if we put aside the layers of information husks and gossip, was in many ways a verdict for Russia. Beijing and Washington have entered a path of fragile de-escalation and de-tensions based on the primacy of the economic interdependencies that exist between the countries. Unlike the Kremlin madman who rejoices that his country is squandering scarce natural resources at a steep discount through shady schemes, the Chinese comrades are true pragmatists who can figure out where, when and how to get the best deal.
Before the US presidential elections in 2024, China is thinking about a deal with the Americans to restore the bipolar world. The initiators are the Chinese, who are well aware that if Trump comes to power for the second time, relations will deteriorate, and therefore it is better to build a safety net now. Here Xi has an additional fault line in relations with Putin, who is betting on an anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian candidate. One can hardly talk about Moscow's independent role here, if the incumbent leader is literally letting the country down.
The APEC summit showed conclusively that Russia's voice can be disregarded while implementing the "Big Two" plan. There are a number of important factors at once. To begin with, the military weakening of the Russian army. There is a feeling that Putin and the FSB officials feared a military coup and therefore instructed Shoigu and Gerasimov to bring the Armed Forces to a state of severe weakening, discrediting the generals at the same time. According to German sources, it will take somewhere between 6-10 years to restore Russia's military potential to a level where it could pose a military threat to NATO. By a strange coincidence, this period coincides with the approximate time Putin has been in power. Accordingly, Lubyanka's plan was to neutralise the army circles in order to maintain the viability of the Chekist dictatorship.
A side effect of the army's destruction was the collapse of Russia's international influence. If the war in Ukraine was over, it would have opened up an opportunity not only to build up the country's military resources, but also to return to the status of a mediator in contacts between China and the US, of course without Lavrov, but with a new team in the Foreign Ministry. Now the Putin regime, washed in blood, is just a scarecrow for everyone, while China has become a serious mediator in resolving the situation in the Middle East. Obviously it happened only at Russia's expense.
Against the background of all this, the discussion of the Russian dossier in San Francisco looks particularly humiliating in light of North Korea's military assistance to Putin's army. Washington is hinting to the Chinese that it is in their interests to stop this business. This is how the levelling of Russia's role in the world looks, and it will only intensify dramatically in the new terms of the incumbent usurper.
Telegram channel "Sieve of Socrates"