Vladimir Putin’s speech, delivered in the format of remote participation in the annual Davos Forum, is already being actively compared with his 2007 Munich speech.
Well, there is something in common. About the same in common as between Stalin’s «Brothers and Sisters!» in 1941 and a toast «To the great Russian people!» in 1945.
The Munich speech in 2007 stated that Russia accepted the challenge from the West. We didn’t attack, we were attacked. We offered peace, but the enemies chose war. We are not going to surrender, we will win the war. We suggest, before it’s too late, to change your mind and stop the aggression. Approximately the same words were conveyed to Napoleon by Emperor Alexander the Blessed through Adjutant General Balashov in June 1812, adding that, if necessary, he would retreat to Kamchatka, but would not put down his weapons while at least one enemy was on Russian soil.
So Putin’s Munich speech is evidence of Russia’s entry into a new (hybrid, informational) Patriotic War. But his Davos speech is a summing up of the results of this war. A kind of new Yalta (the Yalta conference also took place before Germany finally surrendered).
The people who came up with this move and worked on organizing the speech of the President of Russia at the Davos Forum in 2021 should be given the [orders of] Heroes of Russia in full force. They also deserve a monument. Thanks to their efforts, unlike Yalta in 1945, today Russia has found itself at the origins of a new post-war world in the singular, without any allies-competitors. At the same time, China cannot be offended — no one removed it [from participation]. It somehow happened by itself [that China did not participate]. But chinese interests are not violated.
Let’s look at the Davos speech from the point of view of diplomatic art.
Everyone knows that the Davos Forum is a gathering of the world financial and industrial elite, people who have a significant, and sometimes decisive, influence on the policies of their (and sometimes neighboring) states. Politicians, even the most prominent, are just a seasoning there. Their presence is evidence of the importance of the non-political part of the guests. Those who speak from the stage mean much less there than those who are silent and listen on the sidelines. In addition, in terms of information, any speech will be overlaid by a dozen others, muddied up in a panel discussion. The journalists present at the forum are more interested in showing their own importance by interviewing at least a minor oligarch (Ukrainian, for example, from year to year discuss the color of dumplings and the size of portions at Pinchuk’s «Ukrainian Breakfast», without being distracted by anything else). In general, it is almost impossible to give a performance on this platform an appropriate political and informational sound.
That is why Putin did not go to Davos for 12 years — there was no need.
It was then that the coronavirus pandemic came, which forced the forum to be held remotely. As a result, a huge number of narcissistic peacocks, who previously proudly wore their shiny tails on the sidelines of the forum, remained at home. After all, you cannot take a picture against the background of someone from the mighty of this world on Skype, or exchange a few words with anyone during a coffee break. The forum was practically forgotten.
But it didn’t die. Its organizers did not want to slaughter the goose that lays the golden eggs at all because of some kind of pandemic. If the motley retinue that gave the [informational] picture is cut off, and only a few dozen people are left who are really making serious decisions, then the problem lies only behind the topic that would captivate everyone so much that it would put the forum held on Skype at the center of the world information agenda.
There was nothing better than Putin’s speech to solve this problem.
First, as a result of the crisis in the United States, it became obvious to even the deepest skeptics that Washington has lost its leadership in the modern world. Moreover, the Bidenit coup d’état made the United States a bulwark of liberal leftists and a threat to right-wing conservative forces around the world. Trump, a right-wing conservative traditionalist, viewed by Western conservatives as a potential leader, has been kicked out of politics, if not forever, then for a long time. At best, after some time he will be able to return to American politics, but he is still far from returning to global politics.
Secondly, there is also no leader among European politicians who can lead the right-conservative resistance to the left-liberal globalists. Merkel is herself a liberal (albeit pragmatic), and besides, she is retiring. Macron is ambitious, but he works in the style of «please both yours and ours», he cannot be trusted — at any moment he can switch sides. The rest are neither themselves strong enough, nor the countries they represent can claim to be a leader.
Third, Xi Jinping in China is undoubtedly a conservative leader in Asia, but due to enormous cultural and historical differences, he cannot claim leadership in Europe.
In Davos, Putin took the demanded position in the absence of competitors. His speech, intended for the global financial and industrial elite, turned out to be the only proposal for a «bright future» that should come after the final breakdown of the American-centric system (and for this reason it turned out to be the number one information topic of the week that no one can ignore).
Putin elegantly demonstrated the inevitability of its final demolition with several figures, from which it followed that while over the past 15-20 years the number of the poor (living on less than $5 a day) in the United States has grown by one and a half times, in China the number of such has decreased four times, and in Russia — 12 times. Moreover, in Russia today there are already fewer people living on less than $5 a day than in the United States.
For people who are accustomed to buying and selling, who know well what the purchasing power of the population is, who are able to calculate processes in dynamics, these figures are a verdict of the United States. Moreover, they already know that, militarily, Russia has also overtaken the West forever. The United States and Europe do not have the technologies to catch up with Moscow in the field of armaments, and there are no resources to develop such technologies in the next decade.
That is, the president of Russia appears on the computer screens of about a hundred of the most influential people on the planet and offers uncontestedly (in the absence of at least some competitor) a model of a new post-American world. Putin points out that presumptuous liberal leftists pose a threat to any statehood, and gently unobtrusively hints that Russia will not only fight this, but is also ready to lead an alliance of healthy conservative forces around the world, ensuring the protection of national statehood from the encroachments of TNCs.
Answering the natural question “What in return?”, without waiting for it to be asked, Putin explains that no one is going to break the [actual] system to the ground, but in the conditions of a severe systemic crisis, the role of the state in economic life should be strengthened. The state is not going to replace private initiative. It only plans to smooth things over and see to it that the private drive to maximize profits does not conflict with public interests and conservative values. Behind the scenes, it remains that it is the Russian state that should become the guarantor and leader of this process. One more unanswered question «How to defeat the left-liberal destroyers of the state in the interests of the transnational financial oligarchy?» the answer was given on January 23 and in the following days on the streets of Russian cities. Without excessive violence, without totalitarian prohibitions, but at the same time without flirting with outright hooliganism. With whom we can negotiate — we will negotiate. And whoever is incorrigible will be in prison (but alive). In general, against the background of what is happening in the world (from Belarus to the United States), Russian protective measures are indeed the mildest, but at the same time the most effective.
In general, to those global money that really wants to work within the framework of the classical market economy, which does not want to wait for the «golden billion» to turn into a «golden million», then into a «golden thousand», and then into a gang of mad bankers fighting on the ruins of the planet, Putin proposed a way out of the crisis, drew the outline of the «post-Yalta world» (guaranteed by Russian power) and proposed to start discussing its final format.
And who would have thought — 80 people from among the most influential people on the planet did not laugh in Putin’s face, as they did in 2007 in Munich, but without too much hype, immediately after his open speech, they signed up for a closed conference with him.
Honest liberals and ordinary urban madmen can make fun of the assertions (and evidence) of Russian power and global authority, completely sincerely and free of charge. This line of those who run the world economy to a private meeting with Putin is the best evidence that what seemed incredible yesterday has become obvious today. Russia put the conditions of the new world on the table. And the world reached out to discuss these conditions.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention once again to the imperceptible feat of the people who prepared this speech by Putin. In terms of scale and impact on historical processes, it is greater than the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk combined. In addition, victory was achieved with little bloodshed and on foreign territory. The bomb blast effect is achieved by surprise. This has become the corporate identity of Russia. Putin’s speech in Munich was sudden, the August 2008 crushing defeat of the presumptuous Saakashvili regime was sudden. The return of Crimea was sudden. And now the same sudden Davos.
The late Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin would say with satisfaction: «This has never happened before, but here it comes again!».
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Rostislav Ischenko, 28.01.2021 / Source.
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