by Samaher al-Khatib *
The Russian special military operation in Donbass constituted a new stage in the history of the modern world, characterized by new concepts, and with the arrival of this special operation to the date of signing the accession of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia to the Russian Federation, which preceded the accession according to a popular referendum in those regions preceded by the announcement of partial mobilization, which means moving from The stage of the special operation to the stage of the war in preparation for the total war, and when we indicated in a previous article about Putin’s strategic ambiguity that the war had not started yet, referring to the results of that operation and its repercussions on the West in particular and the world in general, noting that all these repercussions while it is still a special operation, so how The case is if Putin opens his coffers and actually starts the war!
As we entered the month of October, we entered with it the war phase, which is not a Russian-Ukrainian war, but a Russian-Western war, meaning that what is happening now in Ukraine is a war in every sense of the word, and there is no longer a special military operation.
And if we want to enter into the concept of “war”, we interpret it according to several aspects, including the targeting of missiles towards Russian territory by America’s Ukrainian or European allies. Likewise, when the Zaprzezh nuclear plant is targeted, it can be interpreted at that time as an attempt to launch a nuclear strike on Russia, which also falls within the “war”, and the targeting of the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline is interpreted as a blow to the Russian-Western economy also falls within the concept of “war”, knowing that All evidence indicates that the United States blew up the pipeline in its efforts to prevent Europeans from relying on Russian gas, and the explosion coincided with NATO’s boast on “Twitter” about testing new unmanned systems at sea.. The explosion was accompanied by the former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski thanking the United States The United States on the incident that occurred with Nord Stream, just as US President Joe Biden had previously threatened to blow up the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.. and other irrefutable evidence.
Thus, the real war really started between Russia and the Western community (America – Europe) after the Western powers crossed all the red lines that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against, who put the West and America with their support for the “Nazis” in Kyiv before a single irreversible option, which is confrontation until the end.
Hence the first steps to declare martial law and mobilization in Chechnya, and in the Crimea, to be in other regions as well, especially the border areas.
In an analysis of Putin’s strategic steps, which are flexible and subject to modification according to external variables, away from modifications to the main goals, but rather to the paths to reach the goals, it appears that the theoretical model proposed by Charles F. Hermann is one of the most prominent and most appropriate scientific models for attempting to decipher Russian foreign policy and its changes under President Vladimir Putin’s administration.
This model is based on the fact that the changes that occur in the foreign policies of a country do not come out in one of the following forms of change: Modification changes, which are quantitative changes: small modifications in the effort to implement foreign policy, or improve the objectives of that particular policy, which is meant by the change in The foreign policy of a country at the level of its sub-objectives. And the programmatic change that occurs at the level of foreign policy implementation tools. And directional change, which is the most extreme form of change, through the change that occurs in foreign policy at the level of its refutation tools and goals. In such events, countries completely reorient their approach to world affairs.
Hermann diagrams are a tool aimed at understanding the reasons that drive governments to reorient their foreign policies. As such, it fits this analysis, given that Russia’s foreign policy has undergone many abrupt reorientations in its recent history, and some of these changes coincided with a radical adjustment. of the country’s political system, some corresponded to changes in administration, and some – the ones that interest us most – took place under an existing administration, namely the government of Vladimir Putin.
As for the factors of change, according to Hermann, they are: the dominant leader, bureaucratic advocacy, local restructuring, and external shocks. Clearly, these foreign policy change agents are not mutually exclusive, and for foreign policy reorientation to occur, interaction between some or all of these sources of change is often needed. For example, an external shock could activate a leader-led initiative to change the course of foreign policy.
It seems that change always stems from failure. This means that the reorientation of foreign policy is dictated by the realization that actual policy is not properly addressing the problems it set out to solve, or that it is not achieving the goals it was meant to achieve.
It is the specificity and practicality of Hermann’s model that makes it a more attractive tool for studying Russia’s foreign policy. The application of Hermann’s theory to the realities of Russian foreign policy is not an empirical fact in any way, but rather an attempt to find a more appropriate theoretical approach to explaining Russian foreign policy, and to determine the impact of the course of the war that began in Ukraine as an “external shock” that interacted with an initiative led by leaders to change the course of foreign policy and change The objectives that were one thing before the special military operation and after it have become something else, and these changes in objectives may lead to changes in the geopolitical and geopolitical map of the whole world.
There are also three geopolitical phases in modern Russian history. The first is the nineties, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s surrender to the West, and the price was the disintegration of the Russian superpower, as the West planned for the smooth final disintegration of the Russian Federation, and Yeltsin’s shy attempts to resist that, hence the starting point of the first Chechen campaign, and if Russia completely lost that campaign, it would have been One option is to move to an administration loyal to the liberal West.
Let the second period begin with the arrival of Vladimir Putin to power, and the new path was to stop the inevitable collapse and restore Russia’s sovereignty, and win the second Chechen campaign so that the Chechens, who were separatists and enemies of Russia, became the most loyal sons and defenders of Russia. Separatist movements were also eliminated in other regions. Russia consolidated its independence and began to actively influence international operations. The West recognized Putin’s strategy and focus on sovereignty, and began to prepare for a serious confrontation.
The third phase began in 2014, when advocates of globalization achieved a “breakthrough” in Ukraine, organized and supported a military coup, and brought to power in Kyiv an anti-Russian Nazi clique with US-Nato loyalties, so that the Russian response would be to re-annex Crimea and support the people of Donbass.
The West did not take Putin’s warnings seriously and persisted with his security threats to the Russian borders, so that the date of February 24, 2022 would be the end of this stage of maneuvering, and with it the stage of actual confrontation between the Russian “conservative” mentality and the West that seeks to destroy all structures of traditional society, whether “religion, state” , the family, morals, and even the human being himself” by merging it with a machine and putting it under complete control, as previously presented by “Hollywood” in parts of its movie “The Matrix”.
While sovereign Russia does not fit into this context at all, and for this reason the West openly supports all terrorist and extremist organizations and directs terrorist acts against Russia, against the Russians, and against the Russian civilization itself and its bearers and against its philosophers, as the West fears Russian philosophy, according to what Putin said in his speech on Eid. The accession of the four regions to the Russian Federation was a very harsh speech with regard to the West, as he said everything very frankly and clearly (either negotiating or continuing), which means that it is a complete “strategic” divorce with the West and carries with it a “religious war” against the “savage” Western liberal ideas. Where Putin opposed himself and Russia with the West in everything from morals and values to history and the future direction of development, and it can be considered a declaration of a “crusade” against the “crusaders” in the West, especially with his declaration that the Nord Stream bombing amounts to international terrorism and blaming the Anglo-Saxons for blow it up.
As for the accession of the four regions, as a result of the referendums that ended with the decision to join Russia, it changed the geopolitical context in Europe as a whole, which means moving from the stage of the special military operation to a war to liberate the Russian lands from the “fascist invaders”, where the fighting will now be on “Russian lands” and as I said earlier that the current Ukraine will no longer exist and perhaps Poland will enter this war…! While the future temporary borders of the Russian Federation in October 2022 will gradually move towards the West.
The Russian Federation was faced with a choice either to dismantle Russia, which is what the West wanted, or to dismantle Ukraine, which resulted from Western policies and the West’s failure to heed Russian warnings.
Here we return to what the Russian army previously stated, that the aim of the second phase of the special operation is to impose control on Novorossiya, which is the area extending from Kharkov to Odessa. As for “Kyiv” and western Ukraine, it is still a subject of discussion and has not been decided upon, and it may be an integral part of the Atlantic system.
In addition, these referendums may open the appetites of Poland, Romania and Hungary to regain their historical lands from the current Ukrainian geography, which may help to achieve the lack of unity of the European position towards Russia and Ukraine, especially after the energy and food crisis that resulted from Western sanctions on Russia, as well as the inflation that affected its sectors, although it appears that He says that the European position is united, but the subconscious is completely different.
In returning to the Russian future borders, those borders may pass along the western or eastern borders of the Kyiv region or along the Dnieper River. As for Ulisam in the south, it will be part of Russia like Kharkov, and perhaps all of Ukraine will return to Russia as it was historically part of the Russian geography.
In the end, Russia is facing a confrontation that cannot back down from its steps and will continue with it until the end, if the balance is either the division of Russia or Ukraine. Thus, the war has begun and it is impossible to avoid it. According to the basic logic of the history of things, there are forces that want to preserve the unipolar world and impose their hegemony at any cost, while others revolt against them and openly declare a multipolar world order, while the future depends on who will win this war.
Russia entered as one of the sovereign poles in this war, and China, a strong sovereign pole, is also about to enter. Therefore, it is not surprising that the areas of conflict between Russia’s allies have widened, as is the case between Azerbaijan, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and there are those who are threatening to open a front in Georgia, artificially stirring up the conflict in Moldova, growing threats in Belarus, and trying to isolate the Kaliningrad region, in addition to Direct attacks on Russian regions.
All these hotspots are elements of the usual Western-American strategy to stifle Russia and occupy it in more than one region in the conflict, while Russia seeks to network with its allies in a multipolar world, and this explains the true meaning of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Russia needs allies and has a chance to find them, but this time out west.
In conclusion, we are in the Third World War, and Russia entered the third phase of its modern history, which it called the war with the West, which was able to impose it on it, and Russia was unable to prevent or avoid it, so that the only option would be confrontation until the end or surrender to the West, and what Russia is waging today in Its third phase of its modern history is the most accurate and most decisive in terms of its existence. The geopolitical war of the West against Russia has been going on since the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the phases fluctuate in temperature from cold to hot, and now it is in the hottest temperature of confrontation.
Since the West does not even allow the possibility of a sovereign, independent, and autonomous Russia, the same applies to China, as well as other countries that take their sovereignty seriously. While the right to exist, according to the view of advocates of “globalization”, is only that which agrees with the liberal ideology and the movement towards world government, that is, with the general line of the United States and NATO, and those who oppose it will be destroyed.
For Russia to “wake up” at this crucial stage in its modern history, it is one of its first plans for confrontation and declaring and implementing martial law, specifically in the main, most vulnerable border areas, as it is already in a state of war. You live it just like it was during the covid pandemic.
Perhaps it will restructure the economy in a warlike manner under such force majeure circumstances, which say that the financial, industrial and economic system will be placed on the basis of a state of war, so that priority will be given to army supplies and equipping the military forces with all the weapons, drones and others they need, even with regard to medical supplies. And through its media and its philosophers, it fully mobilizes society by spreading a culture of societal vigilance against the threats to which the country is exposed, so that this culture is the ideology of victory. As we said, according to Hermann’s plan, and adjusting paths and policies to be in accordance with a clear slogan: “Everything is for the front, everything is for victory,” so everything is subject to modification for the sake of victory, which is the main goal.
___________
* Samaher al-Khatib is journalist and researcher in international relations and diplomacy
