On January 10, the Russian-American talks on these security proposals will take place in Geneva. There, Washington and Moscow, with the help of their representatives, will clarify the details of the "new security architecture" that were outlined by the two grandfathers as part of their joint performance with "tension" on a new redistribution of spheres of influence in Europe and Asia. At the same time, the United States will regularly declare that the White House "supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine", and the Kremlin will shout that the Kremlin is very "afraid of NATO")
That we need to understand the main thing. I will try to explain very briefly.
First, we need to understand that the world order has changed and we already live in completely new geopolitical realities, in which the security structure of state models directly depends on their ability to protect themselves and their socio-political contract.
Secondly, everything that you knew about NATO, the UN, the European Union and other international institutions created after the Second World War, as well as all the "principles" developed by them, is no longer relevant - it's all dust and debris. They just won't talk about it publicly in some time.
Third. In the new world order, in the medium term, you and I will observe the further course of inexorable de-Westernization - that is, the decline of the endogenous forces of the collective West (USA, Great Britain, Canada, EU) as the leading pole, which is associated with the global crisis of liberalism in politics.
The liberal political system, which finally took shape after the Second World War and became the basis of the social contract and the material well-being of citizens of Western countries, at a certain historical period became a political "brake" that gave rise to a society of unbridled consumption, laziness, cowardice, regulated ethno-gender resentment, the disappearance of national heroism as an opportunity for a victim, artificial degeneration, a general drop in demand for intellectual meanings and cognition. In this case, the main thing is the absence of a request for the expansion of one's socio-political contract, since expansion is a global process of war, which, depending on the nature of the war, implies the subordination and development of new geographic or political spaces.
A society of degenerated and denationalized oniomania cannot fight in the modern sense of the word. Politicians who grew up in loose postmodernity can only conduct a passive "defense" of their socio-political contract. And this is the best case. At worst, they will give way to more aggressive and expansionist models.
The next current global "trend" that we will observe is the revenge of autocratic state models, which, without a cumbersome system of social contract, but having a rigid vertical of decision-making, will continue to strive to return global, world political processes to the mainstream of "real politics" when they are all determined by the desire for real expansion and the real motivation to wage a modern war. War, not only as "post-fire", but as a complex phenomenon that unites all measures of national influence of the state model, including military measures.
The revenge-seekers, and this is the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation, using all the "trends" for de-westernization without exception and using all the weaknesses of the socio-political system of the collective West, will try to carry out an active geo-economic and geopolitical expansion in areas of the world political map, from where, due to objective reasons the West is the leaving. The current desire of grandfather Biden's administration to somehow "confront" grandfather Xi Jinping in the Far East and in the South China Sea, the creation of AUKUS is the last attempt of the Anglo-Saxon maritime "empires" to neutralize the geoeconomic influence of the continental Chinese giant, which is actively developing Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. An attempt that is doomed to defeat, which is already the basis of the socio-political liberal agreement of the collective West, since an attempt to really weaken the capabilities of Beijing, with a high degree of probability, can lead to the use of large-scale military measures by both sides, which neither Great Britain, nor Australia, nor the US are ready now. Moreover, Washington is not ready to apply military measure against nuclear China even in matters of the sovereignty of its "ally" Taiwan, which Biden, in fact, directly stated in an online conversation with comrade Xi Jinping.
If Washington is not ready to make sacrifices, is not ready to use military measure even in matters of freedom of Taiwan, therefore all attempts by the United States, Australia and Great Britain to weaken China's geopolitical and geo-economic influence will become a war of attrition. Beijing is ready for a war with the Western alliance by non-military measures. Are London, Canberra and Washington ready for it? Let's see. By the way, they will look at this in Tokyo and Seoul.
In any case, the clash between the United States and China in the Pacific region and their mutual weakening is beneficial to the revengeful Russian Federation. Putin, playing on the contradictions between Washington and Beijing, wants to strengthen his influence in Europe , take "crumbs from the table" of Beijing in Africa and strengthen in some countries of the Middle East.
Russia, in which the current Kremlin leadership has built the traditional for Russians ideologue of an aggressive cult of war, disguised by narratives of a "great victory", imperial phantom pains and terry resentment towards the collective West, is now facing a very convenient "window of opportunity" to expand its sphere of influence in Europe... One of the main geopolitical goals in the war against liberal democracies for the Kremlin is the destruction of Europe as the subject form of the Western liberal social contract. The main goal is the European Union and its desovereignization with the help of economic, especially gas, information and political-diplomatic war measures.
So far, only these.
To expand his influence in Europe, Putin needs to destroy the unity of the political elites of European countries and build an axis of continental "empires" - this is Paris - Berlin - Moscow. Politicians in Europe have long been used and will be used as useful idiots helping Moscow to split the elites of the EU countries, to pursue an intensifying policy of anti-Americanism and to destroy the effectiveness of interstate European institutions for the subsequent expansion into the body of Europe of its worldview and socio-political authoritarian treaty.
However, the subordination and absorption of the European Union is a task for a long-term historical perspective, which most of those reading these lines, due to physical circumstances, will not see, since empires have been strategizing and "thinking" for decades. The main forces and resources of Moscow are now thrown into revenge on the return to the "fold" of Russia of the former "colonies" - post-Soviet states for the "gain" of political and resource weight and for the creation of a new geopolitical imperial project. I would like you not to have a shadow of doubt about the seriousness of what is conceived and implemented in the Kremlin. No matter how "fantastic" or "unreal" these Russian narratives may seem to you here, in Moscow they do not consider it fantastic. Moreover, the Russians spend such resources on the systematic and comprehensive implementation of imperial revenge that even our thoroughly corrupt and money-loving people never dreamed of drunkenness.
The sphere of influence that, according to the Kremlin, encompasses the "renewed" Russian empire, includes all countries of the former USSR, without exception, including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. This geographical and political space Putin calls "historical Russia" in his "articles" Moscow ruled in the "golden" imperial periods of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the understanding of Putin and the Russian elite, this space "must be returned to the historical body", since "one people", etc.
I will not evaluate from the moral and ethical point of view the set of these geographical desires in the 21st century. However, the seeming, general, phantasmagoric (at first glance) nature of the Kremlin's goals in relation to the post-Soviet space is compensated by a ruthless reality - resources, political will, determination to turn this will into a long-term strategy and Moscow's systemic ability to implement this strategy. Including, with the help of modern war measures, which remain unconscious and unobvious for most of the actors against whom these measures are applied.
Now we are closer to regional "trends" that concern us directly and with which we will have to deal in the very near future. Ukraine is the main and leading adversary of Russia in the humanitarian war for identity in the post-Soviet space. Therefore, as long as there is even a partially subjective Ukraine, until its entire territory with Kyiv, sacred for Moscow, is not included in the Russian geopolitical project, the Kremlin cannot move further in its stratagem to “absorb” Europe. Only after the absorption of the historical body of Ukraine is the final absorption of the vassal Belarus possible (whatever the "experts" say there). Only after the de-sovereignization and absorption of Ukraine can Moscow become a "full-fledged" basis for the formation of a "renewed" imperial state, the "preparation" for which is the current moss-covered, but waiting for its turn, CIS.
Russia is systematically and successfully destroying the statehood of Ukraine by political, diplomatic, economic, informational, cultural and partly military measures of modern war, imposing on us the "Minsk agreements" as a de facto act of surrender and a trigger for internal collapse.
The large-scale use of the Russian army in the style of the 20th century, with tank wedges, air strikes and missile and bomb strikes, which frighten Ukrainians with various media resources with "maps" and "schemes", is both theoretically and practically possible for Moscow, but so far counterproductive. In addition to physical and logistical losses for the Russians themselves, this could cause an uncontrolled collapse of the corrupt oligarchic system of government in Ukraine, and an uncontrolled explosion of social consolidation, which came as a surprise to the Kremlin in 2014. And this, in turn, may become a prerequisite for the emergence of a real statist elite, which has the ability to build a systemic strategy. The Kremlin doesn't want to risk it. The Kremlin prefers to "cook" Ukraine over low heat and control everything. Even chaos. This is the first thing.
Of course, in the case of a large-scale use of the army, Russia can, following the example of Crimea or ORDLO, sever several more areas from Ukraine, but ambitious Putin needs all of Ukraine, not parts of it, the grandfather, to be honest and frank, is propped up by age. He wants to enter the history books as soon as possible, as a "gatherer of Russian lands" during his lifetime and he needs Ukraine not as a devastated and poorly controlled territory of chaos with infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombings and hating Russians, but as a sacred "well-deserved winner's award." And hurry up. With odes, bell ringing and copper pipes in the pillared hall. Putin wants to control the chaos he is creating. This is the second thing to understand.
Therefore, instead of a large-scale use of military measures, the Kremlin stepped up political and diplomatic measures and rolled out an "ultimatum" to the decrepit collective West on a "new security architecture in Europe", which, in my deep conviction, is not a modern analogy of the "Cuban missile crisis" , but agreed with the current the marasmic administration of the White House, a "performance", an act of public coercion of the Ukrainian society to surrender, the basis of which is the "Minsk Agreements". They are spelled out and worked out in such a way as to make it relatively (relatively) bloodless for the existence of the current Ukrainian political system and to seize control points by their direct agents of influence for the subsequent transfer of power to direct control from Moscow. This is the third.
Putin in Ukraine needs chaos under his control and control, a terrible imitation of it, designed for the cowardly politicians of the collective West and Europe. For eight years Moscow "peacefully" but unsuccessfully tried to impose the execution of the political part of "Minsk-2" on Kyiv, but the oligarchic system of Ukraine, based on the need for constant corruption rent on the poor turned out to be more tenacious than initially believed in the Kremlin. Therefore, Moscow accelerated the "process" and in addition to gas weapons ("Nord Stream-2"), which will work in a complex (with the Turkish Stream) in full force next year, they decided to play it safe - to force the recalcitrant Ukraine to capitulate under pressure from "Western partners" which our "elite" is very much dependent financially, including from the United States.
Gas catastrophe and the inevitability of the "Minsk agreements". This will be, citizens, our main and fundamental "trend" in the coming 2022, with which we will have to deal.
If our "Western partners", in one form or another, begin to press "Minsk" on our "most outstanding leader of our time" and his "collective mannerheims" from the environment of the OP, even without problems with our GTS, these "funny" processes will provoke a real , and not an imitation explosion of consolidation of a part of the Ukrainian patriotic society. After all, even an attempt to fulfill the political part of the "Minsk agreements" by the current amateurs in Ukrainian politics, according to the authors of the "Minsk agreements", will launch the unwinding of Ukrainian statehood in an accelerated mode under the program of the controlled "civil conflict" so beloved in Moscow. That is, it will make a real threat of entry into the political agenda of Ukraine of two ORDLO enclaves structured over eight years with completely Moscow-controlled "politicians", newly-made "citizens" with Russian passports and with two "amnestied" army corps under the guise of "people's militia" and all this " happiness "will have to be supported by stupid Ukrainian taxpayers and lovers of electing" strong business executives","wizards" and "characters from TV series" for presidency.
Putin does not want Russian tank wedges and Russian aviation strikes on Ukrainian cities, the Kremlin needs a real controlled civil conflict in Ukraine, where Ukrainians would shoot at Ukrainians, Ukrainian speakers would hate Russian speakers and a conflict that would awe and horror "Western partners" would force them not to "threaten with hellish sanctions", but on their knees to ask Putin to "put things in order with Ukrainian refugees" and carry out a "peacekeeping operation" to "appease the Ukrainian radicals."
Then it will become clear to very many (!) why (!) the Kremlin was carrying out a large-scale concentration of troops around the borders with Ukraine and on the territory of Belarus as well. Putin is concentrating troops not for a classic aggressive war, in which one state model uses military measure against another state model, he is concentrating troops for a "peacekeeping operation" to "enforce peace" on territory that, according to the Kremlin, should "peacefully" enter the composition of the "renewed" Russia.
In Putin's understanding, a "peacekeeping operation" in which the "healthy forces of Ukraine" will rely on the bayonets of the Russian "peacekeepers" will not constitute an act of aggression. It is this "understanding" that Moscow, behind the back of the Ukrainian society and the entire "progressive society", will try to sell to Washington and its poodles from Germany and France for imaginary "concessions" in the light of global "trends" and the inevitable confrontation between the United States and China.
Happy New year 2022! And remember - big geopolitical players will always try to deprive small states of sovereignty, in all historical periods and in one form or another, but only the readiness of the people of these states to make the aggressor pay the price for these attempts is directly proportional to the possibility of further preservation of their state.