RealClearDefense links to an essay looking at the strategic thinking of the upper echelons of Russian policy makers. The news isn't good.
The viewpoint is that of Andrei Bezrukov, a former deep cover mole who spied in the US, was arrested by the FBI, and was sent home to Russia in a prisoner exchange. He now teaches at MGIMO (Russia's Foreign Affairs university) and writes opinion from inside the latter-day nomenklatura. Some key insights.
The world has entered “a period of another total redivision of the world” — передел мира — which will be defined not by prosperity, but by survival.
The world is undergoing a power transition into a multipolar world, where the Western countries do not hold a central position.
The wars in Ukraine and Iran are presented as the opening stage of a wider struggle over the redivision of the world. Bezrukov expects more conflicts to emerge.
Bezrukov frames the war as “a struggle to eliminate an existential threat from the West”. It requires, he argues, the exertion of all Russia’s human and material resources, because “only a clear victory will satisfy Russia.”
He is ruling out any outcome that resembles a draw or can be interpreted as a Russian defeat. That distinction leaves little room for compromise.
The value of Bezrukov’s essay is that it makes explicit a worldview in which there is little opportunity for a negotiated ceasefire.
Translation: Do not expect fruitful negotiations leading to an end of the Ukraine conflict anytime soon.
