Inside the Russian mind

Understanding the contemporary Russian mindset and “spirit” through the work of Sergey Karaganov, one of Russia’s most influential (geo)political thinkers

Sergey Karaganov is one of Russia’s most influential (geo)political thinkers — a Russian Brzezinski or Kaplan, if you will. He heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia’s leading foreign policy think tank, and is the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. He is considered very close to Sergey Lavrov and even Putin himself. Until recently, he had close ties with Western foreign policy circles. In the 1990s and the 2000s, he was a member of the Trilateral Commission, and even served on the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2019, he was interviewed by Time magazine.

It shouldn’t be controversial to suggest that we should be paying very close attention to what someone like Karaganov is thinking and writing — even if you think Russia is an enemy; indeed, especially so. Karaganov’s texts aren’t intended for the Western (or even Russian) general public; they are intended for the Russian intellectual and political elites — and Putin’s government itself — and so can’t be written off as propaganda. On the contrary, they offer a fascinating window into the debates currently occurring among Russian elites, and into the contemporary Russian mindset and “spirit” more in general.

In any conflict — the West is, de facto, at war with Russia — knowing what the other side thinks is fundamental. This is the whole point of intelligence gathering. But analysing what your “enemy” says and writes in public is just as important. Yet, this is a luxury that is only afforded to military-political elites (whom, in the West, are likely keeping a close watch on the Russian foreign policy debate, or so I hope), not ordinary citizens. On the contrary, any war or pre-war situation calls for the latter to be excluded from the “other”’s point of view, and for the “enemy”’s demonisation.

This is why Western elites have gone out of their way to shut the Russian viewpoint out the public consciousness of Western masses. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, the Western propaganda machine has been engaged in an unprecedented “othering” of Russia and its leader, described as implacably hostile, duplicitous and dangerous, animated by an intrinsic anti-Western hatred and a Hitlerian thirst for territorial expansion. An intrinsically backward, regressive, fanatical, authoritarian and ultimately barbarous country — ontologically separate from the democratic, civilised West — led by a deranged, evil madman.

To this end, all Russian voices were silenced in the West — first and foremost, Russian media, taken off the airwaves and blocked by internet providers. Meanwhile, anyone in the West who dared to suggest that there might be rational reasons behind Russia’s actions — or even just that we should take into account Russia’s viewpoint, even if one considers it to be “objectively” or morally wrong — was denounced as as a “Putin troll” and accused of peddling Russian disinformation (or worse). The aim of this wartime-like demonisation of Russia is all too obvious: to drum up public support for NATO’s proxy war against Russia, via Ukraine, and for an increasingly likely direct NATO-Russia confrontation.

As we inch closer and closer towards an all-out, potentially nuclear, war with Russia, challenging this good-vs.-bad narrative, and understanding Russia’s perspective, even if one disagrees with it, is more important than ever. Indeed, it’s probably the most useful thing we can do as Western citizens — short of toppling our warmongering elites.

To that end, I’d like to bring your attention to a recent article by Karaganov that I consider to be of particular importance. It’s called “Decades of wars?”, and it was published by the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank very close to the Russian government. It’s a rather long text, in which Karaganov reflects on the state of the West, and of West-Russia relations, and on the risk of conflict escalation. What follows is a selection of the article key points, with some brief comments of mine.

Karaganov begins by analysing the structural factors contributing to the current unravelling of the international system, and the resulting multiplication of conflicts and hotspots — in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East and elsewhere.

The depletion of the modern form of capitalism — and the growing pressure on the world’s resources

The first and main challenge is the depletion of the modern form of capitalism, based primarily on profit-making, for which it encourages rampant consumption of goods and services, many of which are increasingly unnecessary for normal human life. The torrent of meaningless information in the last two to three decades falls into the same category. Gadgets devour a colossal amount of energy and time that people could otherwise use for productive activities. Humanity has come into conflict with nature and begun to undermine it — the very basis of its own existence. Even in Russia, the growth of well-being still implies primarily increased consumption.

The second challenge is the most obvious one. Global problems like pollution, climate change, dwindling reserves of fresh water, solely suitable for farming, and many other natural resources, remain unsolved.

The consumerist disease is spreading into the rest of the world as well. We ourselves still suffer from ostentatious consumption, so fashionable in the 1990s and now receding, although extremely slowly. Hence the intensifying struggle for resources and mounting internal tension, including due to unequal consumption and growing inequality in many countries and regions. The awareness that the current development model leads nowhere but also the unwillingness and inability to abandon it are the main reason for the increasing hostility towards Russia (and the Rest, which it de facto represents). This also applies to China, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, since the cost of severing relations with it would be much higher.

Increasing social inequality

A parallel process is the increasing social inequality. This trend has been growing exponentially since the collapse of the USSR that buried the need for a social welfare state. In developed Western countries, the middle class has been shrinking for about 15 to 20 years and becoming significantly less visible. 

The degradation of man and society

This is primarily the case in the relatively developed and rich West. The West is falling victim to urban civilization living in relative comfort, but also detached from the traditional habitat in which humans were historically and genetically formed. The continuous spread of digital technologies, which were supposed to promote mass education, is increasingly responsible for the general dumbing-down. This increases the possibility of manipulating the masses not only for oligarchs, but also for the masses themselves, leading to a new level of ochlocracy. In addition, oligarchies that do not want to share their privileges and wealth deliberately endarken people and encourage the disintegration of societies, trying to make them incapable of resisting the order that is increasingly unfair and dangerous for most. They are not only promoting but imposing anti-human or post-human ideologies, values, and patterns of behavior that reject the natural foundations of human morality and almost all basic human values.

The virtualisation of life

The information wave combines with relatively prosperous living conditions — the absence of the main challenges that always drove the development of humankind: hunger and the fear of violent death. Fears are being virtualized. 

The intellectual decline of the Western elites

European elites have almost completely lost the ability to think strategically, and there are practically no elites left in the traditional meritocratic sense. We are witnessing an intellectual decline of the ruling elite in the United States, a country with enormous military, including nuclear capabilities. 

So far Karaganov’s arguments are fairly uncontroversial and very much in line with the kind of counter-hegemonic intellectual strands found even in the West, both on the left (in terms of critique of the dominant socioeconomic regime) and on the right (in terms of critique of “anti-human or post-human ideologies”).

The global redistribution of power

The fourth most important source of increasing global tensions over the last fifteen years is the unprecedentedly rapid redistribution of power from the old West to the rising World Majority. Tectonic plates have started moving under the previous international system, causing a long worldwide geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geo-ideological earthquake. There are several reasons for that. Each is examined in turn.

• Firstly, the USSR from the 1950s and 1960s and then Russia, which had recovered from a fifteen-year-long decline, struck at the core of the European and Western 500-year long domination — their military superiority. Let me repeat what has been said many times: it was the foundation upon which Western domination in world politics, culture, and economy rested, allowing them to impose their interests and political order, culture and, most importantly, to siphon off the world GNP. The loss of the 500-year-long hegemony is the root cause of the West’s rabid hatred towards Russia and the resulting attempts to crush it.

• Secondly, the errors of the West itself. The West, which had come to believe in its final victory, has relaxed, forgotten history, and fallen into euphoria and lethargy of thought. It made a series of spectacular geopolitical mistakes. At first it haughtily rejected (perhaps fortunately) the aspiration of the majority of the Russian elite at the end of the 1980s and the 1990s to integrate into the West. They wanted to be equal, but got snubbed. As a result, Russia turned from a potential partner and even ally with huge natural, military, economic, and intellectual potential, into an opponent.

This is a hugely important point for understanding the Russian mindset today, and its sense of betrayal by the West. For years, after the end of the Cold War, Russia really wanted no more than to be integrated into the “international community”, then still unquestionably dominated by the West, on the basis of friendly relations with the latter. This is why for years Russia closed more than an eye on the West’s blatant disregard of its numerous reassurances, upon the dissolution of the USSR, that NATO would not become an expansionist military alliance and would not move “one inch” to the east — which is exactly what it proceeded to do within a few years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall — accepting (or pretending to accept) NATO’s argument that its actions were purely defensive and should be not be interpreted as a threat by Russia.

It’s why it continued to seek diplomatic solutions to NATO’s blatant disregard of the principles that had inspired the entire European security architecture since the 1970s: the indivisibility of security — that is, the notion that the security of NATO states and the Soviet Union (subsequently Russia) was “inseparably linked to that of all the others”, and could not come at the expense of another state’s security. It’s why it downplayed several moves by NATO that were clearly aimed at aggressively containing Russia — including dismantling the Cold War nuclear deterrence system through the US’s unilateral withdrawal, in 2001, from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

Russia, to signal just how far it was willing to accomodate the West in the hope of having a seat at the table in the new US-dominated, post-Cold War international order, was willing to swallow one bitter pill after another — until, one day, it wasn’t. But by that point, its desire for acceptance by the West had comprehensibly turned into its opposite: a deep distrust of the West, which — from Russia’s perspective — dishonestly exploited Russia’s post-Cold War naïveté about the West’s long-term anti-Russian goals. Back to Karaganov:

• Moreover, Russia became the strategic kernel of the non-West, which is most often referred to as the Global South, or more appropriately, the World Majority.

I found this last comment particularly interesting because most people — especially in the West but also, I’d wager , in the so-called Global South — would think of China, not Russia, as the “strategic kernel of the non-West”. Karaganov, however, is probably referring to the post-2022 situation, in which case there is more than a kernel (no pun intended) of truth to what he’s saying, to the extent that Russia-Ukraine has become the frontline of a proxy war for the future of the international order between an increasingly marginalised “West” and a globally supported (in material and ideological terms) Russia.

• Thirdly, having come to believe that there was no alternative to the liberal-democratic globalist capitalism, the West not only missed but also supported the rise of China, hoping that the great state-civilization would follow the path of democracy — that is, would be governed less effectively and would strategically go along with the West. 

• The United States subsequently became involved in a series of unnecessary conflicts — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — which it predictably lost, ruining the aura of its military dominance, and wasting trillions of dollars invested in general-purpose forces.

  By thoughtlessly withdrawing from the 1972 ABM Treaty [in 2001], perhaps in the hope of restoring superiority in strategic weapons, Washington revived a sense of self-preservation in Russia, finally destroying all hopes for amicable agreement. Despite its miserable state, Moscow launched a program to modernize its strategic forces, which by the end of the 2010s had allowed it for the first time to not only catch up, but also surpass competitors, although temporarily.

So, according to Karaganov, “all hopes for amicable agreement” had already evaporated as early as 2001. This is probably more an ex post rationalisation, however, given that there is ample evidence that Russia continued to seek — unsuccessfully — an inclusive pan-European security architecture with the West for several years after that.

• The fifth source of tension in the world system is the avalanche-like change in the global balance of power. The rapid decline of the West’s ability to siphon off GDP caused its furious reaction. The West, but primarily Washington, is destroying its formerly privileged economic and financial positions by weaponizing economic ties and using force in a bid to slow down its own decline and harm competitors. A barrage of sanctions and restrictions on the transfer of technology and high-tech goods breaks production chains. The unabashed printing of the dollar, and now the euro, accelerates inflation and increases public debt.

  Trying to retain its status, the United States is undermining the globalist system which it created, but which has given almost equal opportunities to rising and more organized hardworking competitors in the World Majority. Economic deglobalization and regionalization are underway. Old global economic management institutions are faltering. Interdependence, which used to be seen as a tool for developing and strengthening cooperation and peace, is increasingly becoming a factor of vulnerability and undermining its own stabilizing role.

It’s hard to disagree with Karaganov on this point. I wrote about the US’s “deglobalization as another form of empire-building” in an article of mine a while back:

The current Western trend toward deglobalization and reshoring — in itself a potentially positive thing — isn’t driven by the desire to create more just, sustainable, and self-sufficient economies that serve domestic policies and the overall welfare of people across Western nations (let alone across all nations). Rather, it’s animated by the desire to crush China, even at the expense of the wellbeing of Western citizens.

Back to Karaganov:

• The sixth challenge. Having launched a desperate counterattack, primarily against Russia, but also against China, the West started an almost unprecedented wartime-like propaganda campaign, demonizing competitors, and systematically cutting off human, cultural, and economic ties. The West is dropping an iron curtain that appears even heavier than the previous one and building up the image of a universal enemy. On the Russian and Chinese sides, the war of ideas is not so total and vicious, but the counterwave is growing. All this creates a political and psychological situation where the West is dehumanizing the Russians, and to some, but lesser extent, the Chinese. In turn, we are looking at the West with increasingly fastidious contempt. Dehumanization paves the way for war. It seems to be part of preparations for war in the West.

There is no doubt that this is happening. For an in-depth study of this phenomenon, which has very deep roots, I refer you to Glenn Diesen’s excellent book Russophobia: Propaganda in International Politics, where the author analyses how “Russia has… throughout history been allowed to play one of two roles — either an apprentice of Western civilization by accepting the subordinate role as the student and political object, or a threat that must be contained or defeated”.

• The eighth challenge. The situation is compounded by the collapse of global governance. This pertains not only to the economy, but also to politics and security; the renewed fierce rivalry between the great powers; the dilapidated UN structure that makes the organization less and less functional; and the European security system ruined by NATO expansion. Attempts by the United States and its allies to assemble anti-Chinese blocs in the Indo-Pacific and the struggle to control the sea routes do not add up to a solution. The North Atlantic Alliance, which in the past used to be a security system that played a largely stabilizing and balancing role, has turned into a bloc that has committed several acts of aggression and is now waging a war in Ukraine.

  New organizations, institutions, and routes designed to ensure international security, such as the SCO, BRICS, the continental Belt and Road, and the Northern Sea Route, have so far been only partly able to compensate for the growing deficit of security support mechanisms. This deficit is exacerbated by the collapse, primarily at Washington’s initiative, of the former arms control system, which played a limited but useful role in preventing an arms race. However, it still provided greater transparency and predictability, thereby somehow reducing suspicion and distrust.

Not much to add here: that the West is undermining the system of international governance that it created after World War II, most obviously by attacking any international institution that has dared to criticise Israel’s genocidal conduct in Gaza (UN, ICJ, ICC, etc.), is there for all to see. The explanation is obvious: since the West is losing its de facto control over said institutions, it has chosen to jettison them in favour of a brute logic of force — i.e., the so-called “rules-based order”.

• The ninth challenge. The retreat of the West, especially the United States, from its dominant position in the global culture, economy, and politics, carries unpleasant risks — however encouraging this may be in terms of new opportunities for other countries and civilizations. Retreating, the United States is losing interest in maintaining stability in many regions and, conversely, beginning to provoke instability and conflicts. The most obvious example is the Middle East after the Americans secured their relative energy independence. It is hard to imagine that the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza is just the result of the blatant incompetence of the Israeli and especially US security services. But even if that is the case, it also indicates a loss of interest in peaceful and stable development. However, what really matters is that while slowly retreating into neo-isolationism, the Americans will for many years live in the mental paradigm of imperial dominance and, if allowed, incite conflicts in Eurasia.

  The American political class will remain, for at least another generation, within the intellectual framework of Mackinder theories, spurred by 15-year-long but transitory geopolitical dominance. More specifically, the United States will try to hinder the rise of new powers, primarily China, but also Russia, India, Iran, very soon Türkiye, and the Gulf countries. Hence its policy of provoking and inciting an armed conflict in Ukraine, attempts to drag China into a war over Taiwan, and exacerbate Sino-Indian disagreements. 

  [T]his will continue until the current generation of American political elites retires, or a less globalist and more nationally oriented people assume power in the United States. This will take at least another 15 to 20 years. But of course, this process needs to be encouraged in the name of international peace and even in the interest of the American people — despite the long time it will take them to come to this realization. This will happen if and when the degradation of the American elite is stopped, and the United States suffers another defeat, this time in Europe over Ukraine.

I found this passage particularly enlightening for two reasons: firstly, because it shows and deeper and more nuanced understanding of what is happening in the West than that of most Western commentators — i.e., that Western leaders are in the grip of the political equivalent of a psychotic episode, as they violently struggle to deal with the mismatch between reality and their distorted vision of the latter; but more importantly, because Karaganov resists the temptation to essentialise and “anthropologise” the West’s behaviour (as we do with Russia): the West isn’t a civilisational enemy, in his view, but rather a civilisation with whom Russia is destined to rebuild friendly relations in the future, once a new, more enlightened elite takes hold there — provided we are able to survive this transition without descending into all-out nuclear war. This brings us to the next two points in Karaganov’s argument:

• The tenth challenge. For many decades, relative peace on the planet has been maintained due to the fear of nuclear weapons. In recent years, however, the habit of living in peace, the aforementioned intellectual degradation, and clip thinking in societies and elites have spurred the rise of “strategic parasitism”. People no longer fear war, even a nuclear one. 

  The eleventh and most obvious challenge can be thought of as a set of challenges. A new qualitative and quantitative arms race is underway. Strategic stability, an indicator of the likelihood of nuclear war, is being undermined on all sides. New types of weapons of mass destruction appear or have already appeared, which are not covered by the system of limitations and prohibitions. These include many types of bioweapons targeting both people and individual ethnic groups, as well as animals and plants. A possible purpose of these weapons is to provoke hunger and spread human, animal, and plant diseases. The United States has created a network of biological laboratories around the world, and other countries have probably done the same. Some bioweapons are relatively accessible.

  In addition to spreading and dramatically increasing the number and range of missiles and other weapons, the drone revolution is in progress. UAVs are relatively and/or downright cheap, but they can carry weapons of mass destruction. Most importantly, their mass proliferation, which has already begun, can make normal life unbearably dangerous. As the border between war and peace is becoming blurred, these weapons come as the perfect tool for terrorist attacks and sheer banditry. Almost any person in a relatively unprotected space becomes a potential victim of malefactors. Missiles, drones, and other weapons can cause colossal damage to civilian infrastructure with all the ensuing consequences for people and countries. We can already see this happening during the conflict in Ukraine.

  High-precision long-range non-nuclear weapons undermine strategic stability “from below.” Meanwhile, work is underway (started in the United States again) to miniaturize nuclear weapons, which erodes strategic stability “from above.” There are more and more signs that the arms race is being taken to outer space.

  Hypersonic weapons, in which we and our Chinese friends are still leading, sooner or later will spread. The flying time to the targets will be reduced to a minimum. The risk of a decapitation strike on decision-making centers will grow dramatically. Strategic stability will be dealt another devastating blow. Veterans remember how the USSR and NATO panicked about SS-20 and Pershing missiles. But the current situation is much worse. In case of crisis, increasingly long-range precision and invincible missiles will threaten the most important maritime communications such as the Suez and Panama Canals, as well as the Bab al-Mandeb, Hormuz, Singapore, and Malacca straits.

  We can already see autonomous weapons on the battlefield. This issue requires a separate in-depth analysis. At this point, artificial intelligence in the military-strategic sphere carries more dangers. But maybe it also creates new opportunities to prevent them. However, relying on AI as well as on traditional ways and methods of responding to mounting challenges would be reckless.

  The list of factors that create a near-war or even war-like military-strategic situation in the world is endless. The world is on the verge or already past a series of disasters, if not a global catastrophe. The situation is extremely alarming, even more so than it ever was in the days of Alexander Blok, who forebode the twentieth century that proved so terrible for Russia and the world. However, there are recipes, and some solutions are already in the making. Everything is in our hands, but we must realize how deep, severe, and unprecedented the current challenges are, and live up to them not only by responding, but also by staying one step ahead. Russia needs a new foreign policy and new priorities for its internal development, society, and every responsible citizen.

What is striking about this passage is the deep sense of alarm that oozes from every word: it’s a completely different narrative from what we hear in the West, where we are constantly told that we shouldn’t worry about the risk of nuclear escalation; that since Russia has not responded to US provocations in the past, NATO can keep crossing Russia’s red lines without consequences. This is utter madness. Indeed, reading Karaganov’s words is almost like listening to an adult trying to reason with a child — that would be us — who has got hold of an M16 rifle and is now wielding it around the classroom as it if were a toy gun.

That’s all for today. In the second part of this article, I look at Karaganov’s policy recommendations for Russia in light of the aforementioned geopolitical context — which make for an even more interesting, though arguably more disquieting, read.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope 

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