22.05.2017

The government arrogantly believes that the current situation in Russia will remain unchanged for a long time. Therefore they adopt The Economic Security Strategy until 2030. But Russia is facing quite serious and painful changes that will take place much earlier [than in 2030].

Russia’s time machine does exist. However, it has only one direction – coming back in time, the “future” option is unavailable. This is the essence of a voluminous, boring Russia’s Economic Security Strategy written in a trite language, which President Vladimir Putin has signed.

Such a document could appear only in a stagnant political atmosphere in a country, which has no free presidential elections and where the establishment find themselves at a loss and do not know how to solve the problems of the state, therefore they only imitate paper activity.

The thing is that the issues that serve as points of political struggle in the elections in western countries are turned into a bureaucratic procedure in Russia. The President “decides”, the Government “prepares proposals”, it also “ensures compliance with mechanisms” and submits “an annual report” to the President. No problem. “The History of a Town“, part 2. No doubt that there will be no results. Such an experience already exists.

There were no results and nothing was done after the decrees of the soviet party congresses had been written in “correct”,  facile words. The USSR was going towards a collapse, the establishment was performing a ritual, the grass roots were indifferent. The same thing happens today. At the same time, Russia’s authorities composed a strategy until 2030 and it is likely that they have no doubt that they and Russia will remain more or less the same in the modern dynamic world within 15 years. This conceit is dangerous.

The ruling “strategists” turned the whole country into a single bureaucratic structure and the normal economic life was turned into a useless word combination – “economic security”.

The epoch created much unnecessary legislative “garbage” including the laws “On Security”  and “On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation”, which serve as the foundation for Putin’s “Economic Security Strategy”. Here is a typical example that, according to Russia’s authorities, “a state” is not an assembly of people, consumers who have economic interests but “a state” solely exists over people, it is such a structure where people serve only as means. Therefore this “strategy” is the establishment’s  collection of ideas on how to preserve their power. This explains the actual aim of the strategy – the way that Russia’s establishment can survive in modern world with “economic sovereignty” and “sustainability of the domestic economy to internal and external challenges and threats” which guarantee the preservation of power.

At the same time, “The Economic Security Strategy” is a wonderful illustration of the idea that its authors’ government represents serious danger. The thing is that this government, which confronts the West and pushed Russia to isolation, is responsible for “the emergence of new challenges and threats” such as “the use of discriminatory measures against key sectors of the Russian economy, restriction of access to foreign financial resources and modern technologies” that are mentioned in the text of the “strategy”. It also concerns the threat “of enhancing the conflict potential in the zones of economic interests of the Russian Federation and close to its boarders”. Who forced [the government] to start [a conflict] with Ukraine three years ago? Who makes them persist in their point of view today? The Russian authorities have created problems for the citizens themselves and now they call their work “challenges and threats”.

On the other hand, the wording of some “challenges and threats” shows that nothing significant was done in order to make Russia a modern country within nearly 20 years. Inevitable processes that were already obvious 15 years ago still represent “challenges and treats” – “change in the structure of global demand for energy resources and their consumption patterns, development of energy-saving technologies and reduction of material consumption, development of “green technologies”.

“The Economic Security Strategy” is imbued with the conservative spirit and is characterised by lack of faith in private initiatives and a tendency towards “sovereignty”. It is a mythical and idealistic construction. One will fail to preserve the foundations of today’s “capitalism of bosom friends”. Russia is facing serious changes much earlier than in 2030. They are impossible if the status quo is preserved, they will be painful.

Then nobody will think about “The Economic Security Strategy”. It is hopeless retro even today – a memorial resume to dissipated 1990s and disastrous 2000s.

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