Unz ReviewThis article was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/could-russia-still-become-an-ally-of-the-west/

Listening to Donald Trump speaking about his desire to turn Russia into an ally, I caught myself wondering if that was even still a possibility. After all, “the West” – and by that I mean every single western politician – has been lying to Russia ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. Not only has the West lied to Russia (for example on the promise to to expand NATO), but the West has also back-stabbed Russia and fully sided with the most vicious and evil enemies of Russia including the Wahabis in Chechnia or the Nazis in the Ukraine. The West assembled a huge air force to mercilessly and illegally to bomb the Serbs, a historical ally of Russia and fellow Orthodox people, in Croatia, then in Bosnia, then in Kosovo and then even in Montenegro and Serbia proper. The West also illegally and brutally overthrew Gaddafi in direct violation of UNSC Resolutions and now, having laid waste to Libya (and Iraq!), the West is trying to repeat this performance with Syria. In the case of the Ukraine, the West stood by while the Ukronazis used every single weapon in their arsenal, including chemical weapons, ballistic missiles, heavy artillery, multiple rocket launchers, cluster munitions and bombers against the cities of the Donbass and then imposed sanctions, no, not on Kiev, but on Russia. And even when the Ukronazis burned over 100 civilians in Odessa, the West fully backed them again. Before the Olympic Games in Sochi, the West then unleashed its “homo lobby” and its “pussy rioters” to try to paint Russia as some kind of quasi-Saudi society while never even uttering a single word of criticism against what was really taking place in the real Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the “indispensable nation”. And when Turkey ambushed a Russian bomber which had given its full flight plan to the US and then shot it down, the West had no more to say about it then when the local al-Qaeda franchise in Egypt bombed a Russian airliner. In its latest manifestation of rabid russophobia, the West, lead by the US Now Secretary of State Kerry, is demanding the release by Russia of a rabid Nazi deathsquad member accused of murdering 2 Russian journalists, Nadezhda Savchenko. Most amazingly, Kerry is claiming that Russia is violating her obligations under the Minks-2 Agreement by judging Savchenko even though Russia is not a party to this agreement which has nothing to say about Savchenko’s case anyway. We can be pretty sure that if the Devil himself decided to appear somewhere in the USA or Europe and declared that he wanted to fight Russia, the West would give Satan full support, money, training, recognition, etc.

Considering all of this, one could reasonably assume that anti-western feelings have reached a boiling point in Russia and that Russia will never again be an ally for the West.

But that would be very wrong.

What is true is that most Russian look at the West with a sense of disgust, but “most Russians” are not sitting in the Kremlin. Russian decision-makers are first and foremost pragmatists, they understand that ruffled feathers and hurt feelings are not the kind of things which should define policies. Furthermore, whatever their feelings about western politicians, Russian leaders fully understand that Russia is still the weaker party in any confrontation with West and that it would be highly desirable to restore some kind of working relationship with the West. Please notice that I said “highly desirable”, but not “necessary” or “vital”. Russia is ready to struggle through a long period of “warm warfare” against the West, if needed, but that hardly means that this is good for Russia. In fact, the core principle of Russian foreign policy has been expressed by both by Lavrov and Putin on many occasions in the past. It goes something like this: “we need to turn our enemies into neutrals, neutrals into partners, partners into friends and our friends into allies”. This might seem rather self-evident until you contrast this with the AngloZionist position which can be summarized as such: “we need to turn everybody into our slaves”.

Now ask yourself this: how exactly could the Russians do to turn enemies into neutrals, etc.? I submit that the only way to achieve such a result is to work with somebody, with some political forces, inside the West and to help them move the West in the right direction. The Russians are most unlikely to achieve their goal if they just lump every single western politician into a “our enemy” category. What the Russians need to do is to identify those individuals or political forces in the West which are the most likely to be interested in some (or even many) forms of cooperation with Russia. Hence the recent contacts with the European far-right parties (such as the National Front in France).

Okay, but why would any western politician or political force be interested in cooperating with Russia? Would that not be a huge liability in the generally russophobic West? Would the opponents of such a cooperation not denounce it as a sign of “weakness” and a “sell-out”? Last but not least, what does Russia have to offer to such a political figure or political force?

Let’s take those step by step.

First, I would not exaggerate the russophobia of the West. If we are speaking about the elites, then yes, they are generally rabidly russophobic. But the common people? Much less so, I think. And those who are do so because they are conditioned by the media to view Russia with fear, but is a superficial feeling which can be reversed by common sense and self-interest. Will the opponents of any such cooperation denounce it? Yes, of course, that is to be expected, but whether this attack will be successful or not will depend on the outcome of such a cooperation. Thus the key question is what does Russia have to offer?

A lot, in fact.

First and foremost, if some a not anti-Russian politician or political force comes to power in any western country, Russia can make darn sure that he/she gets, shall we say, “most favorite” status, meaning that in any negotiations Russia will have a stake in contributing to a political success for that individual or party. The obvious example: Trump becomes the next POTUS and offers to Russia a real partnership do deal with Daesh, not only in Syria but also in Iraq. I would argue that Russia would have a huge stake into “delivering” this objective to Trump as the best way to silence the anti-Russian forces inside the USA. Another example: a EU national leader breaks ranks with the Eurocracy and decides to unilaterally lift the sanctions against Russia. At this point Russia would have a huge interest in rewarding such a move by offering many lucrative contracts to this country on a preferential basis.

Paradoxically, one of the countries which would stand to benefit most from such a scenario would be Turkey. Not Erdogan’s Turkey, of course. The Kremlin has effectively “Shaakashvilized” Erdogan and his future now looks bleak, to say the least. But imagine if the Turkish military decided to overthrow Erdogan and immediately call Moscow with a simple message: “help us and we will help you!” Just imagine what Russia could do to assist a port-Erdogan Turkey:

First and foremost, play the role of an honest broker between Ankara and the Kurds, in a way similar to what the USA tried to do in northern Ireland. Russia could “bring in” Syria, Iraq and Iran and make some kind of push for a “comprehensive deal” with the various Kurdish parties.

Russia could literally kick-start the Turkish economy not only by allowing the Turks to re-enter the lucrative Russia market (construction, agriculture, tourism, etc.) but also by offering the Turks a range of cooperation deals not only in Russia, but also outside Russia (Latin America, Asia). At the very least Russia could reopen the “gates of tourism” and single handedly kick-start resort business. Potentially, an Ankara-Moscow axis of cooperation could be most useful to both countries, even if the historical record mainly shows already 12 wars between the two countries.

Right now Erdogan is in a terrible situation and nobody can help him, least of all the Saudis or the US. As long as he remains in power, Russia will completely ignore him. But the Russians are not stupid, they know that Turkey is an enemy whereas what they need is for Turkey to be at the very least a reliable partner. This is why Putin will work with anybody except Erdogan to fix this bloody mess.

Right now the West is “confronting” Russia everywhere, from the Arctic waters to the Pacific – but this begs the question of who really needs that?! Is that not a huge waste of resources and efforts when working with Russia could be so much more beneficial? This state of affairs is even more grotesque when we consider that the one and only reason for the current “tepid war” with Russia is AngloZionist imperial hubris whose prime directive remains “we need to turn everybody into our slaves”. This is exactly what Putin meant when he replied to a question suggesting that the USA wanted to humiliated Russia and said “You said that the USA want to humiliate us. This is not the case. They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subjugate us, they want to solve their problems at our expense, to submit us to their influence. Never has anyone done this in history in relation to Russia and no one ever will”. It is this maniacal insistence on subjugating every nation on the planet coupled with a total inability to cooperate on a mutually respectful basis which has brought us to the edge of a thermonuclear war between Russia and the USA. This is a purely ideological problem which does not have any objective basis in reality.

Listening to Trump, I get the feeling that there are clearly some folks in the USA who do not suffer from that kind of megalomania and who are much more interested in getting things done rather than sacrificing it all in the name of some kind of (unsustainable) “indispensable nation” status. The Europeans are willing to be governed by the AngloZionist “deep state”, but only as long as this kind of collaborationism does not result in massive waves of refugees, crime and poverty. Already major politicians, such as Sarkozy and Berlusconi, are breaking ranks and more and more people are wondering whether it was a good idea to engage Russia in a “tepid war”, especially in support of a Nazi coup in Kiev.

I think that it is highly likely that this process of “realization” will only accelerate. JFK once said, paraphrasing Tacitus, that “victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan”. The utter failure to successfully confront Russia in the Ukraine, Syria or elsewhere will soon begin to generate many “denials of paternity” and a rush to embrace a far more promising policy of collaboration with Russia.

[Sidebar: when that happens I will look with a definite sense of glee and even Schadenfreude the the Baltic States and Central European countries who fancied themselves as an important and attractive “ally” for the West against Russia only to realize that neither the West nor Russia give a damn about them].

Whatever the outcome of the US Presidential election, I think that Trump’s statement that he wanted to work with Putin and Russia already gives him a competitive advantage over his opponents. He put very simply: “what do we need problems for?!”. He is absolutely correct, of course.

Historically, Russia’s relation with the West has been a “difficult one”. You probably know that the Soviet Union was under various western sanctions for most of its existence. But did you know that was also the case for pre-1917 Czarist Russia which also spent decades under various sanctions for all sort of spurious pretexts? In fact, ever since 1242 and the so-called “Northern Crusade” of Pope Gregory IX the West has been trying to subjugate Russia under some ideological pretext (Papism, Revolutionary Freemasonery, Nazism, Capitalism, etc.). But there is no inevitability in this, no objective reason for this never-ending confrontation. As long as the leaders of the West could delude themselves about being the “bearers of civilization” entrusted by God to civilize and convert everybody on the planet to their brand of “Christianity” the conflict was probably inevitable. But right now the AngloZionists have really brought down what used to be called the “western civilization”, like a parasite kills his host, while countries such as Russia or China are, for the first time in centuries, breaking out of their subservient status. This will be a long, and dangerous, process, but the writing is on the wall. Those in the West who will have the wisdom to see this writing and who will find the courage to renounce exceptionalism will be able to use it to their advantage. As for the Russians, they will to steadfastly continue to refuse to submit to the Empire while waiting for new partners to appear. Even if this is a long wait.

The Saker

The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world