Dmitry Medvedev on Borders & Boundaries
The Picture Says it All.
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, spoke about Russia's approach to the formation of a new world order at the Znanie.First marathon of the Russian Znanie Society that was held at the World Youth Festival in Sochi earlier this year which I covered in an article at the time. Medvedev’s speech/presentation at the event was noted for the new map that was displayed behind him during his talk, which is again depicted above. Finally, his talk’s been made into a transcript and published in Russian by the Expert online publication. It’s been about six weeks since he gave his talk and some will have forgotten it was even given. I must credit and hat-tip to b at Moon of Alabama for discovering this publication some of which he featured in today’s article. The concepts Medvedev discusses are even more relevant today than six weeks ago. As you read, remember this was an educational lecture given to mostly young adults:
Dmitry Medvedev: "Russia, like any great power, has strategic borders that lie far beyond geographical boundaries"
Russia's strategic borders, like those of any great world power, lie far beyond its territory. And they are based not on military force and the desire to remake the political map, but on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and partnership. This is the essence of the new international order that is gradually replacing the unipolar world. "Expert" considered that readers should familiarize themselves with the theses reflecting Russia's policy in international relations. With the author's consent, we publish the text of this speech with minor abridgements.
No state in the world can exist without borders. And not only on official maps, but also in a broader sense. When it comes to Russia, it is important to understand where and how its borders are delineated in our time. And what they may become in the future.
These questions are not rhetorical. And the answers to them are not as straightforward as it may seem at first glance. This is the basic system of coordinates in which our Motherland lives, and all of us live with it. We don't just exist, we think, we act, we fight, we win. We are building the future of a country that fulfills a special, fateful mission in the global world.
There are a few obvious things that our friends and allies are well aware of, and that our enemies should cut down on their noses.
First. We don't need someone else's land. We will never give up our own. So it has been and so it will be. This is the principle on which our state border policy is built.
March 31, 1814 is a significant date in our history. 210 years ago, Russian troops took Paris. Having restored order in Europe, having achieved a change of power in Paris to one acceptable to ourselves and the other allied states, we returned to our home with unfurled banners.
We have never gone so far to the West before or since. Why did we need it? Yes, it was necessary to eliminate the direct military threat. But, in addition, Russia pursued great geopolitical goals. One of the most important was the global security of our borders for a long time. And it can be effectively ensured only if the country is confident in the stability of the situation beyond the direct perimeter formed by border pillars. That is, on a much larger scale. Moreover, the larger the country, the greater the scale of external stability that is needed for this.
Authors of various geopolitical theories of various countries (from China to Europe and America) proceed from one obvious thesis. Any state, as a sovereign subject of international relations, has two types of borders: geographical and strategic.
The former are stable and officially recognized lines of demarcation and delimitation in accordance with international law, fixing the geographical boundaries of the State. This is one of the main elements of its political and territorial framework.
Within these borders, the State has full sovereignty. We are talking about strategic autonomy and independence from other countries, about the supremacy of power in the conduct of domestic policy. That is, what is usually called internal sovereignty. As well as independence in external affairs, that is, external sovereignty.
They prefer not to mention the second, strategic type of borders. Talking about them is kind of like a political move.
These boundaries are not limited to the physical size of countries, their airspace and territorial waters. They are not directly related to state sovereignty. The strategic boundaries of a state depend directly on how far its political power extends. The more powerful a state is, the farther away its strategic frontiers are beyond its borders. And the larger the strategic space on which such a country exerts economic, political, social and cultural influence. This is the zone of the so-called national interests of the state. However, strategic borders and national interests are not the same concepts.
In return, the strong powers that set the tone in world relations offered their wards military and political protection. Weak states, or worse, those that came to the end of their glory and power, became puppet or vassal states for their patrons, or, as they later came to say, "friendly" nations (the same thing, but less offensive).
For a long time, it was believed that the balance between geographical and strategic boundaries was unfolding according to an obvious logic. If a country's potential grows over a long period of time, its state sovereignty is strengthened, and its strategic borders are expanded. And geographical ones can catch up with them after the fact.
In weak countries, the strategic borders of the state are within the boundaries of their own territories. In unfavorable conditions, these boundaries can be reduced to a minimum. As a result, this leads to the loss of land that has been left without real control. This is how the Spanish colonial empire once disappeared from the political map of the world, having lost its possessions on different continents. Portugal's rule in Latin America, Asia and Africa came to an end. These countries have turned into geopolitical dwarfs, unable to influence key global decisions in any way. Now the very logic of civilizational development, as a punishment for geopolitical ignorance, is depriving France of its traditionally strong influence in the Sahara-Sahel region. And for a good reason.
Second. The presence of strategic borders outside one's own territory today does not mean that strong and responsible countries intend to go to war with their neighbors and redraw the political map. This is the difference between our time and previous centuries, when borders were subject to constant fluctuations and could be challenged at any time.
I would like to note right away that what is happening in Ukraine is a special case. We are not talking about expanding the borders of our state by means of effective occupation, and the so-called Ukraine is not at all rei occupandi. We are defending our territories, which have always been and will always be historical Russia. Our actions are a forced, but quite effective response to the Russophobic policy of the Bandera regime and the "collective West", its desire to destroy our statehood.
In general, Russia, like any great power, has strategic boundaries that lie far beyond geographical boundaries. And they are not based on military force or financial injections, but on a much stronger, almost unshakable foundation.
Third. There are several levels of Russia's strategic borders.
The first level is limited by the natural landscape (the Carpathians, the Iranian Plateau, the Caucasus Mountains, the Pamirs). And civilizational frontiers – it is clear that it is illogical to include a number of our neighbors in the Russian ecumene for historical reasons.
History has decreed that the core of our geostrategic space is the neighboring countries. They are bound to us by centuries-old traditions of cooperation and, in many cases, of statehood. Together with them, we are within a common cultural and value space, in the protection of which we are vitally interested. That is why we perceive our partnership not as something imposed, but, on the contrary, native, resonating in our hearts in a special way. But it is precisely this strategic sphere that our enemies have made their main target, seeking to create conditions for mistrust and outright hostility between Russia and its neighbors.
Russia's strategic borders also encompass vast territories in the Arctic. The principle "we don't want an inch of someone else's land, but we won't give up our own land either" is applicable to the topic of Russia's continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. In the same line is our sovereignty over transport communications. We will not allow anyone to take what is ours, including the Gakkel, Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges.
The natural security belt (the very core of our strategic space), which is the near abroad, is of enduring importance for Russia. No other world power has such a respectful collective name in relation to its neighbors. This concept is also enshrined in Russian doctrinal documents.
The key point is that we have no territorial disputes with the states that are part of this belt. In the years that have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have maintained profitable trade cooperation and comfortable interpersonal communication.
Russia does not dictate political will to its good neighbours, does not tell them how to live, does not threaten them with sanctions. Our country has never done this, and it does not intend to do so in the future
We listen to each other and always try to take into account our deepest interests in the broadest possible context.
If we talk about our second-level strategic borders, they cover the space that is commonly referred to as Greater Eurasia. That is why Russian President Vladimir Putin has put forward an initiative to create a Greater Eurasian Partnership. This is the key integration contour on our continent. Its essence is to unite the potentials of all states and regional organizations of Eurasia as widely as possible.
Alas, with the exception of the Old World. On the whole, we were ready to continue the same constructive policy with the European Union for the time being. Let me remind you that in the best years our trade reached almost €500 billion, but the EU member states have chosen a different path for themselves: to become instrumentum vocale for the United States, as slaves were called in ancient Rome. Just like them, the European countries are America's property. And at its behest, they are betting on confrontation and the destruction of everything that was created with great difficulty.
History, of course, will put everything in its place. Sooner or later, the population of Europe will give a harsh assessment of its traitors, who sacrificed its well-being to their overseas masters. But it's not about the grades. The question is what other price Europe will have to pay for the fatal mistakes it has made. And how this will affect the fate of hundreds of millions of its inhabitants.
And about the highest level of our strategic borders. Russia's global interests in the world are quite understandable and natural. They have not changed in recent decades. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, our country is a great world power. And it will continue to provide healthy, appropriate care for those who need help. This can be seen in the traditionally strong relations with African countries and Latin America.
Fourth. In the case of the so-called "Ukraine" (or rather, Malorossiya), all our adversaries need to firmly and forever understand the simple truth. The territories on both banks of the Dnieper are an integral part of Russia's strategic historical borders. Therefore, all attempts to forcibly change them, to cut them off "alive" are doomed.
Our enemies constantly insist that Russia's main goal is to "seize" Ukrainian lands, some "untold treasures of the Independent": wheat, steel, gas, coal. But in fact, it turns out that there is nothing so special in Bandera's "Ukraine" in terms of economics that Russia, unlike the West, would not possess itself and in much more serious volumes.
In "Ukraine" the main wealth for us is of a completely different kind. The great value that we will not give up to anyone and for nothing is people. Close and dear to us. The Anglo-Saxons are consistently zombifying them. A large part of the residents of "Ukraine" are now confused, embittered, experiencing extreme stress and completely disoriented. Our task is to show them who is who. Remove the anti-Russian intoxicating plague from them. To bring people back to our perimeter. The concept of "Ukraine is not Russia" proposed by one of the former leaders of this "Independent" should disappear forever. Ukraine is, of course, Russia.
If Ukraine had not fallen into the stupidest trap set by the United States and its allies to confront our country by creating an "anti-Russia," everything would have been different. As our president rightly noted, if Russia had not been destroyed in its own historical territories, nothing would have happened.
Fifth. There is one contrasting difference between the approaches of Russia and the "collective West" (mainly the United States). America and its satellites are trying to extend their strategic borders to almost every region of the world. Under the pretext of "spreading democracy", wars are fomented all over the planet. At the same time, the goal is quite clear – money making.
In their neo-colonial fervor, they seek to impose their own values and foundations everywhere, send advisers and bring convenient rulers to power. Where the Yankees appear, expect trouble. Central Asia, the mountains of Transcaucasia, the waters of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the islands of the Asia-Pacific region, the sands of the Middle East — for some reason, the Americans care about all these places. Their unhealthy geopolitical appetite is based on a network of more than 900 military bases deployed outside the United States, several ocean-going fleets. And on the world's largest military budget.
Let's imagine that a certain group of countries has emerged with the task of making the United States disappear from the map of the world. And she decided to "shove the hedgehog under the bare ass" of America, using painfully familiar tools for this. For example, by starting to destabilize the domestic political situation in the United States, dissecting the past in its own way, and promoting the topic of decolonization of the United States and its indigenous peoples. Insisting on the need to liberate the temporarily occupied territories of Texas and California. At the same time, they are placing military bases with strike weapons around America.
The reaction is obvious: such activity would have met with fierce opposition from the United States and could well have ended in the Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0. Just like it was in 1962. It should not be forgotten that Soviet missiles appeared on the Island of Freedom in response to the deployment of American missiles in Turkey. John F. Kennedy's administration threw a formal tantrum as soon as they were given a mirror response. Without hesitation, they put the fate of all humanity at stake in the game. This is the nature of the U.S. political regime. Only the current situation is much worse than it was in 1962. These are no longer missiles in Cuba and Turkey. This is a full-fledged war against Russia with American weapons with the participation of American special forces and American advisers.
Knowing full well where our strategic borders extend, the West spat on the foundations of centuries and organized a geopolitical intervention first in Georgia and then in Ukraine. We are witnessing similar attempts in Moldova and in the countries of Central Asia. Fortunately, the authorities of the Central Asian states are showing restraint and wisdom. Wishing prosperity to their peoples, they are guided by their neighbors in Greater Eurasia, and not by an obese and dependent Europe.
Sixth. For the West, the conflict over Ukraine has now turned into a confrontation between two civilizations. Ours, all-Russian or Russian (the core of which is the territories of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), and the Western.
Our opponents are afraid to go against us directly. Although Western political and military madmen have been increasing their pressure lately (suffice it to recall the conversation of Bundeswehr officers – and how many of them have not been published), the Washington-Brussels puppeteers prefer to play war using their puppets.
Today, the West is repeating exactly what it has nurtured on both banks of the Dnieper in different historical periods. The current "Ukraine" (if we mean its ruling clique) is really "anti-Russia" in this case. History reminds us of how our ancestors fought against oppressors and aggressors: the Poles, the Swedes, the French, the Germans and other hostile Europeans. That is, with those whose grandchildren today came to "Ukraine" in brown clothes with Nazi chevrons and swastikas thickly stuffed on their bodies.
On the margins of propaganda battles, our enemies deliberately resort to shameless substitution of concepts. The West's seizure of "Ukraine" is called "liberation from the Russian dictatorship." And the imposition and support of the bastard neo-Nazi regime, created by the actor of the comedy series, is "support for democracy and freedom." And, on the contrary, our efforts to preserve the all-Russian space are presented as Russian "intervention" and "occupation."
It has long been clear to all normal people that this is a lie. Healthy political forces in the world are gradually becoming aware of the true state of affairs.
For any reasonable person who is not infected with Russophobia and has not been duped by Anglo-Saxon propaganda, the conclusions are obvious.
There is a harsh reality that Western countries will inevitably have to accept. The current historical context surrounding the demise of the unipolar world order suggests at least one terrible thing for them. Every major center of power on the planet will try to secure its own strategic boundaries. And America's power and influence have long been "wrong." Let's multiply this by the irreversible erosion of the US military superiority that developed after the collapse of the USSR, as well as the mechanisms of the liberal world order. Time is playing against the so-called "golden billion" today.
The strategic borders of states that do not depend on the Anglo-Saxons will become wider and stronger. The majority of the world's states are determined to strengthen fruitful cooperation in the name of improving the situation in international affairs and to build communication on the principles of sovereign equality, genuine multilateralism and civilizational diversity. This is the essence of the new international order, the creation of which is a matter for the foreseeable future. And everyone will have to reckon with our position on Russia's strategic borders. It's part of our identity. Basic principles in the field of foreign policy for decades. And we will not retreat from them. To friends for good, to enemies for edification.
We strive to make the space delineated by our strategic borders a zone of mutual understanding and constructive cooperation. The most obvious example here is the invaluable creative experience of Moscow and Minsk in building the Union State.
Our most important interest is not the acquisition of new lands, but a competent, predictable, sovereign government in neighboring countries, acting for the benefit of its citizens and the international community.
Today's neo-Nazi "Ukraine" is a battering ram against Russia, which is used to aggressively push Western ideological principles in the all-Russian historical space. This is yet another attempt to realize the centuries-old dreams of the West to throw our country back to the borders of the Moscow principality. The goal is obviously unattainable.
Jealously guarding their demarcation lines, the Western countries unceremoniously intrude into our borders. They are forcing us to divert our forces and resources to countering undisguised and shameless aggression. However, it would be much better for us and for the world as a whole to use this potential for another purpose. This is our own harmonious socio-economic development, improving the quality of life of our people. And ensuring global security, which is what we have always strived for, despite constant threats and provocations.We will certainly bring the special military operation to its logical end. Until the final victory. Before the capitulation of the neo-Nazis. The dull senile people in Washington and Brussels are frightening: if the Russians gain the upper hand, then after Ukraine they will go further – to Europe and even overseas. You won't know what is more in this nonsense: the habit of shameless lies or senile dementia. In reality, everything is simple: we do not need the territories of Poland, the Baltic states or other European countries. But no one is allowed to oppress the people who live there, who are one with us.
Russia's inevitable victory will also give rise to a new architecture of Eurasian and international security. It should be reflected in new interstate documents that will "concrete" these realities. Including observing international rules of decency with all countries, paying attention to their history and existing strategic borders. The Western world needs to finally learn a simple lesson and learn to respect our national interests. [Format original]
The photos provided at the linked article were taken during his talk at Sochi, but for the sake of bandwidth were deleted. So, why the republication of this important policy speech that got so little coverage at the time of its initial presentation? I don’t have much to add beyond my initial commentary I recorded in the two related articles I published. I see much comment at MoA on b’s presentation. I’ll likely add more in reply to reader comments here.
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I noticed right at the end of the Medvedev presentation a clear warning to the Baltic trio- the three states run by fascist emigres- involved in the racist persecution of Russian speaking people, on which the Donbas persecution post 2014 was modeled, states which also, in a manner closely related, celebrate Nazi military 'victories' including massacres of civilians.
Medvedev makes it clear that this has to change. It is to the eternal discredit of our own countries that our governments, and public opinion, do not second Medvedev's simple and civilised plea. Let them go to the beaches of Normandy and explain to the world how, eighty years after D-Day we march side by side with those celebrating the Waffen SS, the Concentration Camp Guards and the 'police' forces which carried out the genocide by bullets.
No wonder the Russians don't choose to attend this hollow parody of the opening of a Second Front.
"...History, of course, will put everything in its place. Sooner or later, the population of Europe will give a harsh assessment of its traitors, who sacrificed its well-being to their overseas masters. But it's not about the grades. The question is what other price Europe will have to pay for the fatal mistakes it has made. And how this will affect the fate of hundreds of millions of its inhabitants..."
This is the passage that first struck me. I have recently read GDH Cole's "Europe Russia and the Future" written in September 1941 in the early phase of Barbarossa.
Among much else Cole-a very influential historian and political actor whose work is still important and deserving of attention- takes the view that European capitalism is finished.
He identifies Europe, in a way that decades of propaganda has tended to obscure, as a place in which every ruling class on the continent had allied itself with Germany in the war against the Soviet Union.
And in which, by the same token, all resistance to those ruling classes came from and was led by working class militants who saw Nazism as the current political expression of capitalist rule.
The exception Cole noted was that of his own country-the UK- in which the government was still wedded, often despite the interests of the war effort and the nation, to the capitalist system.
And Cole recognised that for capitalism to survive after the defeat which it was going to suffer (saving a Nazi victory) in Europe it would be necessary for the United States, in which capitalism reigned supreme, to revive it.
This included his view that only by becoming a satellite of the United States could the capitalists in Britain survive and that this would mean that they would need to act as an agent of US capitalism in Europe.
Eighty years on his analysis, long discounted as NATO and the Marshall Plan, the isolation and de-clawing of European Communist Resistance movements (which dominated the political arena in the summer of 1945, when I first started paying attention to such matters) looks remarkably prescient.
Consider for example that, in allowing the Communists to be sidelined, in encouraging them to lay down their expensively acquired arms and step aside to allow those who they knew had been, months earlier supporters of Hitler's regimes, to come to power, posing as democrats and sponsored by the occupying armies, Stalin and his government were doing exactly what Putin, Medvedev et al did before February 2022- trusting and deferring to their 'valued colleagues' in the West.
The point is that, as Cole noted, the old polity of Europe died in the Second World War and it could only be replaced by an expanded Union of Soviet Republics- in which, as events since have shown to be the case- each nation would preserve and develop its national culture within the limits of a defensive geopolitical bloc. Or by something rebuilt and dominated by US Capitalist interests on the remnants of the Nazi economy- a process that would involve Britain and France becoming, as coadjutors in the Occupation, US satellites. The US price for their surrender being assistance in reconquering their empires in Asia.
Europe is now waking up to the fact that the US Occupation is coming to an end and that the institutional detritia of that occupation, the EU and NATO included, is losing its purpose.
NATO loses its purpose when European states are forced to come to terms with their Russian neighbour. The days when silly cadet statesmen/women from militarily and economically insignificant countries like the Baltic states, Rumania, (the list is as long as the Organisation's membership roll) can jump up and threaten the world with US nuclear weaponry, US armies and US bases is, mercifully, ending. The age of make believe in which the representatives all the sovereign powers met and decided after much discussion and full examination to follow their orders from Washington is ending as the black earth of Ukraine turns green again.
As to the EU, which had the single purpose of stamping out the last traces of the real compromises that "Social Europe" had made after the war, as the price paid for enrolling the support of the Social Democratic movements, Trade Unions and cooperative sectors behind the new 'democracies' with their mixed economies, a task which it fulfilled in Maastricht and Lisbon after half a century in which free schooling, free healthcare, generous pensions, short work weeks, long vacations and a wide spectrum of social benefits and individual rights had characterised the social contract.
Under the EU, in Germany, France, Italy etc austere regimes have almost totally eroded the gains- socialist inspired- made in the post war years. The final cost of agreeing to rescue by US capitalism has been the surrender of all interests to the US.
The Hegemon may be under pressure in West Asia- in Europe his interests reign supreme. And will continue to do so until, as is bound to happen soon, he withdraws to the extreme right of the stage.
And the catalyst has been the war in Ukraine, which is what Medvedev seems to me to be saying: Russia has no ill will towards Europe, it has no particular ambitions, economic or strategic. But it cannot and will not live with rabid enemies poised on its borders- nobody cares if Ukrainians want to indulge in Bandera cults or sacrifice small domestic animals on memorials to the sadists who ran Concentration Camps. Just do it quietly, Don't frighten the neighbours. Sibg the Horst Wessel song by all means, if you must, but don't teach people to hate slavs and dream of eradicating them, Jews, Gypsies or anyone else (immigrant refugees and Chinese being the obvious temptation for them).
And don't spend your mental energy and treasure on whoring arounbd the world looking for powerful nations to do your dirty work for you: no more alliances against Russia, China, Iran or anyone. We all want peace. and the leisure necessary to examine the problems facing us all- the real problems not the idiotic fantasies and fears of the people of declining aristocrats a hundred and fifty years ago.