SVR Chief Sergey Naryshkin: 2024 is the Year of Geopolitical Awakening

SVR is Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service

The opening article for this month’s issue, which is in pdf format and thus very hard to machine translate, of the SVR’s internal journal, Razvedchik, it’s head Sergey Naryshkin has penned the following article. Here’s its Header:

Global turbulence, provoked by the fierce struggle of the West, trying to maintain its dominance, with new centers of power defending the right to sovereign development, will obviously continue to gain momentum in the coming year. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the process of restructuring the world unfolding before our eyes will be accompanied by the geopolitical awakening of an increasing number of countries, peoples and entire continents striving to get rid of the liberal-totalitarian "datura."

RT has a brief review of the article that is all too brief but at least alerted people as to its existence. The word within quotes, datura, translates into the slang word dope, which means drugs, so we can infer it to mean addiction or opium or substance abuse or something else along those lines; pipe dream just came to mind. For most readers, Naryshkin will be a new voice having its own distinctness that doesn’t get too much public exposure but has great weight similar to Nikolai Patrushev’s. The political cartoon associated with this article at its footer is excellent, but can’t be easily copied and pasted, but if you click the link to the pdf, you’ll be able to see it after scrolling down a little. And now, Mr. Naryshkin:

The fundamental, or perhaps already existential, conflict between the "old" and the "new" world, which has been secretly maturing for 30 years, since the end of the cold war, and with the beginning of a special military operation moved into an open phase, has acquired a geographically all-encompassing character in the last year.

The globalist and openly anti-humanistic agenda persistently imposed by Washington and its allies is causing rejection by an increasing number of non-Western states that share the ideas of multipolarity and adhere to traditional worldviews. All this multiplies the risks of instability and leads to an increase in the chaotic nature of the processes taking place in the foreign policy arena, requiring remarkable restraint and foresight from world leaders.

The current picture of the world is increasingly reminiscent of a class revolutionary situation, when the "upper classes" in the face of the weakening United States can no longer provide their own leadership, but the "lower classes", to which the Anglo-Saxon elite, without exaggeration, refers to all the other countries who no longer want to submit to Western dictates. In order to prevent a cardinal breakdown of the entire global "superstructure" that currently exists and is beneficial exclusively to the Anglo-Saxons, the Euro-Atlantic elite will follow the beaten path.

The ways to create controlled chaos are to stabilize the situation in key regions of the planet by pitting some "recalcitrant" states against others and, as a result, forming operational and tactical coalitions around them under the control of the West.

However, the specifics of the current situation are that Washington and its satellites are less and less able to fully implement their destructive plans. The responsible world players, which, of course, include Russia, as well as China, India and many other states, united, demonstrate their readiness to resolutely resist external threats and independently implement a crisis settlement, as is happening, for example, in Syria. Moreover, it is already even the closest allies of the United States are striving to diversify ties against the background of the increasingly obvious inability of the former hegemon to guarantee them without danger. In this regard , the unprecedented escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the 21st century has become a sobering example for many Western politicians who are accustomed to betting on special relations with Washington.

It is obvious that the coming year on the world stage will be marked by a further intensification of the confrontation between the two geopolitical principles mentioned above: Anglo-Saxon, or island, "divide and rule" and directly antagonize it with the continental "unite and lead". Manifestations of this fierce confrontation in the coming year will be observed in all, even the most remote regions of the world: from the post-Soviet space, which is most significant for us, to South America and the Pacific Ocean.

With regard to the situation in Ukraine, it can be expected that Western politicians, due to the objective impossibility of achieving a military victory over our country, will be to maintain the presence of the United States from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Seas. They will try to prolong the fighting and turn the Ukrainian conflict into a "second Afghanistan", counting on our gradual depletion of potential in a grueling struggle. They will achieve this, as before, at the expense of a complex of economic and military-diplomatic measures, including sanctions that violate the norms of international law and the incessant supply of weapons and military equipment to Kiev. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that further support for the Kiev junta, especially given the increasing "toxicity" of the Ukrainian theme for the transatlantic unity and Western society as a whole, it will accelerate the decline of the international authority of the West. The further Ukraine goes, the more it will turn into a "black hole" that absorbs material and human resources. Eventually, the United States will try to arrange for itself a "second Vietnam", which every new American administration will have to deal with until then, until a more or less sane person comes to power in Washington, who will have enough courage and resolve to shut up this "mouth".

The Arab world will remain the key arena of the struggle for a new world order in 2024. Here it is most clearly visible, how are the claims of the globalists broken down elites for the role of the hegemon, which they imagined themselves to be after the collapse of the USSR. The invasion of Iraq, the infamous "Arab dream" that destroyed peaceful Libya and Yemen, the protracted war in Syria, the emergence of the monstrous terrorist group ISIS and, finally, attempts to push the Sunni and Shiite "poles" in the Middle East— this is not a complete list of criminal manifestations of strategic thought in Washington and some others western capitals. This conceptual course was consistently pursued by successive Republican and Democratic administrations in the White House, pursuing a single goal — without separate domination. Although, it would seem, much more completely, taking into account the massive military the presence of the USA from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Seas.

The main reason for the collapse of such a one-sided and short-sighted policy of the West is incredibly simple: this is a new and this time a true awakening of the peoples of the Middle East, as opposed to the one staged Washington ten years ago, the sad but famous "Arab Spring". On the one hand, this awakening is manifested in the coming to power of strong, sovereign leaders in a number of Arab countries, on the other hand, in the rapid growth of anti-American and, more broadly, anti-Western sentiments in the region. The multipolar world is already a reality that cannot be "undone" globally. What seemed almost impossible yesterday: normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, their entry together with Egypt and the UAE into BRICS, Syria's return to the "Arab family" are indisputable facts today.

Russia welcomes in every possible way and, to the best of its ability, will continue to contribute to the success of these processes. But the main thing is, what does all this say about the mood in the Arabic world is that it’s looking for a mutually acceptable settlements of conflicts, a joint search for ways to solve security problems, and building predictable constructive relations supported by common economic and humanitarian interests. In this context, it is impossible not to mention the high pace of development of mutually beneficial relations between Arab countries with Russia and China, despite the desperate attempts of the United States and the EU to prevent this.

Africa in the coming year will also continue to confidently follow the path of becoming one of the independent centers of power on the world stage. African countries are showing increasing independence in foreign and domestic policy, their voices are becoming louder on the UN platform. In the future, the role of the African Union as a global institution capable of resolving crises in Africa without outside help. In fact, we are now witnessing a genuine decolonization of the Black Continent, which is beginning to think of itself as a separate subject of international relations, and not just as a market for cheap resources, which is how the Anglo-Saxons still see Africa.

Vivid evidence of the growing process of rethinking Africa's geopolitical identity is the Central African Republic and Mali. The new authorities in Bangui and Bamako have found the courage to take the path of resolutely rejecting the patronage of France and the "collective West" in favor of establishing close ties with our country in the economic sphere both in the military-political spheres and in practice, they were convinced of the correctness of their choice. I am sure that their example will inspire other Black Continent states interested in implementing a sovereign political course based primarily on national interests and independent of the whims of foreign elites.

At the same time, it is obvious that the former political parties will not abandon attempts to undermine the desire of Africans for sovereign development, using for this a proven "gentle set" of classic colonial methods: from endless promises of financial and military-political cooperation to the deliberate incitement of inter-state conflicts, the spread of radical Islamist ideology and direct military interventions. However, this will only encourage regional leaders to search for more reliable "suppliers" of security, which in their eyes are Russia, China, India, as well as the Arabian monarchies, which do not have a dark colonial past, and most importantly, they are ready to offer cooperation to the countries and peoples of Africa on an equal and non-ideological basis.

It is noteworthy that similar processes are currently actively developing everywhere, including Latin America, which Americans have always considered their "backyard." There, too, the demand for independent integration structures that are not subject to control is becoming more and more insistent. One of them is the Society of Latin American and Caribbean Countries, or CELAC, in which, tellingly, the participation of the USA and Canada is not expected.

Now a few words about the situation inside the Euro-Atlantic bloc itself. In the coming year, we will certainly see an increase in the level of social and political disunity in the United States and Europe on a number of topics, starting from support for Ukraine and ending with the promotion of LGBT stories. In one of the harbingers of the inevitable, Slovakia became a storm, where in the last parliamentary elections, despite the colossal pressure from the left—wing Western elites, the nationally oriented party "For Government - Social Democracy" won at the head with Robert Fico.

I believe that in 2024, most of the electoral campaigns in the West – from elections to the European Parliament to the presidential elections in the United States — will take place in an atmosphere of fierce confrontation between globalists on the one hand and adherents of realism in foreign policy and traditional values in social life on the other side. And although it hardly makes sense to predict the specific results of future campaigns now, it is possible to predict with absolute accuracy that Western politicians will habitually try to blame Russia, as well as China and other states that have the courage to present their own alternative to the totalitarian state to the world for the inevitable increase in internal tensions in their countries—a liberal "concentration camp"—a vision of the present and the future.

Meanwhile, in the Eurasian space A fundamentally new reality is emerging, the contours of which began to emerge with the return to Russia Crimea and the reintegration of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. I am sure that in 2024 the unifying role of Moscow as the center of the continent's key integration projects will only grow stronger. This is also indicated by the formation of a broad alliance within Russia and its allies and partners in the CIS, the CSTO and the SCO, as well as the nascent "Greater Eurasian Partnership" being the most important. The quality of these structures, which fundamentally distinguishes them from Western blocs, is their focus on third countries and their aim at forming a just world order based on unconditional respect for sovereignty and respect for international law.

Such a representative association as the BRICS, which will have six new states as full members in the coming year, has a powerful potential in terms of building a fair and truly democratic architecture of international relations. As part of the campaign to try and discredit this forum, the Western media often say Moscow and Beijing are promoting it as an alternative to the Big Seven. However, the "seven" are the United States and the "six" satellites serving it, and the rules prevailing inside the block are not much different from prison ones, where only the senior warden has the right to vote, while the rest are forced to obediently fulfill his will.

In turn, the BRICS, especially in its expanded composition, is an alliance of equal powers, or rather, states of civilizations, in the words of President V. Putin, who strive together to find answers to the most pressing challenges of our time. I am confident that the Russian presidency of the BRICS in 2024 will give an additional impetus to the development of this truly promising format.

Of course, the United States and its allies will continue to take steps to exert direct and indirect pressure on our country, as well as on all other dissenters to "pawn their souls" and "swear allegiance" to neoliberal values. In the coming year we expect the intensification of attacks by the Anglo-Saxons, including on international platforms, primarily at the UN, as well as within the framework of various kinds of revisionist "summits for democracy" and multilateral ad hoc formats. The true purpose of these creeps is visible to the naked eye: under the pretext of collective reaction to Russian, Chinese or any other another "threat" is to continue dismantling the institutions of government that developed after the Second World War, thereby removing the last obstacles in the way of the odious "rules-based order" imposed by the Americans.

I would like to quote the President of Russia again, who called this "order" “nonsense" and an attempt to substitute international law. I will add from myself, that in the emerging multipolar world , this "rotten commodity" is already poorly sold even among Western politicians who do not want to defend the narrow-minded interests of Anglo-Saxon elites and individual groups of influence. What can we say about the rest. The leaders and peoples of the vast majority of the world's states have long recognized the two-fold essence of the West and no longer believe its sweet and false promises; the global awakening is irreversible.

I am convinced that we also need to get rid of the liberal "dope" of the 1990s to the end years and go back to the basics. We have our own way. Russia is an original civilization country with a thousand—year history that should not be forgotten, much less betrayed.

It is for this reason that we have decided in order to restore historical justice to install on the territory of the headquarters of the SVR of Russia in Yasenevo a monument to an outstanding statesman, the founder of the Russian foreign intelligence service Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky - a symbol of purposefulness, selflessness, determination, a hero who remained devoted to the idea of building a new, just world to the end.

A global Class War is one way of describing what’s happening. Also, a conflict aimed at liberation from the “totalitarian West” seems another correct description. I don’t see a whole lot of risk in his predictions since they’re already ongoing manifestations.

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