[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]

First, a clarification.  When I speak of “Biden” I don’t mean the fungus (to use Tom Luongo’s apt expression) which was recently planted in the White House, I am referring to the “collective Biden” which I defined here https://sakerlatam.blog/the-saker-files/terminology/.  With this caveat, now let’s see why Russia might want to change gears in 2021.

First, let’s begin by the basics:

Russians often say that US politicians change, but US policies don’t.  There is much truth to that, we saw that very clearly with Obama and Trump: both promised sweeping changes and both pretty much continued the policies of their predecessors, at least on the foreign policy front.  In a way, you could argue that this is normal and even desirable.  A shill for the regime would say something along the lines that “well, that is normal, US national security priorities don’t change with each administration, so all this proves is that no matter what any candidate promises during his campaign, once in office he/she becomes aware of the hard realities of these words and then act on it just like their predecessors did“.  This argument is deeply flawed, however, because it completely ignores the will of the US people (who, let’s not forget that, voted for change every time they got a chance to, be it with Obama or with Trump) and it assumes that only those “in the know” realize and know what they have to do.  This kind of “logic” is typical for the elitism of the US ruling classes.

It also ignores the fact that while US Presidents are really puppets, figureheads, even if during their campaign they pretend otherwise. As for the elections, every four years in the USA, they are nothing but a grand brainwashing show whose sole purpose is to give the illusion of people power.  They could have presidential elections every 2 years, or even every year, none of that would change the fact that the US is a plutocratic dictatorship with much less people power than any other state in the collective West.

In fact, the argument above is just a tiny fig leaf trying to conceal the undeniable fact that the USA are not ruled by a person, but are ruled by a class, in the Marxist sense of this world.  Personally, I call this ruling class the “US Nomenklatura“.  And while both Obama and Trump pretended to want real change, they both lost that chance (assuming they ever wanted this is the first place, which I doubt) when they did not do what Putin did when he came to office: crush the Russian oligarchs as a class (some fled abroad, some died, some lost it all, and some agreed to play by Putin’s new rules).  Obama, being the vapid and spineless car salesman that he is, probably never even contemplated any real move against the US Nomenklatura.  As for Trump, being the pompous narcissist that he is, he might have even entertained some thoughts of showing “who is boss”, but that lasted only 1 month, until the US Nomenklatura forced Trump to fire Flynn (after that, it was all freefall…).

Anyway, the point is that we should not expect immense, sweeping changes from *any* administration.  Since the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, we should assume that mostly we will get “more of the same, maybe even worse”.  What am I talking about here?  Here is a (partial) list of these “more of the sames”:

  1. Further vilification of Russia, Russians and everything Russian by the entire western media (which is even less diverse and more uniformly lying than anything Goebbels or Suslov could ever had dreamed up!).  You can think of it as “full spectrum russophobia”.
  2. Even more “sanctions” against all Russian interests (economic, political, etc.) worldwide.  The US sees this as a pure zero-sum game, any loss by Russia, no matter how marginal and puny is a victory for the AngloZionist Empire.
  3. A return to Obama-era style military missile and air strikes.  Probably not on Russian targets (yes, Hillary advocated that, but now this would be much more dangerous than 5 years ago), but definitely on Russian allies like Syria (including attacks on Iranian and Venezuelan vessels on the high seas).
  4. A return to Obama-era petty harassment of Russian diplomats and citizens.  The goal here is not to achieve anything meaningful, but rather it is to show that “Russia is weak and cannot prevent us from treating her like a 3rd rate power”.  There is nothing the USA could do which would really hurt Russia, so Uncle Shmuel will turn his rage on those few diplomats and even civilians it can kidnap, jail, expel, sanction, extort, threaten etc.
  5. Even more sabre-rattling all along the Russian borders.  I fully expect that US forces will be deployed in the Baltic statelets on a permanent basis (not on a rotation basis).  USAF aircraft and USN ships will continue to harass Russian defenses under the pretext of “innocent passage”, “freedom of navigation” and the like.
  6. Since the Biden Admin is a “who’s who” of Jewish and Ukrainian extremists (some combo!), and since Biden is personally implicated in the Ukraine (along with Hunter), we can also expect a rapid degradation of the political situation in the Ukraine and even more provocations than under Trump.  As they say, these folks will “fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian”.

None of that will have any direct impact on Russia (for a detailed discussion, see here).  However, this does not mean that Russia should continue to pretend like this is “business as usual” and take blow after blow after blow.  Why?  For a number of reasons:

  1. There is plenty of evidence that the Russian people are getting fed-up with what they see is a rather weak, if not lame, attitude of Russian officials, especially against the constant flow of petty harassment measures against Russian interests.  Folks in the West are never told this (after all, informing is not the mission of the corporate media), but the “patriotic” opposition to the Kremlin is much more dangerous than the hopelessly discredited pro-western “liberal” one (more about that below).  The calls for a much more energetic “push-back” are now regularly heard, including from rather mainstream politicians.
  2. There is also plenty of evidence that the “Biden gang” will want not only to fully resume Obama-era policies towards the Ukraine (trigger more violent incidents & support for the Ukie Nazis) but that these policies will now also be extended towards Belarus.  The fact that these policies are unlikely to succeed does not mean that Russia’s best response to them is to maintain a “wait and see” position.  It is pretty self-evident that any form of restraint by Russia is immediately explained away as “weakness” by the western propaganda machine.  Any more such “restraint” will only make things more dangerous and more difficult for Russia and Putin personally.  In other words, at this point in time, “restraint” only invites more aggression.
  3. Furthermore, 2021 is an election (Parliament) year in Russia.  Now, irrespective of anything Russia does, no matter how transparent or un-falsifiable Russian elections are, the West will use that opportunity to try to get violent riots in the streets of Russia before the elections and, after the election, the West will declare that the Russian elections were “undemocratic” and go on about “supporting the just democratic aspirations of the Russian people” (especially Russian homosexuals, of course!) and the like.
  4. Finally, it is pretty clear that the Biden Cabinet brings together the crème de la crème of Zionist russophobes from the US deep state.  These people are characterized by the following and very dangerous characteristics: narcissistic and messianic racist self-love, a “God ordained” racist hatred for all of mankind, a personal/family history of hatred for Russia, deep involvement in many Ukie corruption schemes, an almost total failure to understand that consequences and nature of war combined with a delusional belief in invulnerability and impunity (while the former is false, the latter has been true, at least so far), etc.  This is a very dangerous combination, to say the least!

The truth is that pseudo-liberals are amongst the most dangerous creatures out there.  Yes, their current “geopolitical toolkit” (the USA and the AngloZionist Empire) is weak, but that does not mean that Russia (or the rest of the world) can simply ignore these dangerous psychopaths.

The good (or even excellent!) news is that Trump gave Russia four more years to prepare for what is coming next, and that the Russia+China tandem is in much better shape today than it was 4 years ago.  For example, the Russian internal security situation is now the best ever, as witnessed to by the fact that the Russian federal “wanted list” does not include a single Chechen national; the self-styled “last Emir of the Caucasus”, Aslan Byutukayev, was killed on January 20th, which made it possible for Ramzan Kadyrov to “declare a total victory over terrorism” in Russia).  In plain English this means that every single Chechen who has ever committed an act of terrorism in Russia has been identified and is now either dead (most of them) or jailed (only a few).  Despite these achievements, I am not sure about the “total victory over terrorism” because there are still violent groups in several regions of Russia.  Besides, if the “Axis of Kindness” (US/Israel/KSA, sometimes joined by the country many Russians think of as “Puny Britain”) special services decide to reignite an insurgency in Russia, they might have at least some success, especially initially.  The FSB/FSO better not let their guard down, especially in Dagestan, the Far East, Crimea and the Moscow region!

In purely military terms, Russia is completely “out of reach” for the United States armed forces, even with the EU/NATO thrown in.  I have written a lot about that, and I won’t repeat any of this here.  Suffice to say that Russia now has the best armed forces she has had in decades while the US has an immense, truly grotesquely bloated, military, but not one that can get anything done other than killing (and, at that, mostly civilians).  Even if we look just at nuclear strategic forces of Russia they are at least a decade, if not more, ahead of the West.  This is the first time since WWII that Russia is that powerful, and now she can reap the many advantages of being militarily secure.

All this being said, I have personally always defended what I called the Kremlin’s “restraint” for the simple reason that when I look at the aggregate power (not just military!) of Russia and the AngloZionist Empire I still see the latter as much stronger.  However, I have do admit that the trend of this relationship is a positive one, that is to say that over the past decade or so Russia has become much, much, stronger while the USA and the Empire have become much, much, weaker. Under Biden, this trend will only accelerate.

The time has now come for Russia to adapt her own policies to this new reality.

And the very first thing the Kremlin ought to change is its language, its rhetoric.  Yes, “restraint” is good, especially when escalation into a full-scale war is amongst the possible outcomes of any crisis, but “restraint” cannot be a goal in itself.  For example, while the USA+NATO does, objectively, represent a major anti-Russian threat (if only because they are weak and can only count on their nukes to protect them!).  Likewise, the ugly “Banderastan” which the Ukronazis turned the good old Ukraine into is not a threat to Russia whatsoever.  So why not seriously turn down a few economic screws to make the Ukronazis feel that their never ending stream of insults and (empty) threats can have consequences?

Next, the Kremlin needs to mix strong words with strong actions!

Just this Sunday, January, the 24th,  the US Embassy in Moscow was involved in openly coordinating the (small, but violent and illegal!) riots in Moscow, just the same way the NEXTA Telegram channel has done in Belarus.  So what did the Kremlin do in response?  The Russian Foreign Ministry did order US diplomats to the MID building and… … gave them a note of firm protest.

And that’s it?!

I don’t think anybody in the US Embassy in Moscow gives a damn about Russian protests. If anything, US “diplomats” probably get a good laugh each time they get such protests.  And everybody knows that, including the Russian diplomats.  So why do they hold to such a lame “communications line”?

The Russian Navy recently gave a very good example of how a good word can have much more effect when backed with some good action: remember when (of all names!) the USS John McCain recently breached the Russian maritime border?  The Russian Navy did tell the McCain to withdraw, but it added that the Russian large antisubmarine ship (a “destroyer” in western terminology) Admiral Vinogradov would “ram” the McCain if his warnings were not heeded.  Needless to say, the McCain got out really fast (the USN already has experienced this kind of situation in the past, see here).  The problem with ramming, at least for the USN, is that you can hardly reply by opening up with your weapons, which would be truly suicidal inside Russian waters and near the (heavily fortified) Russian coastline.  As for the Russians, they are “crazy” enough to do that, even when their ship is smaller (ask any US sailor who served in the US submarine force, they know!).  The simple truth is that the Russian sailors “mean business” (the one of defending their motherland) whereas the US sailors, well, how shall I put it?  They do very much want to “show the flag” and “defend principles”, but not if they might get seriously hurt.  That’s just a fact.  From the Russian point of view, joining the military means accepting that pain and death come with the territory. 1000 years of warfare have truly imprinted that on the Russian collective psyche.

[Sidebar: by the way, a lot of US Americans love to repeat these famous words by General Patton: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country“.  This is a neat aphorism, and it very much caters to a typically US view of warfare.  It is also almost perfectly wrong, as any Russian, Iranian or Hezbollah fighter could tell you – that is *not* how you win wars.  In fact, this is how you lose them.  And this is why putative “dumb bastards” beat the crap out of US forces over and over again…]

At the very least, it is high time to reduce the number of US officials in Russia: I am talking about diplomats, of course, but also the entire menagerie of “volunteers”, “NGOs” and, most definitely, US “journalists” accredited in Russia.  Reducing their numbers will also make it easier for the FSB/FSO to keep an eye on the rest of them.

Next, I would also show a large number of EU “guests” to the door: after all, why keep them in this nightmarish Putin’s Mordor?  Let’s send them back to the “freedom” they, apparently, care for so much (at least when in Russia; when in Paris, Berlin or Rotterdam – not so much).

[Sidebar: Frankly, they EU rulers have gone completely insane.  Now the EU is seriously considering cancelling the almost completed North Stream 2 over the Navalnyi nonsense!  Sacrificing a multi-billion dollar project crucial to the EU economy over the fate of one particularly uninspiring and fake pseudo-dissident whose support in Russia is less than one percent (as shown by the miniscule crowds which violently rioted on is behalf).  What the EU leaders fail to appreciate is that Russia needs NS2 much less than the EU does, as Russia’s main gas plans are fully focused on China.  There is a good Russian expression about the kind of threats the EU makes: to “try to scare a hedgehog with a naked bottom!”.  The EU really needs to be placed on a suicide watch, imho.]

Frankly, this entire western “fauna” has become accustomed to living in Russia while making a living hating on Russia.  They mostly got away with it in the 80s, they totally got away with it in the 90s, and for the past twenty years the Kremlin has done precious little to change this.  I think that the “message” (westerners love “messages”) from the Kremlin should be simple: living and working in Russia is not a right, it is a privilege.  If you can’t behave, then you have overstayed your welcome.  In the current context, the West has much more to lose from this kind of policy than Russia (especially since Russian diplomats were already expelled, and Russian consular buildings illegally closed).

Next, Russia needs to respond to the US zero-sum-game, but not by accepting such a logic for herself.  The main problem with the zero-sum-game mindset is that it is extremely wasteful: the side engaging in it has to spent a lot of time and efforts trying to deny *any* victory, or even mildly positive development, to the other side.  What Russia should do instead, is define a list of vulnerable and important targets/goals of the Empire, and then focus her resources and energy denying them to the USA.  Such a fully focused effort is much more efficient than the kind of “full spectrum pestering” the USA typically engages in.  The good news, at least for Russia, is that the USA is both vulnerable and weak, economically, militarily, culturally, socially – you name it.  As for the Empire, it has been dead for a while already: it simply ceased to operate as an empire a while ago already.  Again, this reality is carefully hidden in what I call “Zone A“, but in Zone B everybody knows it, even if they pretend otherwise.

[Sidebar: the perfect place for Russia to really make a difference would be Iran.  Though the Iranians are extremely sophisticated players, both their diplomats and their military, they badly need Russian help, especially in such fields as early warning systems, targeting, over the horizon radars, air defenses (ground and air based), antisubmarine warfare, coastal defenses, etc. – you name it!  Iran is, by far, the most important country in the Middle-East and Iran is therefore constantly under threat by the “Axis of Kindness”.  Russia has not, so far, taken the strategic decision to give Iran the means to be safe, at least in part to be able to put pressure on Tehran when needed (Russian and Iranian goals in Syria are similar in some ways, but also distinct in others).

Finally, the Kremlin needs to become much more attuned to the arguments of the “patriotic opposition”.  For one thing, many of the arguments of this patriotic opposition are correct, so listening to them is simply common sense.  Second, some of these arguments are flawed, but they cannot be ignored: these arguments need counter-arguments.  Simply assuming that the Russian people will always support the Kremlin no matter what is delusional and dangerous.  Finally, some of these arguments are based on fallacies and only serve the interests of the USA/EU/NATO block.  The fact that some Russians sincerely repeat them is a dangerous sign of how susceptible some segments of the Russian society still are to US PSYOPs.  For all these reasons, the Kremlin has to change its PR policies which are, frankly, becoming stale and sometimes even toxic.

[Sidebar:  right now, there are three basic kind of opposition in Russia: the fake opposition in the Duma, which talks a lot, but basically supports the Kremlin, the non-systemic pro-US/EU opposition which probably speaks for about one percent of the Russian people, and the non-systemic “patriotic” opposition, which is also rather small, but which really needs to be represented in the Duma and become “part of the system of institutions” (as opposed to the current “one man show”) of Russia]

I am in no way suggesting that Russia should become confrontational or provocative.  All that is needed is for Russia to be less “diplomatic” and much more forceful in the defense of her interests.  That in turn means two things:  Russian officials need to change their rather demure tone when dealing with western imperialists and, second, Russian officials needs to back their words with real, measurable, actions.

Conclusion: learn from your mistakes

Russian history is filled with cases when diplomats simply wasted the efforts and successes achieved by the Russian military.  This is why the Russian military has a saying “the blood of some is spilled because of the incompetence of others” (another version: “some had to become heroes to undo that which cowards did“).  Finally, if there is one thing which Russian history has shown beyond any doubt it is that the internal enemy is much, much more dangerous than the external one.

I have always maintained that the Empire and Russia have been at war since at least 2014.  This is not the purely military WWIII, of course, but a war which is 80% economic, 15% informational and only 5% kinetic.  This is, nonetheless, a total/existential war which will end with only one side standing, the other will vanish.  For Russia, this is a war for the survival of the Russian civilizational realm, hardly a minor matter.  Besides, this 80/15/5 percent war could quickly turn into a 0/0/100 kinetic one.  Thus Russia needed to be very careful indeed.  Now, roughly seven or eight years later, we can see that Russia has been winning, which is very good.  But this war is far from over, such processes are very slow, and Russia simply cannot assume that “more of the same” from her will be enough to be victorious.  All in all, the Russian policy towards the collective West has been both sound and very effective, but now the time has come for meaningful change.  Should the Kremlin ignore these changing circumstances, then Russia might, yet again, be forced to solve with her military that which the diplomats failed to protect and preserve.  God willing, Putin will heed the lessons taught by the history of Russia.

The Saker