Putin's "Promethean" bet, to generate the "chaos" of "chaos" at a global level

Putin and his "Promethean Bet" is simply to create chaos in the West, to avoid "encircling Russia". A chaos for chaos. Very interesting the article published by Il Foglio which is reported in the most interesting parts.

The thesis of "Chaos as a strategy. Putin's 'Promethean' Gamble ", a report just released by the Cepa, Center for European Policy Analysis: a Washington-based think tank that deals with Western Europe and Russia.

Thesis: "The Moscow leaders consider themselves part of a major global competition for power in which they face the United States and Europe. To compensate for the internal decline over the long term, the Kremlin tries to take international risks to balance its relative weakness in the face of the relative strength of the West ". "The Kremlin is trying to compensate for its weakening at home by launching itself into a competitive strategy in which the part that best manages to manage the disorder will win".

All through asymmetrical tools: disinformation, subversion, political war. The concept of asymmetrical competition is a XNUMXth-century type, “popularized by the famous Polish statesman Jozef Pilsudski”, was put together with General Valery Gerasimov's ideas about how to deal with a war in the XNUMXst century. Result: “A non-linear practice to compete with the West only in areas where Russia has an advantage”. And the first of them is that of information, due to the authoritarian system that relatively protects Russia from counter-moves by the rival side.

"The premise is Huntingtoniana; Russia can support its clash of civilizations by putting its adversaries against each other, dividing them within them, and undermining their political system while consolidating its population base, resources and culture ". Reference names are also those of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Haushofer. But also the Russian strategic history has a tradition in this sense.

The problem of Russia is that, on the one hand, Putin has launched a strategy of restoration of its "Thermidorian" power, which in fact re-evaluates the military glories of the past, even in Stalin's times. On the other hand, the data of the country are not positive. Population in decline, chronic social problems, falling economic competitiveness, dependence on the cycles of raw materials with relative "Dutch syndrome", persistence of institutionalized corruption force Russia to think above all in terms of mere survival. In this context, the "Colored Revolutions" that began in the 21st century in the former Soviet republics and then the Arab Spring were perceived as an aggression by the West. And the answer was not only in the military campaigns that precisely "punished" Ukraine and Georgia and in the intervention in Syria, but precisely in this type of counter-offensive. "Survival is the end, chaos is the means".

It was Pilsudski who defined "Prometheanism" the challenge of the small powers against the order imposed by the strongest, comparing it precisely to the rebellion of the titan against Zeus. In his case, the weapon used against Russia itself had been to exploit the clash between its nationalities. Another example of a "Promethean" strategy is that which led the German intelligence services to support Lenin's revolution against the pro-Allied Russian government: only to backfire when the Bolshevik revolution infected the German soldiers. According to Jensen and Dora, "while Prometheanism is not the only form of chaos strategy, it can be highly effective, if the right circumstances are met".

In 2013 Gerasimov writes an article for the "Military-Industrial Kurier" in which he analyzes the changes in Western war strategies starting from 1991, observing that non-military instruments - political, economic, informative and humanitarian - are now proportionally 4 to 1 compared to military instruments: and on these the clandestine operations and Special Forces take over, limiting in practice the use of the classic military instrument to peace-keeping. A subsequent debate strives to understand whether Gerasimov wants to suggest imitating Westerners, or simply suggesting to answer them by brushing off traditional methods. But the year after the type of hybrid strategy outlined is explained in practice through the attack on Ukraine in response to the Euromaidan revolution. It is a combination of different tools, in response to a "destabilization" through forms of ideological influence.

The colorful revolutions according to the Russian analysis start from an effort by the West to persuade the superiority of their political system: a bit like the USSR during the Cold War. Instead, the current Putinist information war does not aim to convince, but to confuse. A bombardment of fake news and altered news from official media such as RT or Sputnik, from trolls on the Internet or from "false flags" point, for example, to convince the Baltic countries that the United States wants to abandon them or the Ukrainians that the West wants to do picks up land. In Romania, anti-Western resentments are exploited, and anti-Western resentments are exploited, in Poland anti-Ukrainians, in Lithuania the divisions on energy policy, in the EU the growing impatience against the "Eurocracy" and the immigrants.

However, the authors of the report do not believe that Russia could have significantly influenced the election of Trump. On the other hand, the way in which the activity of the Kremlin hackers has managed to create controversy emphasizes one of the aspects for which chaos can backfire against Putin. More in general: "The use of disinformation by Russia erodes the confidence that other countries or leaders could place in their relationship with Russia and with Putin personally". The result would be an escalation of tensions from which it would be impossible for the Kremlin to turn back.

Putin's "Promethean" bet, to generate the "chaos" of "chaos" at a global level

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