1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:07,140 Briefly introduce Andrew Moynihan, who is I think I think if you were a friend as well as a colleague, 2 00:00:07,550 --> 00:00:14,970 I know he currently works which has nice what he is trying to be senior research fellow in Russia and Eurasia Programme. 3 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:20,910 He's also crucially a visiting research fellow on the change we have to work on at the moment. 4 00:00:21,780 --> 00:00:28,950 And he has worked, as we were discussing over lunch at the United Defence College in Rome, right, some years time. 5 00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:37,049 And he's already a reputation for himself in terms of trying out research on Russia and contrary 6 00:00:37,050 --> 00:00:44,110 to those who think in this sort of policy think tank world that every Russian is about Russia, 7 00:00:44,110 --> 00:00:53,820 he's already known. You will get this offering a refreshing U-turn on a subject you think about, and many of us are frankly completely misunderstood. 8 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:57,240 Andrew, thank you very much for talking with us. 9 00:00:57,660 --> 00:01:06,300 Thank you, Robert, for that very generous introduction. Yes, I did wonder how many people would turn out today with Russia in the news and so forth. 10 00:01:06,810 --> 00:01:12,900 The drama we've had over the last year or so. And it's a pleasure to see the room full. 11 00:01:13,230 --> 00:01:20,460 Thank you very much for coming on this rather cold day. So I will speak for about 45 minutes or so, perhaps a bit less. 12 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:28,559 What I would like to do in talking about Russia is to raise a number of different subjects that are related towards the main theme, 13 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:37,590 which is the idea of Russian grand strategy. One of the things I have noticed over the last year or so. 14 00:01:38,490 --> 00:01:43,170 Well, a bit longer. But but over the last year or so is the separation of of Russia studies on the 15 00:01:43,170 --> 00:01:48,660 one hand and strategic studies and wider political decision making on the other. 16 00:01:50,460 --> 00:01:55,230 It seems to me that the Russia studies often talk about strategy, 17 00:01:55,740 --> 00:02:03,470 but they talk about it in such a way that it is often running against the main themes of discussion in strategy, the strategic discussion itself. 18 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:14,430 So strategy becomes synonymous with policy. It becomes strategy, and tactics are often used interchangeably in the discussion about Russia. 19 00:02:15,390 --> 00:02:23,100 But at the same time, the strategic studies discussion, the international relations and foreign policy discussion will try to discuss Russia, 20 00:02:23,100 --> 00:02:29,520 but without a great deal of the expertise that is probably necessary for how Russia functions. 21 00:02:29,700 --> 00:02:35,460 Who are the main Russian ists? Who who the main political figures are sorry, the officials and the nature of the system within. 22 00:02:35,970 --> 00:02:40,020 So there is a gap that has tended to split and the split has become ever more, 23 00:02:40,020 --> 00:02:44,760 more evident as we see the discussion more becoming more more partisan during the war last year. 24 00:02:47,370 --> 00:02:51,210 Just to give you an overview of what I am going to say, some thoughts here. 25 00:02:51,540 --> 00:02:55,650 But what I'm going to try to do is to put a foot in both camps today. 26 00:02:57,540 --> 00:03:02,129 I realise this is something of a risk because it probably means creating war on two fronts, 27 00:03:02,130 --> 00:03:09,540 which is not always a good idea because both subjects are quite controversial, both Russia on the one hand on some of the the questions of strategy. 28 00:03:10,050 --> 00:03:17,700 But I do think it's important to bring these two together and at least begin to unpack and examine some of the aspects of Russian strategy, 29 00:03:17,940 --> 00:03:26,130 Russian strategic thinking. In this way, my particular interest really is the creation of power in Russia. 30 00:03:27,380 --> 00:03:34,160 It seems to me there is a, uh, an overly ethnocentric approach on the first point to, 31 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,890 to see Russia to, to mirror our own thoughts onto Russia, to not, 32 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:46,380 not try to grasp the strategic environment that they themselves see, to over invent Putin as this as this single figure that dominates Russia, 33 00:03:46,980 --> 00:03:57,090 this this idea that he can get anything done that he likes, which on the one hand, is perhaps understandable given his centrality to Russian politics, 34 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:03,990 but on the other hand overlooks Russian political culture and ignores Russian strategic messaging. 35 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:12,420 The first of my remarks, therefore, as you will see, are that Russia has significantly different horizons, 36 00:04:12,630 --> 00:04:18,940 histories and interpretations of international affairs. Yes. 37 00:04:18,940 --> 00:04:28,690 Putin is at the centre of a leadership team, a leadership team that is being reflected continuity over the last 15 years but is evolving. 38 00:04:30,130 --> 00:04:38,650 He himself has led a consistent effort to reorganise Russian strategic planning and strategic thinking, which has been broadly in three stages. 39 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:44,020 But like many others, both in Russian history and indeed elsewhere, including in the West, 40 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:48,370 he and his leadership team have found strategy extremely difficult. 41 00:04:50,490 --> 00:04:58,500 Mm hmm. A couple of caveats, perhaps, to just to set up my defences before I, uh, before I continue. 42 00:04:58,710 --> 00:05:03,980 I'm not really going to focus much on the Ukraine war. Yes, it's important. 43 00:05:03,990 --> 00:05:11,820 Yes, it may come up in the Q&A and yes, it may indeed reflect, you know, a more specific discussion of Russian military strategy. 44 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:18,150 Perhaps I want to push a bit deeper into understanding how Russia works, 45 00:05:18,150 --> 00:05:23,820 how Russia functions and how it is trying to evolve its creation of power to deal with the international context. 46 00:05:25,230 --> 00:05:32,250 Second, there are limitations in terms of understanding and knowing about Russian strategic decision making. 47 00:05:33,210 --> 00:05:37,890 It's quite obscure and some of the parts of it are highly classified. 48 00:05:38,460 --> 00:05:42,480 So I will mention, just for the sake of acknowledgement, so that we know it exists. 49 00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:51,630 The the Defence Plan that was submitted by Defence Minister Shoigu and General Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov in January 2013. 50 00:05:53,870 --> 00:05:55,129 It's an important document. 51 00:05:55,130 --> 00:06:02,390 Indeed, it's considered by the Russians to be a system forming document and it is focussed on trying to coordinate the agencies, 52 00:06:02,510 --> 00:06:12,490 49 agencies across Russia. And also to provide a framework for understanding risks and evolving threats to Russia in the foreseeable future. 53 00:06:13,660 --> 00:06:20,350 It is also important to note that this document is a live document that has been associated with the National Defence Centre. 54 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:26,050 Now I have no evidence to to say that they are actually connected, 55 00:06:27,100 --> 00:06:32,860 but from what we see from the public, the public announcements, often they overlap almost entirely. 56 00:06:33,650 --> 00:06:41,410 The national, the National Defence Centre is the military security institution that coordinates exactly with the defence planner. 57 00:06:42,070 --> 00:06:46,330 So and indeed this may be where we can find military strategy thinking. 58 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:51,740 I can't go much further on that because I'd say it's highly classified, but it's important to mention, I think. 59 00:06:52,750 --> 00:06:55,780 And finally, strategy. What do I really mean by strategy? 60 00:06:56,050 --> 00:06:59,950 Well, his going to be the risk with with huge strong sitting in front of me. 61 00:06:59,950 --> 00:07:05,140 But I'm going to try and define it anyway. I'm going to aim a grand strategy. 62 00:07:05,500 --> 00:07:10,210 Sorry, sir, here. But this is being the art of creating power, as I suggest. 63 00:07:10,390 --> 00:07:16,630 The obvious part of the relationship of of of political ends with economic, military, political and social means. 64 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:20,470 Sure. It's easy. The two points of focus being. 65 00:07:22,660 --> 00:07:25,630 This is a sense of process, not not the politics itself. 66 00:07:25,990 --> 00:07:31,930 So I'm looking at the prominence of the formulation of plans on the one side and then the implementation on the other. 67 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:36,040 So this this dual activity creating the plan and then trying to implement it. 68 00:07:36,700 --> 00:07:40,600 And obviously this has reference to the system and getting the system to function. 69 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:44,770 Therefore, I I'm looking at the conducting of the orchestra, so to speak, 70 00:07:45,370 --> 00:07:51,610 the coordination and balancing of interests, the dialogue with evolving conditions and context, 71 00:07:52,030 --> 00:07:59,469 and the the the balance between political flexibility on the one hand and in terms of achieving political consensus, 72 00:07:59,470 --> 00:08:03,760 but then tailoring that to something concrete to be actually implemented. 73 00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:12,110 Three three thrusts. Therefore, how is how is Russia evolving? 74 00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:18,770 I think there is a background and evolution I put up here towards mobilisation and evolution I can't quite nail down yet, 75 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:24,409 which is from the more Soviet form of mobilisation, which is a popular mobilisation, 76 00:08:24,410 --> 00:08:30,140 if you will, to a nation in arms, to a sense of more a nation armed. 77 00:08:30,980 --> 00:08:33,890 There's an important distinction to be made, which I'll try to elucidate. 78 00:08:36,470 --> 00:08:43,760 One of the things that might be interesting to discuss in the Q&A also is how this may compare and contrast to Western strategic planning. 79 00:08:44,690 --> 00:08:50,540 I suspect this is certainly a position of weakness for me, but as I as I try and bring the Russian point in, 80 00:08:50,540 --> 00:08:54,410 we may be able to compare it in contrast with Russian strategic planning, Russia in the West. 81 00:08:55,190 --> 00:08:58,580 How much strategic planning is there actually to 2020 in the West? 82 00:08:59,150 --> 00:09:02,480 How are things done in the same other things done in the same way or not? 83 00:09:03,790 --> 00:09:10,220 Now, I read yesterday or I began to read yesterday General Eliot's book, which I think is very interesting, High Command. 84 00:09:10,580 --> 00:09:15,660 And I'm halfway through it. Halfway through the first chapter, I had to look back on the front just to check. 85 00:09:15,730 --> 00:09:17,450 It was actually about the British and not the Russians, 86 00:09:18,680 --> 00:09:27,740 because there are there are so many similarities between how does clever individuals working there, but the system creates certain problems. 87 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:42,360 And I thought, this is very interesting, so I look forward to pursuing that. I wasn't sure whether you can you can you see the maps here at the back? 88 00:09:42,570 --> 00:09:45,600 There are four maps. So I wanted to take this through to begin with. 89 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:51,809 On this first line. This is how we came to see Russia. This one here, top left. 90 00:09:51,810 --> 00:09:55,410 We tend to see Russia is on the edge of Europe. When we look at it from London. 91 00:09:57,540 --> 00:10:00,180 A small fragment on the edge of Europe, really. 92 00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:07,020 And at the same time, we often think that Russian strategic planning is a threat to Europe, undermines the European architecture. 93 00:10:07,290 --> 00:10:12,470 Of course, the Russians tend to see it more like this, that Europe is actually on the fringe of Russia. 94 00:10:15,690 --> 00:10:19,410 Actually, these two ones are the ones I want to bring to your attention to first. 95 00:10:19,770 --> 00:10:24,630 Russia at the centre of the world because that's how you would see the map if you were looking at it in Moscow. 96 00:10:25,680 --> 00:10:32,280 And Europe is important, yes, but nowhere near as important as China and Central Asia and India and also Africa. 97 00:10:33,900 --> 00:10:42,240 This is a particularly important map. But the final one here for this point is, is this map here, which is BRICS. 98 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:51,540 And this is intended to demonstrate the how Russia sees the world evolving, i.e. the decline of the West and the rise of multipolarity, 99 00:10:51,540 --> 00:10:55,920 the rise of other centres that are are making the world more internationally democratic. 100 00:10:56,310 --> 00:11:03,600 So you see the roles of how China, India, South Africa and Brazil are highlighted in Russian foreign security thinking. 101 00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:13,050 If I've taken you through that, I want to take you into two further maps so that we can begin to see see the world differently from Russia. 102 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:22,770 This is one I think is fundamentally important. It's the best I could do before the next slide to illustrate the point I wish to make. 103 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,410 Everything looks familiar, except it's very, very different. 104 00:11:29,460 --> 00:11:37,080 The same body of evidence. The point I want to make here is that the Russians, over the last 20 years, particularly the Russians, 105 00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:45,510 have drawn almost systematically and in fact, increasingly systematically a different series of conclusions from the same body of evidence. 106 00:11:46,290 --> 00:11:54,660 When we're talking about post-Cold War Europe. When we talk about the end of the Cold War, how it ended, why it ended, how we talk about the 1990, 107 00:11:54,990 --> 00:12:03,960 how we talk about the energy wars between Gazprom after Naftogaz, Ukraine, and who was responsible for them and why. 108 00:12:04,860 --> 00:12:10,430 When we talk about the role that the West is playing again, it looks similar. 109 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:16,710 You'll all be familiar with the trend. If I say Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine. 110 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:24,960 Of course, this will all create certain images in your mind, but that is the Russian trajectory that demonstrates Western intervention, 111 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,380 Western creation of instability and the Western way of war. 112 00:12:30,030 --> 00:12:35,280 So I want with this image to start to pull away, to demonstrate that the view from Moscow is very, 113 00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:38,250 very different to the one in in London and in Brussels. 114 00:12:39,180 --> 00:12:47,460 And the history is the history is inverted not just for for Europe, but also in terms of it in dealing with its neighbours. 115 00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:49,860 To give you one small example, 116 00:12:51,600 --> 00:13:00,840 you could view that the war in 2014 ongoing now in Ukraine as the third Russia Ukraine war since the end of since the end of the Soviet Union, 117 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:08,580 the first being in 94 and 96 when Ukrainians went to fight alongside the Chechens in Chechnya, Chechen independence. 118 00:13:09,330 --> 00:13:16,710 The second being in 2008, when the Ukrainians provided weapons to the Georgians and personnel who shot at the Russians, 119 00:13:16,950 --> 00:13:20,250 which really, really irritated the Russians a great deal. 120 00:13:20,550 --> 00:13:28,560 And the third in 2014. So even I mean, even on the on the global scale, it things look very different. 121 00:13:28,560 --> 00:13:36,570 But even once you get begin to drill down, you find how history has has made differentiations in terms of perspective and strategic understanding. 122 00:13:37,650 --> 00:13:44,010 This is the preparation, though, for I. Well, I'm not sure how you'll respond to this, but I'm going to go for it anyway. 123 00:13:45,420 --> 00:13:49,860 This is a slide that hopefully develops and builds on that. 124 00:13:49,860 --> 00:13:55,650 Previous slide is a slide taken from a presentation to the previous Russian chief of General Staff, Makarov. 125 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,550 I won't go to the translation, but I'm sure you'll find I have a headache already. 126 00:14:00,150 --> 00:14:04,650 But I wish just to point out several differences in how they perceive security in the environment. 127 00:14:05,580 --> 00:14:13,350 The blue the blue ships, aircraft and figures demonstrate how the US and NATO is encircling Russia. 128 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:17,350 I suspect that you don't view it in quite the same way. 129 00:14:19,490 --> 00:14:27,560 Some of these parts you'll recognise the red conflicts, the red dots here, or conflicts, areas of actual or likely conflict. 130 00:14:28,220 --> 00:14:34,370 Most of them will recognised, but almost all of them, the causes of which are understood fundamentally differently. 131 00:14:35,210 --> 00:14:41,600 And we are mostly blamed by the Russians for this. And then these are the lists of actually this is another point. 132 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:47,150 These are these are potential military flashpoints. Is undecided territorial possession. 133 00:14:51,690 --> 00:14:58,710 Which is not really on our end and not really on the nature of threat perception or indeed the UK perception. 134 00:14:59,220 --> 00:15:04,050 Just to put up here, just a couple of the indications again of Russian strategic planning. 135 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,070 The first, a major military threat to the Russian Federation, 136 00:15:08,340 --> 00:15:14,910 the attempts of the West to guarantee its energy security at the cost of economic and political interests of Russia. 137 00:15:17,290 --> 00:15:22,330 The second one, the collapse of fall in strategic balance of forces. 138 00:15:24,790 --> 00:15:32,380 If, therefore, it is possible to say that there are some similarities, I want to emphasise this flip view from Moscow that because if you could say, 139 00:15:32,590 --> 00:15:42,220 as the NATO Secretary General did, previous one did in April last year, that NATO is surrounded by an arc of crisis, of which one part is Russia. 140 00:15:43,630 --> 00:15:49,060 If you look at it from Moscow, you are also surrounded by an arc of crisis. 141 00:15:50,290 --> 00:15:55,320 You are not surrounded by an arc of crisis in the west, east, south and west. 142 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:57,820 In fact, as you can see, pretty much entirely. 143 00:15:58,630 --> 00:16:03,070 Putin himself said that there are increasing number of hotspots in the world, in Europe, in Southeast Asia, 144 00:16:03,070 --> 00:16:09,010 in Asia, Pacific region, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, in fact, almost everywhere except Antarctica. 145 00:16:11,300 --> 00:16:21,830 Very interesting. The potential challenges to Russia come from a range of different sources, but predominantly from the West. 146 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:31,700 The overall strategic environment has seemed to becoming, as I mentioned, more multipolar, but therefore increasingly prone to conflict and rivalry. 147 00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:40,650 Where there will be a struggle for regional leadership and influence. Three sets of interrelated problems emerge as a result. 148 00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:46,440 First, the likelihood for a regional conflict for regional dominance is most likely. 149 00:16:48,690 --> 00:16:55,890 This would be a conflict fought by second tier powers, probably, i.e. therefore not the United States and not China. 150 00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:03,269 But a second tier power is one that if you're in Moscow, you're thinking I might well have to be drawn into this. 151 00:17:03,270 --> 00:17:09,330 I might indeed be drawn into this if it is for regional dominance. Indeed. 152 00:17:09,510 --> 00:17:13,350 The other point of this is, is the potential for proxy and third party conflicts, 153 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:18,000 again, at a regional level in which Russia has no option but to become involved. 154 00:17:20,190 --> 00:17:26,759 Much of what I'm doing here is I'm quoting specifically from a Russian chief of general staff thinking Russian military analysts, 155 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:30,000 thinking security documentation, published official documents. 156 00:17:31,380 --> 00:17:36,750 The second set of problems is the arms race and the decrease in the strategic balance that I point to here. 157 00:17:37,950 --> 00:17:42,240 Putin himself said most of the world's leading countries are actively upgrading their military arsenals, 158 00:17:42,630 --> 00:17:48,210 investing huge sums in developing advanced weapons. The Russians feel they're in an arms race already. 159 00:17:52,210 --> 00:17:55,900 This for them could be, for instance, the UK ordering two new aircraft carriers. 160 00:17:57,910 --> 00:18:04,720 This also would be investment into high precision weapons that, as Putin says, I quote again, 161 00:18:05,170 --> 00:18:10,120 you are building high precision weapons that have the same effect, more or less as nuclear weapons. 162 00:18:11,620 --> 00:18:16,090 And at the same time, you are trying to negotiate people out of possession of nuclear weapons. 163 00:18:16,330 --> 00:18:19,420 Therefore, you will retain the strategic heights of command. 164 00:18:20,500 --> 00:18:26,380 You're also pushing forward a military ballistic missile defence system that encircles and neutralises Russians. 165 00:18:26,590 --> 00:18:36,800 Russia's strategic balance capabilities. And again, I just want to point to the difference in understanding here when when our American allies say, 166 00:18:37,010 --> 00:18:42,440 well, but we're retaining flexibility to develop in accordance with an evolving threat. 167 00:18:43,130 --> 00:18:50,180 In Moscow, this is interpreted as inconsistency, unpredictability and therefore destabilising. 168 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:58,190 And the final aspect of this, the interrelation of problems in the environment that Russia is working in, 169 00:18:58,190 --> 00:19:04,190 a context in which environment Russia sees itself, is that the West holds sway but with declining influence. 170 00:19:05,390 --> 00:19:12,140 Therefore, it has considerable strength, but it can't fix problems and indeed it's going around creating new ones. 171 00:19:12,620 --> 00:19:15,440 The most recent examples being Libya, Syria and Ukraine, 172 00:19:16,100 --> 00:19:20,780 where it has enough strength to create that to rip the top off, but not to settle things back down. 173 00:19:23,460 --> 00:19:30,390 Additionally, this is a West that is uncompromising with Russia and this is why I emphasise this point and where will lead to towards mobilisation. 174 00:19:30,690 --> 00:19:40,110 Russian preparation for four colour revolution is that the West threatens Russia with revolution and NATO's expanding to its borders, 175 00:19:40,110 --> 00:19:48,030 destabilising European security. Russian scenario is therefore extremely negative. 176 00:19:48,690 --> 00:19:53,970 The 21st century of instability. Russia is not ready for this and the state recognises it's not ready for this. 177 00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:57,510 Despite improvements since the since the 1990s. 178 00:19:57,750 --> 00:20:04,590 And this is this is the whole point of the strategic planning exercise that will go into and the context for the discussion shortly. 179 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:11,690 I'd just like to jump ahead to to introduce some of the people that we're actually talking about, 180 00:20:11,690 --> 00:20:19,070 because one of the points I noticed in the Western discussion of Russian Russian strategy, but Russia more broadly is it's held in the abstract. 181 00:20:19,700 --> 00:20:26,359 We talk about Putin. We talk about Putin ology and how Putin has lost his rationale or he's lying. 182 00:20:26,360 --> 00:20:31,460 And actually, therefore, we have Putin ology without Putin because we need to listen to him because he's lying or he's irrational, 183 00:20:31,700 --> 00:20:37,460 both of which is not true. So what I want to do is because strategy is also about the people involved. 184 00:20:37,550 --> 00:20:42,380 I think here are five people, five individuals. 185 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:51,070 I see some people nodding. So I know that some of you are Russian ists, but you'll recognise the gentleman top left. 186 00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:54,410 I suspect you might recognise gentleman top right. 187 00:20:56,660 --> 00:21:00,740 I've put the names in because when I've been doing this briefing over the last year, 188 00:21:00,950 --> 00:21:04,250 the number of people who can actually recognise the others is next to zero. 189 00:21:05,270 --> 00:21:11,150 This is problematic because these are the people who are who are producing and implementing Russian strategy. 190 00:21:11,780 --> 00:21:16,750 Nikolai Partnership on the left, Sergei Ivanov, Alexei Kudrin and Igor Sechin. 191 00:21:17,420 --> 00:21:23,670 Why is this team important? When Putin was interviewed in 1999, 2000 for the book First Person. 192 00:21:24,170 --> 00:21:28,460 He was asked, who, who do you trust? Whose proposals do you listen to? 193 00:21:29,330 --> 00:21:34,700 Who will be on your team as you set up over the next year? And he said, I think you've probably got him already, haven't you? 194 00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:41,090 But Nikolai Patrushev, Sergei Ivanov, Dimitri Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Igor Sechin. 195 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:47,750 14 years later, the team is partnership of the head of the Security Council, 196 00:21:48,050 --> 00:21:53,210 Medvedev ex-president, now Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, head of the presidential administration. 197 00:21:53,990 --> 00:21:57,389 Alexei Kudrin, chief financial adviser, informal at the moment, 198 00:21:57,390 --> 00:22:03,140 but but effectively formal and ego session lead had not go together or icebreaker, whichever you prefer. 199 00:22:04,850 --> 00:22:08,810 This is the commanding. They control all of the commanding heights of Russian strategic thinking. 200 00:22:09,260 --> 00:22:11,600 I'll come back to them shortly because it's very important. 201 00:22:12,260 --> 00:22:16,730 This is the new group of people, and it would be not surprising if people did not recognise them anyway. 202 00:22:17,450 --> 00:22:19,240 This is effectively mobilisation. 203 00:22:19,250 --> 00:22:25,280 This is the system that is being put into into effect to defibrillate the Russian system, which I'll come to shortly, 204 00:22:26,210 --> 00:22:34,850 which is level warlord in are of truth of sort of and this is these will these people represent different 205 00:22:34,850 --> 00:22:40,190 aspects of this defibrillation that I'm going to go into of the system younger people being brought in. 206 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:46,580 Managers way the way that the security organs are being brought together and the vertical of power enhanced. 207 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:53,990 I've jumped ahead deliberately because. Because I want you to keep bearing in mind these people while I'm talking. 208 00:22:56,930 --> 00:23:02,569 Now I'm going to turn more briefly and let's go over relatively quickly the commitment 209 00:23:02,570 --> 00:23:06,500 to strategic planning that we've seen from from Moscow over the last 15 years. 210 00:23:06,950 --> 00:23:19,670 As I mentioned earlier, there are three stages to it. The first 1999 to 2005 strategy 2010 from about 2005 onwards to about 2011. 211 00:23:19,910 --> 00:23:26,420 You see a second stage. This is the stage that is based on the publication in 2009 of a series of documents, 212 00:23:26,810 --> 00:23:32,870 the long term socio economic development plan to state that to 2020, the national security strategy to 2020. 213 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:38,120 And a cascade of other documents. Already you can see the horizon that is being shaped. 214 00:23:38,590 --> 00:23:43,760 So one is 2020. If you think that was in 26 seven in preparation. 215 00:23:44,150 --> 00:23:52,610 That's two electoral cycles away beyond two electoral cycles in Russia at the same time in this second period. 216 00:23:53,030 --> 00:23:59,690 This second stage, you have an attempt to develop Russian strategic planning legislation. 217 00:24:00,290 --> 00:24:08,900 So the realisation in 2006 that actually we haven't done it, that we've got regional strategic planning, we haven't got federal strategic planning. 218 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:18,350 So you have the beginning of the process for the Foundation for Strategic Planning, which was finally signed off by Putin and Medvedev in 2009. 219 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:25,730 This is the basis for the law on strategic planning that was finally signed into into public domain last year. 220 00:24:26,900 --> 00:24:31,729 The third stage is, I think, a particularly important one. 221 00:24:31,730 --> 00:24:35,260 That's the one I want to focus on today. That's from 2012 onwards. 222 00:24:36,530 --> 00:24:40,100 And it builds on this. It's a sense of evolution and continuity from. 223 00:24:40,310 --> 00:24:44,030 From second stage. There's no direct split. It's leading through. 224 00:24:44,810 --> 00:24:51,350 So even though the economic crisis, 28 nine had a very significant impact on stage two, the assumptions, 225 00:24:51,350 --> 00:24:57,650 the basic assumptions and that drive and the continuity is there is based on the May decrees, 226 00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:05,510 these are decrees that Putin himself signed into into force when he was elected back to the Kremlin as president in May 2012. 227 00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:08,620 I'm going to try and turn this technical go. 228 00:25:12,260 --> 00:25:18,440 People have tended to see a big distinction and wanted to see a big distinction between the Putin presidencies and the Medvedev presidencies. 229 00:25:18,770 --> 00:25:25,040 In my mind, this is a mistake. These two men served together, have served together for 20 years. 230 00:25:25,910 --> 00:25:27,890 They were the ones running the strategic overhaul. 231 00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:34,610 There is no great distinction between stage two and stage three because Medvedev and Putin ran them both. 232 00:25:37,350 --> 00:25:39,149 What happened with the May decrees, however, 233 00:25:39,150 --> 00:25:46,260 is that Putin took his election campaign and his articles from that campaign which which created a sense of, 234 00:25:46,260 --> 00:25:52,020 in inverted commas, legitimacy, because they had been backed by popular vote in the election. 235 00:25:52,260 --> 00:26:00,330 Now, it doesn't matter if you believe the official number of 65% or the opposition accepted number of 54% who won the election, 236 00:26:00,340 --> 00:26:01,500 Putin won the election. 237 00:26:01,980 --> 00:26:10,230 We can talk about democracy in the troubles there of but but what I'm trying to get at is that the agenda that Putin took to the population in 2011, 238 00:26:10,230 --> 00:26:17,310 2012 is understood by the leadership team to have been given a legitimating vote by the population. 239 00:26:21,430 --> 00:26:29,170 They are these decrees of 11 decrees, mostly based on domestic development with two or three, depending on how you define it. 240 00:26:29,380 --> 00:26:31,660 On on on military and foreign affairs. 241 00:26:32,110 --> 00:26:39,909 It's a hugely ambitious scope, but it's a sweep from big, broad generalisations that the Foreign Minister will prepare foreign ministry, 242 00:26:39,910 --> 00:26:44,260 prepare a foreign policy concept down to deciding certain details. 243 00:26:44,410 --> 00:26:51,700 But the number of people who will be dying on the roads by 2018, a huge sweep from generality down to detail. 244 00:26:51,940 --> 00:26:57,969 Putin himself has acknowledged his strategic agenda is unprecedented in the challenges that he offers. 245 00:26:57,970 --> 00:27:04,900 It offers as a as a as a as a list of plans, as a list of of of of goals. 246 00:27:05,350 --> 00:27:12,100 But at the same time, regardless of the economic environment or the political environment, this is an agenda that is going to be forced through. 247 00:27:20,450 --> 00:27:26,910 Fine. As I mentioned at the beginning, the strategy is on one hand formulation of plans, but on the other hand, its implementation. 248 00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:30,299 And I would like to take you, therefore, now to the other series of questions, 249 00:27:30,300 --> 00:27:37,830 which is whether this huge agenda which has been set up and planned and created by this leadership team and the Security Council, 250 00:27:38,970 --> 00:27:45,480 of which there are four members here. Security Council, I probably ought to just say, is is the predominant formal organ, 251 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:51,390 official organ for bringing together ministerial resources and experience, expertise, authority. 252 00:27:52,050 --> 00:27:57,930 It's a Medvedev is the only one on this body, a permanent standing body. 253 00:27:57,930 --> 00:28:02,370 First here who is representing the socioeconomic section. 254 00:28:02,730 --> 00:28:10,520 The rest is security. Foreign Minister Lavrov as you see, but also for a couple of bortnikov to intelligence heads and Sergei Shoigu, 255 00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:18,670 the new the relatively new defence minister. This security this this Security Council is is the hub for decision making. 256 00:28:18,860 --> 00:28:19,849 I should have mentioned that earlier. 257 00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:25,909 But let's turn to the the implementation, because for me, this is where the Russians have faced their real problems. 258 00:28:25,910 --> 00:28:28,250 And this is this is where we need to look more deeply. 259 00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:36,350 First point I want to make is that there is a huge planning burden has been placed on a rather limited bureaucracy. 260 00:28:39,700 --> 00:28:45,459 Therefore, there are significant gaps that open up, not just the ones about the gaps where they can't talk about things in public, 261 00:28:45,460 --> 00:28:50,720 like the role of China and what they want to do about China and actual specific gaps about how to fulfil things. 262 00:28:51,430 --> 00:28:58,749 And the Russian leadership faces the typical problems that you may recognise from looking at other forms of strategy of ministries, 263 00:28:58,750 --> 00:29:02,889 couching documents in very vague terms. Engage here. 264 00:29:02,890 --> 00:29:07,709 Enhance this. Build this. And Putin himself. 265 00:29:07,710 --> 00:29:12,480 I'm going to keep turning back to Putin because Putin understands the flaws in the system very, very well. 266 00:29:12,750 --> 00:29:18,780 And he pointed out, well, these vaguely formulated documents do not provide guidelines for action or concrete objectives. 267 00:29:18,990 --> 00:29:22,950 So he keeps returning the documents to the ministries and beating them up to get on with it. 268 00:29:27,450 --> 00:29:35,880 So if the plans at the top level may decrease, the long term, socio economic development and so on are broadly consistent within themselves. 269 00:29:36,780 --> 00:29:42,840 We already find this this gap in strategic planning between them and the implementers where the plans abroad for consensus, 270 00:29:43,110 --> 00:29:48,870 but not precise enough for implementation. Not precise enough for practical traction. 271 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,010 The second point is the question of bringing resources to to to these to these plans. 272 00:29:59,150 --> 00:30:06,200 The targets set out all sorts of grandiose plans, many of which demand billions and billions of dollars. 273 00:30:07,130 --> 00:30:11,540 I'll keep it in dollars for the time being. But I mean, you already understand that there's a gap opening up. 274 00:30:12,020 --> 00:30:18,410 In that sense, most of the Russian strategic agenda is built on a GDP growth of 4 to 5%. 275 00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,150 Anyone know what the Russian GDP growth is right now about? 276 00:30:23,150 --> 00:30:29,150 Minus nought. We've got no precise clue exactly how this is going. 277 00:30:29,150 --> 00:30:34,910 But it looks, despite the ambiguous pictures, that Russia is going to go into recession. 278 00:30:37,020 --> 00:30:45,240 This puts a huge hole in the strategic plan, even though they have billions of dollars of of of strategic capital on which they can draw. 279 00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:51,960 So therefore, they're beginning to to try to address this through how to make the system more efficient. 280 00:30:54,610 --> 00:30:58,270 Because the finance ministry keeps turning up and saying, I'm sorry, but Vladimir, Vladimir, 281 00:30:58,420 --> 00:31:01,780 we just don't have the funds to implement the demands that you're placing orders. 282 00:31:03,820 --> 00:31:07,440 The regional budgets cannot afford the projects that are being forced on them. 283 00:31:08,910 --> 00:31:16,800 And then of course, we have I'll mention it, but you already know. Anyway, the extra added burden of systemic questions such as corruption. 284 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:23,310 Which is just like an open and open fire hose. The money just flowing out of the out of the budget. 285 00:31:26,820 --> 00:31:30,840 So resources are extremely difficult to do to mix and match towards this. 286 00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:32,910 And then, of course, you have competition between the ministries, 287 00:31:33,690 --> 00:31:40,380 because if the military wants $500 billion for its plan, the housing and utilities need $300 billion for for their plan. 288 00:31:40,590 --> 00:31:47,730 And then we have to develop the Far East as well. Finally, we'll know two more points about implementation. 289 00:31:50,010 --> 00:31:53,430 The question of conducting the orchestra that I mentioned at the beginning, 290 00:31:53,430 --> 00:31:58,140 this unifying this attempt to bring these actors together is extremely difficult in Russia. 291 00:31:59,340 --> 00:32:02,340 I think you can probably say it about most places, but we are talking about Russia. 292 00:32:02,340 --> 00:32:05,940 So the idea that the orchestra is very rarely harmonious. 293 00:32:06,990 --> 00:32:13,080 The agencies, of course, look to their own interests. You have blurred lines of responsibility between ministries, 294 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:18,360 whether the Ministry of Regional Development and the regional construction actually overlap or interfere. 295 00:32:19,290 --> 00:32:22,320 Whether the WHO is responsible for what in terms of security, 296 00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:27,060 who is in terms of what for for all sorts of different questions regarding the relation to the plans. 297 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:37,989 And there is also finally the prolonged in this sense of conducting the orchestra, the prolonged tension between defence and security, 298 00:32:37,990 --> 00:32:41,890 budgeting on the one hand and economics on the other, which will return to towards the end. 299 00:32:42,340 --> 00:32:50,230 But as I've mentioned, I leave these people up here. The, the defence and security budget tends to control strategic planning. 300 00:32:53,210 --> 00:32:59,960 The final point to make about the implementation of Russian plans is the limitation of presidential power. 301 00:33:00,930 --> 00:33:06,860 Now, I'm sure you've all heard of the vertical of power in Russia, how Putin commands, what does what happens in Russia. 302 00:33:06,860 --> 00:33:09,860 And he gets things done because he's a KGB hard man. 303 00:33:10,130 --> 00:33:13,820 It's simply not true. It's not true. 304 00:33:16,580 --> 00:33:17,840 I'll give you several examples. 305 00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:24,260 But but throughout the first of the first eight years of Putin's presidency, it's his first two terms also through Medvedev's term. 306 00:33:24,500 --> 00:33:27,800 And now as well, we have the presidential leadership. 307 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,740 In complete frustration with the lack of implementation of their orders. 308 00:33:35,050 --> 00:33:40,210 By 2010, you have the head of the Control Directorate to announcing. 309 00:33:40,450 --> 00:33:46,990 Well, we're delighted because our efforts have led to an increase in implementation of presidential orders by 68%. 310 00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:51,760 That meant that 20% of the presidential instructions were implemented on time. 311 00:33:52,690 --> 00:33:54,520 20% of presidential instructions. 312 00:33:56,420 --> 00:34:04,310 Now since the May decrease of have been signed into force, we have Putin jetting around the country, going to the Far East, 313 00:34:04,430 --> 00:34:09,860 for instance, Far Eastern Development, sitting in a group much like this with with regional authorities and Putin saying. 314 00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:17,350 We agreed this last year. You've implemented 20% of my of the plans. 315 00:34:17,770 --> 00:34:24,319 What happened to the other 80%? And the journalist who was covering it quoted Putin, say, what? 316 00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:26,510 What's going on? Will you do your work or won't you? 317 00:34:27,050 --> 00:34:33,230 But the Putin quote and the journalist's quote was, Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, but you're only here for a short time, aren't you? 318 00:34:34,940 --> 00:34:42,049 With the answer being that, well, basically as soon as you clear off to go to promote or or wherever it is, we're done. 319 00:34:42,050 --> 00:34:51,110 Thank you very much. So the implementation of presidential instructions is is is perhaps one of the weakest points here in terms of strategy. 320 00:34:51,380 --> 00:34:56,180 Increasingly, you have parliamentarians talking about about sabotage, 321 00:34:56,570 --> 00:35:06,110 ridiculous to a passive revolution within the bureaucracy, passive resistance, such that the law of strategic planning, 322 00:35:06,110 --> 00:35:07,040 which I mentioned earlier, 323 00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:13,970 increasingly is being shaped towards having legal and criminal responsibility for the failure to implement presidential instructions. 324 00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,280 So it will soon become a crime to not do what the president says. 325 00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,990 This is because the parliamentarians who are putting through this law say not a 326 00:35:24,990 --> 00:35:29,550 single one of the presidential instructions from me to Greece have been implemented. 327 00:35:29,970 --> 00:35:33,210 Not a single one. It's just creates people. 328 00:35:35,390 --> 00:35:41,660 Right. So if that's therefore where I want to leave that part is that the system does not function. 329 00:35:41,900 --> 00:35:48,770 You have formulation of plan after plan after plan, but a great deal of difficulty in inserting it into into practicality. 330 00:35:48,780 --> 00:35:52,040 So there is a political idea, but not a strategy. 331 00:35:55,020 --> 00:36:02,549 And this is why I think that the Russia is I'm going to use the term defibrillator, because I think that the Russian system recognises the leadership, 332 00:36:02,550 --> 00:36:09,270 recognises this and is attempting to, given the understanding of the international environment to defibrillator system, 333 00:36:10,710 --> 00:36:15,590 to excite it back into some form of life. I did a little bit of research. 334 00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,900 My neighbour is a doctor and and she said, well actually the system cannot be dead, of course. 335 00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,950 Don't forget, you can't bring someone back to life with defibrillation. 336 00:36:23,250 --> 00:36:29,100 And indeed, defibrillation only works 2% of the time. Just leave that in your and your minds. 337 00:36:33,650 --> 00:36:37,460 Two points for three points I'd like to focus on with this defibrillation. 338 00:36:39,230 --> 00:36:44,990 And hopefully we will move forward to see the people involved. First point is budgetary efficiency and cost cutting costs. 339 00:36:45,380 --> 00:36:48,920 You see increasingly terminology being used about mobilisation budgets, 340 00:36:49,310 --> 00:36:58,160 but emergency budgeting and what you have is a move towards away from state budgets to program budgeting, 341 00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:04,430 to try to rebalance the budget so that you move away from this problem of having not enough here and too much there. 342 00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:13,130 So these become specifically program oriented budgets. You then have assessment for excess use and failure to comply with budgetary law. 343 00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,820 So mobilisation is tied up also with punitive measures. 344 00:37:19,050 --> 00:37:25,650 Something like 27,000 officials were sanctioned in 2013 for not knowing budgetary law and for falling foul of it. 345 00:37:25,860 --> 00:37:27,690 And that is not for corruption. 346 00:37:31,470 --> 00:37:40,080 So they're attempting to to to add mobilisation measures to the budget and yet moving forward, they will do shortly ahead. 347 00:37:40,980 --> 00:37:47,070 The second point is this an ongoing rotation of official figures and a subtle 348 00:37:47,070 --> 00:37:51,480 but important change in the structure of political and and and social power. 349 00:37:51,710 --> 00:37:58,260 Now, here we go. The rotation is intended to do two or three or three things, really. 350 00:37:58,740 --> 00:38:02,820 First of all, it involves firing individuals. 351 00:38:03,780 --> 00:38:09,140 Now, this may sound. Well, yes, of course. Someone gets fired for not doing their job properly. 352 00:38:09,150 --> 00:38:13,690 No. In the previous administration. 353 00:38:13,690 --> 00:38:17,440 In fact, in the previous two administrations, neither Putin nor Medvedev like to fire people. 354 00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:22,780 In this administration alone, four have been fired for not doing their instruction, not fulfilling their instructions. 355 00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:29,650 These are ministerial level people, let alone the governors. So quite a rotate, quite a change in how they're doing things. 356 00:38:29,890 --> 00:38:34,300 And the president is administering public denunciations and then people are fired. 357 00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:36,760 Quite unusual, actually. 358 00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:51,500 Second, the point of this reshuffle is to try to create a an invigorated vertical of power whereby you have at the centre the minister responsible. 359 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:56,420 You then have a presidential plenipotentiary and the Governor for all strategic regions. 360 00:38:57,170 --> 00:39:01,400 So you're reinforcing the vertical of power twice. 361 00:39:02,330 --> 00:39:08,180 That's why I put up people like Hrabowski, Hrabowski and Putin and government. 362 00:39:10,070 --> 00:39:14,360 These two people have been sent out as a team to the Far East to try and get it going. 363 00:39:15,050 --> 00:39:17,930 Both of them are highly experienced managers and carry political weight. 364 00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:23,750 And Augustin is one of the interior, is ex interior ministry and has been moved. 365 00:39:23,750 --> 00:39:28,580 He illustrates the Siberian district. But at the same point is that you're moving economic, 366 00:39:28,730 --> 00:39:36,710 social and political together to try and get things going in certain districts that also involves security. 367 00:39:40,940 --> 00:39:46,400 The rotation of presidential plenipotentiary is, I think, also a very important point. 368 00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:51,800 The third point is to create a series of para institutional organisations. 369 00:39:53,630 --> 00:39:59,850 Again, something quite new. And this is why I have these three things voting for. 370 00:40:00,010 --> 00:40:03,680 And again, I come back to try and illustrate the point here. 371 00:40:04,490 --> 00:40:10,760 Voting is the first entry in a presidential administration responsible for domestic politics. 372 00:40:11,300 --> 00:40:20,000 He's the guy that runs the show for domestic political developments, and he has the core of setting up something called the All-Russian Popular Front. 373 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:25,979 Not all different. This is an organisation that is in effect power institution. 374 00:40:25,980 --> 00:40:32,790 As I say, it's not beholden to it's not beholden to a ministry, it's not beholden to anything except Putin and society. 375 00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:42,700 And they have been tasked with monitoring governors, monitoring implementation of laws, formulating policy towards plans. 376 00:40:44,050 --> 00:40:50,440 So really, they've become an incredibly an increasingly important part of Russia's Russian society. 377 00:40:52,070 --> 00:40:53,380 Russian political power. Sorry. 378 00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:05,550 So what I'm trying to get at here is this sense of defibrillation is is political and security and with some economic aspects to it as well. 379 00:41:05,700 --> 00:41:11,850 But is social. And I return you to that point about the May decrees being legitimated by society in Putin's mind, 380 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:18,240 and this attempt to build by Putin a link directly between him and that leadership that I introduced at the beginning. 381 00:41:18,570 --> 00:41:22,800 And society is actually skipping the passive bureaucracy. 382 00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:36,149 I'll just point out that that the not only front, the Popular Front, is not just involved in formulating the plans and preparing Putin's speeches, 383 00:41:36,150 --> 00:41:42,780 such as the Federal Assembly speech, but is also and monitoring the governor's effectiveness. 384 00:41:42,980 --> 00:41:47,400 And in fact, they replace governors. They have them fired by Putin and they move in and replace them. 385 00:41:48,860 --> 00:41:54,620 So almost cuckoo, like actually. But they are also moving towards this anti-corruption campaign. 386 00:41:55,190 --> 00:42:03,110 So one is to procurement. So the government is actually the leadership is actually co-opting some of the opposition's concerns and 387 00:42:03,110 --> 00:42:09,050 drawing itself in because it needs to it needs to address corruption in order to to to sustain the budget. 388 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:19,490 And finally, the the the own EFF, just because it relates to what happened last year has a very active role in Crimea and social. 389 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:23,839 Social mobilisation. The UN effort was driving force behind them. 390 00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:31,010 We've missed you. We were together parades in throughout Russia during the the annexation of Crimea and was the 391 00:42:31,010 --> 00:42:36,710 first non-military organised Russian non-military organisation into Crimea after the annexation. 392 00:42:38,450 --> 00:42:43,340 So in many ways, although I mentioned the Security Council being very important, 393 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:49,940 that first leadership team that I want you to keep in mind, and this group called the not only from the Popular Front. 394 00:42:51,470 --> 00:42:58,310 The two that the two sort of elements of the defibrillator that the leadership is trying to put on to the system to shock it back into life. 395 00:42:58,790 --> 00:43:02,870 Now, I'm probably running a bit out of time now, so I'll, um, 396 00:43:02,950 --> 00:43:11,990 I'll just draw it to draw it to a conclusion by making several points about so sorry that went forward and. 397 00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,250 Okay. Well, you can hope you can see that. You can handle that. Okay. 398 00:43:24,260 --> 00:43:32,680 Thank you. This is the main concern. The main thing is that the fundament of what the Russians are up to at the moment, 399 00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,690 I think is trying to colour revolution, a colour revolution proof Russia. 400 00:43:39,580 --> 00:43:42,670 This is the photo I took at one of the demonstrations not long ago. 401 00:43:42,940 --> 00:43:50,920 And I draw your attention not not to this part that we recognise, but this part, and that is an orange snake. 402 00:43:52,900 --> 00:43:57,310 Orange being the colour of revolution in Ukraine gripped in the black fist. 403 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,260 That is the predominant concern. Now, of course, we have concerns. 404 00:44:02,380 --> 00:44:06,760 They have concerns about about European security and enlargement of netone and so on. 405 00:44:07,060 --> 00:44:09,850 But NAITO itself is not viewed as a major threat. 406 00:44:10,330 --> 00:44:18,010 What is a major threat is the US, a US led colour revolution launched in Russia over the next 2 to 5 years. 407 00:44:20,450 --> 00:44:24,070 We see increasing mention of this and why is this important? 408 00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:29,660 First, you have the the parliamentary elections in 2016 scheduled for 2016. 409 00:44:30,290 --> 00:44:40,130 Then you have the presidential elections scheduled for 2018. And what we have is this is this view from Moscow that an an opponent, 410 00:44:40,310 --> 00:44:47,330 a threatening opponent has launched wars of human intervention, wars of controlled chaos, 411 00:44:47,750 --> 00:44:56,540 wars of colour, revolution, whichever of those three you wish to call them deliberately to undermine regimes they do not like, 412 00:44:56,540 --> 00:44:57,920 bring them down and then replace them. 413 00:44:58,460 --> 00:45:06,710 And I draw you back to that list of that historical list I mentioned of Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine. 414 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,030 And this is and the Arab Spring, of course, features very, very prominently in this. 415 00:45:13,100 --> 00:45:16,610 And this is what the Russians see the West preparing for them over the next five years. 416 00:45:19,490 --> 00:45:24,860 Now nobody is saying and we can come back to it in the Q&A that there is not a serious problem in European security. 417 00:45:24,890 --> 00:45:32,880 Absolutely there is. But this is not the number one point for the Russians because they don't believe that they started it. 418 00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:38,160 They believe that they were responding to NATO's NATO enlargement and the U.S. involvement. 419 00:45:38,430 --> 00:45:45,750 They believe that they have seen in Ukraine an attempt to create a colour revolution of war by colour revolution and have succeeded. 420 00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,400 So it's a preparatory for what they're going to try and launch on to Russia. 421 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:59,340 I'd be surprised if many people in the room here agreed with that, but that's not my point. 422 00:46:00,450 --> 00:46:05,850 This is, again, they're trying trying to move away to see the strategic horizon from from the Russian the Russian view. 423 00:46:07,410 --> 00:46:14,520 And as a result, the Russians have been trying to create an emergency conditions to defibrillate their system, as I've called it, 424 00:46:15,810 --> 00:46:20,670 to prepare the society for that, whether this be through economic measures, 425 00:46:21,030 --> 00:46:24,420 whether this be through social measures or internal interior security measures. 426 00:46:28,910 --> 00:46:33,230 I don't think personally that the West is trying to launch a colour revolution on Russia. 427 00:46:36,100 --> 00:46:44,060 But let me leave that to one side for a second. Strategy making in Russia is very, very difficult. 428 00:46:44,690 --> 00:46:51,620 This sense of creation of power is very difficult. But the the manual control that they have at the moment, 429 00:46:51,950 --> 00:47:00,500 which is where Putin turns up to power or the Far East and focuses specifically like the White House on you, that's real power creation. 430 00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:06,830 But like a lighthouse, it has to move on and it moves on, moves away, and then it comes down to you. 431 00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:12,770 And in fact, manual control can be understood in this way that the blaze is really hard on you. 432 00:47:12,980 --> 00:47:18,140 Manual control is very tough, very serious. But it only comes round once in a while. 433 00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,490 So this this this is that ambiguity I want to come to with that. 434 00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:29,240 But many of the measures that they're implementing to try to defibrillate the system are not, in fact, necessarily working. 435 00:47:33,050 --> 00:47:38,330 For instance, it's unclear that the corruption campaign will necessarily resolve the problem or relieve the burden on the budget. 436 00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:45,800 It is unclear at the moment whether the the rotation will will lead to any greater efficiency in the implementation of instructions. 437 00:47:46,250 --> 00:47:52,520 It is unclear that the that the shift from state state focussed budget to program 438 00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,570 focussed budget is actually going to settle in and be more functional and save money. 439 00:47:59,270 --> 00:48:02,540 So we're likely to see a continuation, in my view. 440 00:48:02,570 --> 00:48:06,080 I know it's easy to say continuity, continuity more than change, 441 00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:13,160 but we're likely to see an acceleration of this defibrillator process that, in my view, will move towards mobilisation. 442 00:48:13,730 --> 00:48:22,080 They're already rehearsing mobilisation. We have we have some of the people I put up on on the photos here asking Putin Sheik, 443 00:48:22,100 --> 00:48:30,980 who asked Putin recently to have regional governors, military militarily trained and to rehearse mobilising that region in case of war. 444 00:48:32,390 --> 00:48:38,030 We have the the left, the narrative front, practising societal mobilisation. 445 00:48:39,410 --> 00:48:44,990 We have the Finance Ministry explicitly talking in public about the possibility for mobilisation budgets. 446 00:48:47,130 --> 00:48:51,180 So in my mind, this is this is where we are. This is where we are working towards with the Russians. 447 00:48:52,800 --> 00:49:00,510 And that is why I spoke mostly about strategy and less about mobilisation, because my my work is effectively the hinge of two projects, 448 00:49:00,510 --> 00:49:06,630 one of which I spent a fair amount of time on, as you can probably tell, Hope and the other, which I'm just starting, which is, is Mobilisation one. 449 00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:19,960 For me, that whole strategy is it's very important to the Russian leadership consistent element of strategic planning and thinking. 450 00:49:20,290 --> 00:49:24,639 It's based in a team, but they have this political idea rather than a strategy. 451 00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:29,650 Because of the great difficulty of implementing planning and their efforts to defibrillate 452 00:49:29,650 --> 00:49:34,180 the system are likely to make the system continue to function in the way it does. 453 00:49:35,020 --> 00:49:38,080 But under greater pressure, it won't make it any more. 454 00:49:38,110 --> 00:49:41,290 More pretty, probably not much more effective. 455 00:49:41,300 --> 00:49:44,770 So again, we'll have a with version of the Russian right. 456 00:49:44,980 --> 00:49:48,490 Nicolosi, was that too effective? Not not beautiful, but effective. 457 00:49:49,210 --> 00:49:53,260 Certainly not efficient. And on that note, I'll finish. 458 00:49:53,260 --> 00:49:54,460 Thank you very much for your attention.