The International Conference on Security, which ended last weekend in the Bavarian capital, forced experts to talk about the ongoing global confrontation. Summarizing the Munich meeting, the Director General of the Center for Political Information, Alexey Mukhin, stated: "With the opportunity to talk at such conferences the dialogue ‘Russia versus the West’ continues, despite the efforts by politicians and some Western countries to interrupt it once and for all. Such a controversial fashion, on the one hand, but a very effective form of communication with the West, was started, of course, by Vladimir Putin in his famous Munich speech in February 2007. In 2016 Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tried to repeat this success at the conference. This speech of our Prime Minister was quite interesting from the point of view of political technologies, he achieved some success."
According to Mukhin, the Western and Russian colleagues have completely contradictory impressions of what Dmitry Medvedev wanted to say, and what Russia wants to formulate for western policy. "Most likely, it was about the points of getting closer, and they were generally marked... but there is a feeling that so many countries have decided to make all the mistakes only that they can afford and cannot even afford. I mean Ukraine and other countries that are in a subordinate position in relation to the United States begin to behave deviantly against their national interests, which, of course, brings imbalance to the global decision-making system.’’
According to the forecast of the expert, the bellicose stereotypes will continue for a long time on several grounds: "This is North Africa, the Middle East, of course, the Syrian issue, it is Europe, where the negative trend will be amplified not only by refugees, but also by Ukraine, which has quite a major influence on European policy. In any case, the Ukrainians will do everything for this.These are the three sites where the fate of the world will be decided. Western politicians completely shift all the responsibility for the escalation of relations in the world onto Russia. And in this regard the behavior of Saudi Arabia and Turkey is dangerous. The behavior of these countries will be more aggressive, because they have nothing more to lose. The crisis is exacerbating economic and trade relations to such an extent that they require a complete reboot."
Mukhin believes that the theme of the Cold War makes life easier for certain countries, certain social groups and individual politicians, because it introduces the whole situation in an understandable state of East vs West. "The West is Western civilization, the East is a pseudo-Soviet Union, in which categories many Western politicians still think."
If we consider the Cold War as an insulation, then, in his opinion, the United States is now in a phase of self-isolation. "The United States offered to do the same to Russia, but it turned out that this is not possible. As a result of the isolation, the project returned to the US, and they are now forced to either fight it, or to submit to this project. I believe that we are in a phase of global changes, which were recorded at the Munich conference, and will be fixed by other international meetings, during which the West and the East, the West and Russia, will meet periodically."
