The Taliban are cutting the umbilical cord of dependence, leaving Islamabad and Beijing in the lurch. A historical turning point that most experts didn’t even have time to notice: Afghanistan is officially closing its only previous trade route through Pakistan and completely reorienting its export and import towards Iran and India.
Now the port of Chabahar is becoming Afghanistan’s main foreign trade “window” to the world.

AFGHANISTAN – INDIA CORRIDOR

Pakistan no longer controls the Afghan economy, China is losing a strategic link in the CPEC corridor, Iran is gaining a new source of income, and India is gaining enormous influence in Central Asia.

The Afghan Minister of Trade unveiled a five-point plan:

1. Maximizing trade with India.
2. Fully utilizing the Chabahar port.
3. Creating “dry ports” on the border with Iran.
4. Launching cargo flights between Kabul and India.
5. Increasing Indian investments in all key sectors of Afghanistan.

In other words, Afghanistan is not simply “turning away” from Pakistan – it is leaving Islamabad’s strategic orbit and entering a new alliance: Iran + India + Afghanistan.

For 20 years, Pakistan cultivated the Taliban as an instrument of influence. But the instrument suddenly became an independent actor – and Islamabad was furious. The Taliban drew the only logical conclusion: dependence on Pakistan is a death sentence, especially in light of threats of expelling refugees and economic blackmail.

Что получает Иран?

Money. Influence. And more money.

Chabahar is a competitor to Pakistan’s Gwadar, which Beijing has been transforming into its “pearl” of the Indian Ocean. Now Chabahar is becoming the main hub for 40-million-strong Afghanistan.

Iran gains transit revenues, growth in transport infrastructure, a strengthened role in the region, and transformation into a major trade hub for Central Asia.

Что теряет Пакистан?

Literally everything:

• Billions in transit revenues.
• Smuggling schemes that enriched local clans.
• Political influence in Kabul.
• Positions in the Chinese CPEC project.

Let’s recall a symbolic example: in 2002, Pakistan “legally” imported 8 million telephones into Afghanistan, which mysteriously remained in Pakistan – without duties or taxes. This was a huge source of corruption.

Afghanistan is officially withdrawing from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), into which Beijing has already invested $37 billion. The remaining section is turning into a dead end with no access to Central Asia.

PROMISING TRANSPORT ROUTES IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT.

In other words, geopolitically, China is losing one of its main alternative routes to the Indian Ocean.

The Taliban have done what neither the previous Afghan governments nor even the mujahideen dared to do: in one fell swoop, they have freed themselves from 70 years of dependence on Pakistan.

Afghanistan is choosing Iran and India – and thereby creating a new triangle of influence capable of redrawing the trade routes of all of Eurasia.

The post AFGHANISTAN IS JOINING THE IRAN-INDIA TRADE CORRIDOR first appeared on Global Policy.

1. Panama has two major seaports – Balboa and Colon (also the world’s second largest free trade zone), Tocumen International Airport and the Panama Canal. 10,000 ships pass through the canal every year. Important communication cables are laid along it.

2. About 6% of the world’s maritime trade passes through the Panama Canal, which saves the maritime transport sector 8,000 nautical miles and 22 days of travel between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. For over a hundred years, it has remained a vital economic and strategic hub. A ship can pass through the giant canal, 81.5 km long and 33-150 m wide, in just 8-10 hours. Panama earns about $3.5 billion a year in transit fees.

3. On November 17, 2017, China and Panama signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Joint Construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (China’s “One Belt, One Road” project).

4. In 2018, China and Panama signed a free trade agreement. China has become Panama’s largest trading partner, the largest supplier to the Colon Free Trade Zone, and the second-largest user of the Panama Canal.

5. By the end of 2021, China’s direct investment in Panama was $1 billion.

6. China-Panama trade volume in 2021 was $11.344 billion, China’s exports were $10.180 billion, and imports were $1.164 billion.

7. China’s plans and proposals to Panama were grandiose.

China’s Major Infrastructure Projects in Panama in 2016–2021

8. 01.30.2025 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio conveyed to Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino the position of Trump: China’s presence in the canal area violates the agreement on the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1999.

9. 02.02.2025 The President of Panama stated that “the country’s government will not extend the memorandum of understanding with China on the One Belt, One Road initiative.”

10. 02.08.2025 The Chinese side expressed deep regret.

Conclusions

1. China’s expansionist project “One Belt, One Road” was publicly announced in 2013. One of the main directions of its development was Panama. But only one project was implemented. Judging by the table, after 2019, China curtailed its expansion in Panama (it did not propose new projects).

2. Panama was viewed by China as a “showcase” of its “One Belt, One Road” project for Latin American countries.

3. As can be seen from the table, there was serious resistance in Panama to the implementation of Chinese proposals and projects that had been launched. This is also indicated by the insignificant volume of direct investment from China. Most likely, from the United States.

4. China’s expansionist project “One Belt, One Road” has failed in all regions of the world. It began to wind down around 2021. Three main reasons for its collapse:

— implementation of private projects in insolvent countries (Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, …);

— resistance to private projects from other countries;

— China has no “gunboats”.

5. To wean China off the Panama Canal, it was enough to convey the “Trump position” to Panama. That is, the US wiggling its little finger.

6. The US will continue to strengthen its control over maritime trade routes. This is part of their preparation for a head-on collision with China. This is, first of all, its open weaning off the world market.

The post GEOPOLITICAL ASPECTS COLLAPSE OF CHINA’S EXPANSION IN PANAMA first appeared on Global Policy.

Anticipating the accusations of the expert community in kitchen conspiracy, I suggest starting with the incredibly obvious. It is the liberal domestic and foreign community in the Ukrainian crisis that takes the side on which only a patient with a severe psychiatric diagnosis can catch the scent of freedom among the smoke of burning tires, napalm and gunpowder. In order not to be known as an urban lunatic who accuses at least a third of the globe of inappropriate behavior and perception of reality, I suggest looking for the logic of neo-Nazi sympathies of a liberal worldview outside the clip “news” context.

Liberalism as a teenage disease not (before) development

For example, in the field of psychiatry already mentioned in vain. One of the brilliant psychologists, theorist and practitioner of the highest level, Viktor Ponomarenko, took seriously my question about whether the inadequacy of liberal thinking is a reason for forced diagnosis.

Ponomarenko is the author of a unique theory of a non—questionnaire assessment of the personality profile “The Seven Radicals Methodology”. Once this theory was known to students of closed special service educational institutions, now it is actively used by those who take responsibility for choosing personnel and partners adequate to the task. For me, Viktor’s authority is reinforced by the fact that he was entrusted to lead an expert group of psychologists during the Nord-Ost tragedy.

Viktor Ponomarenko believes that in the case of the liberal worldview, we are dealing with a deep crisis of personality caused by the arrest of mental development at the adolescent level.

During puberty, a person enters the age of protest and risky experimental exploration of the possibilities of the surrounding world. He sharply rejects the usual ideas about parents as caring guarantors of existence. For him, “ancestors” become unbearable prohibitionists and mentors: “don’t hang out with bad company,” “don’t get into bad habits,” “don’t get involved in dangerous adventures,” “don’t be lazy.”

Youthful negativism in relation to all kinds of “not” is accompanied by the denial of all kinds of “adult” authorities and is characterized by an accentuated fixation on oneself. The egocentric picture of the world given to a teenager in sensations, and not in logic, is complemented by the illusion that the search for new sensations is the true purpose of existence. Remember, Zhvanetsky (it turns out, self-revealing): “The process is about life, the result is death”?

Viktor Ponomarenko believes that a liberal is not a (fully) developed personality in the psychological age of a teenager who experiences subconscious horror of any fixed result: such, for example, as a stable state with its conservative values. But most importantly, he subconsciously and, consequently, without any clear arguments rejects a leader with the charisma of a productive politician and a vision of a clear strategic scenario. For the result is… Well, then you know.

Tunnel thinking — looking and not seeing, listening and not hearing — at the age of decision-making and civic responsibility, like any mental inadequacy, is suicidal. This explains a lot in the liberals’ exalted sympathy for the “bad company” of activists and leaders of the Ukrainian coup and their own subversives of the foundations of the “bloody Putin regime.” Much, but not all.

Why exactly does neo-Nazism, as the most extremist and aggressive form of protest against dissent, arouse the organic sympathy of those living “according to Zhvanetsky”? Why did the ultra-Bolshevik Trotsky, with his permanent revolution, enthusiastically support Hitler in his intention to go to war against the USSR? The end of the revolution — death? Undoubtedly, as an unwanted pregnancy of an “experimental” girlfriend and the need to try on the role and logic of the social behavior of hated parents. After all, they are the bloody fascists who forbid Me to realize my idea of freedom up to blood and pogrom in my own house.

However, it’s time. It’s time to deal with the basic definitions in order to build an adequate system of logical coordinates without pubertal liberal emotions. And don’t miss the strategic perspective chart.

Nazism: terminology and essence

Until now, domestic political science operates with phantom connotations, considering the springs of the Ukrainian coup. The terminology base at the level of the “junta” and “Bandera” is good for news headlines and journalism, but is poorly effective as a tool for expert analysis and argumentation of top-level political decisions and actions. I believe that, albeit negative, but still romanticizing the image of the Maidan is a known stalemate in the discussion on the topic “is Bandera a fascist and what percentage of Bandera members are involved in the current bloodshed.” Which, alas, we are now observing. “Bandera” and “junta” do not work in the field of Western and domestic liberal Russophobia.

The domestic “civil society” continues to show vivid examples of mediocre dead-end initiatives that are based on emotional assessments of the subject. What is the desire of the former legislator, member of the Federation Council Boris Shpigel, to ban fascist symbols in the country! It is difficult to suspect the once powerful senator of wanting to make a splash on a bloody topic, but in fact, according to such a formulation of the law, it would have been necessary to demolish the fence of the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg, to destroy columns and knock down the stucco of countless historical buildings throughout Russia. Readers of the respected magazine “However” do not need to explain the difference between Italian fascism and German Nazism, as well as Roman fascia — bundles of brushwood with double—edged axes – and the German eagle with a swastika. But the creators of the legislation have an obvious gap in this. And not only them.

FASCISM IN THE SERVICE OF CORPORATIONS

I have heard more than once from people who define themselves as Russian nationalists, and even “Orthodox fascists” (?!) that the Nazi criminals Shkuro and Krasnov, convicted by Nuremberg, as well as the notorious General Vlasov, are not traitors, but freedom fighters against the Stalinist regime. In Russia, the holy place of the “new hero” of Ukrainian freedom — the executioner of Bandera — will not be empty. Just let go.

In order not to get bogged down in a deliberately inconclusive discussion, we need to figure out why modern nationalist extremism, even without a reverse swastika or SS runes — just in a balaclava or an expensive suit — is still the same cannibalistic Nazism that cost humanity tens of millions of lives and is fraught with a global relapse.

Nazism is chauvinism, which is the basis of state policy. Such a universal definition, cleared of theoretical political science husks, creates a semantic and legal basis that equates with Hitler’s Nazism the modern regimes in the countries of the former Soviet Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia, the policy of the United States and NATO towards Russia, Iran, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The proposed definition ontologically connects Hitler’s swastika, trident and the abbreviation NATO in the Goebbels logic of hatred of Russia as a second-class state, in respect of which “civilized” norms of international law do not apply. And if we talk about symbols, then this definition gives a direct Nazi content to the white ribbon and the term “fifth column” as a symbol of the attitude towards one’s own people as subhumans. After all, only this justifies in their unconscious logic the application of so-called double standards to Russia.

CAPITALISM AS A REALITY – SOCIAL NATURE, THE MAIN STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT, THE MODERN WORLD CRISIS

Liberalism as a breeding ground and a political tool of Nazism

According to Viktor Ponomarenko’s psychiatric definition, liberals in any country are an ideal protest mass against state foundations as a fixed result. That is why modern Nazism chooses a liberal stratum to crack the statehood, which is not pleasing to its world order. Undoubtedly, on the one hand, in the psychological logic of puberty, this is seduction. But in real life and politics, we are not talking about children, but about adults who are able to wield a bat or operate with words or capital and at the same time egocentrically demanding serious attitude. And if so, then we should take seriously the roots of liberal thinking.

It is obvious that there is no direct sociological connection with social, property, age, educational, intellectual and other statuses. The conservative-liberal rift has now become obvious in any stratum. The attitude to the Ukrainian events destroys long-term friendly ties and even family relations. And if the underlying cause is outside the field of standard sociology, then where to look for it, if not in some personal archetype?

It seems interesting to me to dissect in this vein the archetype of the notorious music critic Artemy Troitsky, known for his white-ribbon activity and the corresponding “Maidan” thinking. It would seem that he is a successful well-known showman, a brand personality, as they say now. Is there something wrong with the anamnesis? Perhaps. How did it happen that a person who did not take a single note in his life turned out to be a guru imposing his idea of “beautiful” on the audience?

Trotsky’s star rose in the era of the barrier that the Soviet leadership built in front of Western mass culture. The barrier was purely speculative, especially for those who, valiantly defending the interests of the USSR in the international arena, turned into an elite at home on the basis of access to those very Western values. In their diplomatic baggage, foreign consumer goods catalogs and music magazines easily overcame the Iron Curtain. Those who had access to these objects of lust were no different from the banal fartsovschikov, and often were simply part of this illegal system. Most of them have placed themselves in a virtual matrix “looking at foreign stickers with affection and eating Russian bacon.”

Perhaps this illusion of “real life” became the block that stopped personal development at the level of a teenage game of “I’m kind of in the West.” But it was in this environment, which gave birth to the contemptuous term “scoop” and experiencing fanaticism towards everything domestic as inferior, Troitsky stood out in a special way. His scathing articles about foreign music in the youth periodicals were distinguished by the “non-linguistic style”, although they were politically correct. Only a few who had the opportunity to read Western periodicals were surprised to discover the suspicious similarity of his texts with foreign originals.

The era of lifting bans deprived a whole layer of Troitsky not only of the elite status of “access holders”, but also forced them to look into the impartial mirror of their own professional aptitude. And it is quite logical that such a pseudo-elite followed the path of Kitty Vorobyaninov: there is no reason, but arrogance remains. As a reflex, respectively, to treat a country that does not suit them. And make a life-saving psychological escape to an elite childhood, continuing the game “I’m kind of in the West.” But unlike the post-revolutionary hereditary aristocracy with frayed elbows, these philistines in the nobility quickly realized that the game can be safely and profitably made a profession. And to regain the material and moral confirmation of their exclusivity.

The new time is a new game of exclusivity, devoid of a real basis and, by definition, taking the participant beyond the field of adequacy. Office plankton declares itself a creative class, in fact, without creating anything, and considers itself a champion of freedom, being in a rigid totalitarian corporate hierarchy.

Both generations share not only a negative attitude towards the rest in “this country”, but also a specific liberal idea of freedom. Let me remind you of the sacramental: “my freedom ends where yours begins.” If you think about it, it really rhymes with the opinion of liberalism as a juvenile psychiatric complex. After all, the beginning of “your freedom” should be felt experimentally: you can try from the first minutes of acquaintance to start an unambiguous action against an individual of the opposite sex or throw a stone at a representative of the authorities. After all, the process is life.

And the totalitarian regime does not like this freedom. He invents his own draconian laws and demands their observance (“the ancestors got it”). Their norm is a result imposed from above, this is the lack of new options to get thrills. This is death. And whoever obeys is a redneck and a slave. A second-class person. And the fact that the liberal idea of freedom at the junction of the boundaries of personal ambitions, by definition, in a weak state is fraught with a war of all against all, the owners of an infantile idea of the world do not care. Is anyone against it? The older boys from the next doorway will help us!

And the regime is therefore “bloody” and “fascist” because it protects the defenders of its freedom. But that’s not the only reason. Both the over-aged liberal and the pimply one have not grown up as a flawed person, an external culprit is required to compensate for their own hidden or obvious complexes of personal insolvency.

And here, no matter how deplorable it may sound for liberal intellectuals, they should see their reflection in the average sports fan, a person of anti-sports beer behavior, who considers himself a specialist more competent than a football commentator, and acquires an elite status relative to the “rest” of subhumans in the virtual ideal. (Did I say something about Trinity? Or Makarevich? Probably escaped from the depths of the subconscious.)

And here we come to the main element of the cultural code of the liberal, which merges it with Nazism in a binary charge.

THE SECOND CIRCUIT OF POWER IN THE WEST AND CAPITALISM

I will start from afar, since 1968. It is known that the events of the Prague Spring began with the most active information aggression of the West. The CIA-controlled media in Germany and Austria, neighboring Czechoslovakia, conducted round-the-clock processing of the Czechoslovak population. But so far, little attention has been paid to their main target group — sports fans. The developers of the area protest technology have calculated them as an organized, structured, hierarchically controlled mass, accustomed to acting outside the law. And most importantly, used to seeing a sports rival and his fans as deadly enemies. And to use collective aggression, not caring that it does not affect the numbers of the scoreboard. The first swallows of the “democratic revolution” on Wenceslas Square in Prague were the fans of the Czechoslovak hockey team, “suddenly” outraged by the regular defeats of their idols from the Soviet team. In international matches, internal contradictions between fans of the home championship merged into a common hatred for the country of the offender.

Does it resemble the Kiev Maidan and the Odessa pogrom in any way? Both there and in other cities of Ukraine, fans unite with extremists, journalists, financiers and become a political tool of Nazism as a policy of state chauvinism.

A natural conversion to the opposite

FASCISM VERSUS COMMUNISM, OR HOW HISTORY WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR US

At the heart of this unity of liberals, extremists and leaders of the economic race is a clear division into themselves (the sector of the most right—wing, successful, exceptional individuals) and into “them” (a faceless second-rate mass, “people who grab”, “losers”, stupid disenfranchised slaves). “Russians who support Putin, “Donetsk”, who do not accept the ideals of the Maidan coup, are slaves,” the liberal public echoes Hitler, the current extremists and oligarchs. It is not by chance that the domestic liberals find themselves in their sympathies on the side of the Maidan coup. And it’s not just about the relevant targeted grants. I know that one popular figure of the domestic show business refused to participate in the sensational anti-Putin “peacemaking” PR campaign, despite a substantial fee, with the words: “The motherland is worth more.” On the other hand, it is difficult to classify those who went to it as those in dire need. The root cause is deeper than financial motivation — in the liberal cultural code.

Sorting people, social groups and ethnic groups into masters and slaves is at the heart of the political philosophy of liberal economics. For the engine of liberal development is her Majesty competition. The reverse side of the victory of one is the defeat of the other. By definition, a serving political system based on other principles cannot exist. And he condemns himself to self-destruction, because the liberal model “my freedom ends where yours begins” is in conflict with the ideal of unlimited freedom. It is possible to expand the boundaries of the kingdom of freedom only by infringing on the rights of those who will be appointed second-rate. For obvious reasons, the slave mass does not really put up with its second-rate. And then liberalism resorts to the standard means: it gives a group of “trembling creatures” the right to elect. The calculation is simple: to provide them with ideological and military weapons and point out the culprit in all the troubles. So, in fact, political liberalism is driving itself into a logical dead end in the name of the ideal of absolute freedom. In its name, the competitive principle of development will inevitably require the diametrically opposite — totalitarianism.

Such is the political impasse: what they ran from, they buried themselves in. Without noticing that one of the “slaves” otherwise realizes his freedom of choice.

The post NAZISM AS THE PINNACLE AND DEAD END OF LIBERALISM first appeared on Global Policy.

The American system is the oldest, largest and most developed. It is based on the unconditional technological leadership of the United States. The key goal of the American strategy in the technology sector is to maintain the initiative in the field of innovation, prolong its own dominance and prevent the emergence of comparable competitors in the global market. To do this, active personnel work is being carried out, preferential conditions are being created for the development of the startup ecosystem, and methods of competition that are far from economic are being used.

The market capacity and favorable internal conditions allowed the United States to bring to the market the largest technology and Internet giants whose intellectual property rights are legally protected. An indirect but significant factor of the American techno-economic system is the creation of numerous common goods. All this allows American companies to provide a trial version of their own products to the whole world, which gives the user the opportunity to access one of the most advanced technologies without excessive costs. The principles of openness and freedom in the digital sphere proposed by the United States are captivating. However, there is no doubt that at the moment when Americans doubt their own hegemony in the technological environment, these principles will be immediately revised. There will be insurmountable borders and barriers aimed at deterring competitors and protecting American leadership.

Even within the United States itself, the decisions of tech giants to block and delete more than 70 thousand accounts, including the pages of President Donald Trump, are similar to open attempts to seize management tools from the authorities. In this case, the companies played for the political establishment against the objectionable “spoiler” of the system. It is likely that in the coming years, a team of political, financial and technological globalists will continue to work together to counteract the national industrial agenda in America and other countries. At the same time, there are concerns from the camp of Democrats that, no matter how convenient the technologies offered by corporations, the strengthening of the influence of tech giants is dangerous both because of their accumulation of “unprecedented economic power” and because of the increase in “control over political communication and communications.” The dominance of tech giants in the dissemination of information and their ability to politically mobilize the masses already pose a threat to democratic governments.

The Chinese techno-economic platform is smaller than the American one, although even here the claims to technological leadership are obvious. A significant amount of financial and human resources allows the Chinese ecosystem to be self-contained and administratively redistribute resources to those areas of technological development that the CPC Politburo considers the most promising. The Chinese were the first in the world to experiment with the autonomization of a number of services and services, building the “Great Chinese Digital Wall” (The Great Firewall of China). And if the Americans provide the whole world with a trial version of their product, then the competitiveness of the Chinese model is based on the cheapness of their offer and participation in financing advanced developments in other countries. At the same time, China relies on waiting tactics and does not respond to US provocations. In China, America is rightly regarded as a more significant and strong player in this area. However, the growth rate of the Chinese technology industry allows Beijing to count on the fact that achieving a market position comparable to the United States is a matter of time. It is unlikely that the Americans will be able to stop this process. There is a demand for pragmatism in world politics. Responding to it, an increasing number of American allies (including Europeans) favorably perceive China’s proposals for cooperation in the digital sphere.

The growing awareness by European countries of the importance of digital sovereignty may be potentially interesting for Russia. Key European countries – Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands – are afraid of dependence on Americans and Chinese. The need to develop a national technology platform is particularly emphasized by the French. Europeans are afraid of losing their subjectivity in the global technological environment and eventually find themselves in a situation where their voice will not be taken into account.

Russia and the Europeans are united by fears of becoming dependent on leading players and losing their own autonomy. At the same time, Russia, like some other European countries, has the competence to form an independent pole of power in the digital sphere. Russian arguments about the development of a data compatibility standard are more likely to be heard in Europe than in China and the USA.

The latter two States themselves have a significant amount of data and are not ready to share it with third countries. However, Moscow’s political differences with the Europeans may become an insurmountable obstacle to full-fledged collaboration, which is an additional motivating factor for Russia in forming its own technological platform.

Global trends in the development of the digital environment

The global digital revolution has led to a radical transformation not only of technological and economic structures, but also of social relations, the very philosophy of human life. These changes have fully manifested themselves in the sphere of international relations. The current situation in the world is similar (albeit at a fundamentally new level) since the invention of nuclear weapons and the beginning of space exploration, when technological changes have significantly changed the international behavior of States. It is already possible to identify a number of trends launched by new technologies that will determine the directions of further evolution of the system of international relations.

The rapid development of science and technology has created prerequisites at the national and global levels for reducing socio-economic inequality. However, it also increased the vulnerability – and suspiciousness – of society in the face of new (or old, new-faced) challenges and threats. New channels and methods of communication have significantly increased the information connectivity of the world. But they also contributed to the atomization of states that seek to protect such channels from foreign interference. The explosive growth of technologies and ways to use them continues to blur the line between the virtual and real world, fact and fiction. This multiplies the uncertainty in international relations and strengthens their anarchic state.

This uncertainty is compounded by the growing gap between the dynamics of development and implementation of innovations and the speed of reflection of these changes in the regulatory fabric. Phenomena that are not regulated by international law become a challenge to the classical system of international relations. Thus, the absence of codified agreements to limit the use of artificial intelligence or supercomputers and cloud computing in the military field involves powers with such technologies in a vicious circle of a constant arms race, which diverts resources and attention from the development of their civilian applications. Despite the fact that in the new conditions it is the Internet that is becoming a key source of new dangers, world governments do not have unified approaches to defining the concept of “sovereignty in cyberspace”, work is not yet underway to develop international agreements similar to the outer space treaty, the Antarctic treaty or sovereignty in airspace.

The all-encompassing nature of digital transformation processes leads to the fact that they fall into the focus of attention of an increasing number of international organizations – both specialized (ITU) and non-core (UNESCO, UNCTAD, PACE). This disperses the international digital agenda and multiplies mutually exclusive approaches to its issues. The lack of a unified and clear conceptual and categorical apparatus in this area exacerbates contradictions and disputes.

On more technologically-oriented international platforms – governmental and non-governmental – the struggle is unfolding for universal recognition of technical standards created by states or large corporations. The most successful lobbyists from among governments and businesses receive a significant market advantage in the case of codification of their proposed standard: the whole world begins to consume their products, and they get the opportunity to significantly influence the further development of the chosen technology. Such a struggle for standards also has far-reaching international political consequences. Taking into account the continuing rapid penetration of “figures” into public life, the countries that supply digital technologies firmly “bind” the client states to themselves, “getting them hooked” on certain standards and types of solutions, increasing the dependence of such countries on their exports – by analogy with the export of weapons or energy resources.

The seriousness of this problem is vividly illustrated, for example, by the situation faced by the EAEU member states when implementing digital integration. The creation of a unified system of electronic exchange of legally significant documents has been greatly hampered by the fact that different EAEU states use different cryptographic standards, not all of which are recognized as secure. The lack of coordination in their implementation, albeit for objective reasons, has led to the emergence of a technical barrier to the development of integration processes, which at the same time has long-term political and economic consequences.

Global digitalization has significantly increased the international legal personality of non-State participants in international relations. Initially, the technical NGO “Corporation for the Management of Domain Names and IP Addresses”, created with the participation of the US government to regulate issues related to domain names, IP addresses and the functioning of the global network, has turned into a leading institute of “Internet governance”, where states do not have a dominant role.

Multinational giants – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Huawei, TikTok, Alibaba, YouTube – are already talking on equal terms with national and foreign governments. It is impossible to ignore them as a factor of national security. On the one hand, the information accumulated by such ecosystems and the advanced solutions implemented by them are of great interest to the competent authorities. On the other hand, their ability as information resources to broadcast certain information messages to a huge audience, directly or indirectly – through controlled search results – becomes a factor in national political life. These properties of such corporations give them the “right to vote” in the international arena and at the same time make them objects of strict national regulation. The understandable desire of States to control their information activities and gain access to the data they have leads to the erosion of liberal values – freedom of speech, secrecy of correspondence, privacy – and raises the question of their applicability in the changed digital age.

A separate point in the confrontation between corporations and states remains the issue of their fair taxation, especially if their services operate in a foreign jurisdiction. It is important to avoid double taxation of such platforms in order to avoid deterioration of the situation of consumers and the products and services they receive.

Perhaps for the first time, ordinary citizens have gained the ability to directly influence international relations on such a scale as today. Social networks, instant messengers and Internet television have practically won the competition with traditional media, made each smartphone owner a potential journalist and endowed him with the ability to instantly make his “news” for millions of people. Such a seemingly gratifying manifestation of freedom to speak and be heard is overshadowed by the fact that in the era of “post-truth” verification of a fact is no longer a requirement for our trust in it. At best, unintentional subjectivism or a thirst for the attention of an “amateur reporter” who is not bound by professional journalistic ethics or the politics of the publication, and at worst, the dissemination of deliberately false information can have devastating consequences for society and the state.

At the same time, the example of deleting Trump’s Twitter account demonstrates another trend. During the four years of Trump’s presidency, Twitter has been an important resource of his power and the main tool for fighting political opponents. With his help, Trump set the information agenda, dictated the political will, appointed to positions and dismissed yesterday’s like-minded people in disgrace. For millions of supporters of the president, Twitter has become a mouthpiece of dissatisfaction with Washington. With his help, it was possible, while remaining misunderstood, to be at least heard by the elites. Therefore, the president’s tweets amused some, frightened others, and irritated others.

At the symbol level, the removal of Trump’s account – even after he backed down and called on his supporters to peaceful protest – is much more demonstrative and sudden his “liquidation” as president two weeks before the end of his term than through a court or impeachment. But more importantly, this “liquidation” mission was carried out not by Congress, not by the military and not by the Supreme Court, but by the head of the Twitter technology company.

This case, most likely, on the one hand, will raise the request of third countries for “digital sovereignty” from American tech giants, on the other hand, it will strengthen the intention of these states to protect themselves from the dominance of their own and foreign technology companies by stricter legislative regulation of their activities on their territories. In the long run, this may strengthen the political fragmentation of the world.

The further development of cognitive technologies, primarily deepfake, gives attackers unlimited opportunities to create toxic content, which by the strength of its impact can already be classified as weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, the growth of the freedom of society and the strengthening of the instruments of its realization paradoxically develops in parallel with the strengthening of the police power of the state, and this becomes the new norm of everyday life. The strengthening of the second trend is also happening for objective reasons: the desire of states to ensure the safety of citizens, including by restricting their access to the “darknet” and uncontrolled elements of the network, can hardly be called a dictatorial whim of governments. The degree of deanonymization of users in the network will continue to increase.

The absence of institutions of arbitration or investigation of cyber incidents and cybercrimes recognized by all players, as well as the still weak development of digital forensics tools makes it almost impossible to reliably determine the party responsible for the incident. Which, in turn, increases the level of distrust and conflict between countries. At the same time, in the context of the development of new technologies – primarily the Internet of Things and autonomous intelligent systems – it is enough for attackers to have a powerful enough household computer or even a smartphone to hack the security system of a critical infrastructure facility and cause a disaster or seize sensitive information, and a hacker does not necessarily turn out to be a saboteur or a terrorist, it may be technically gifted “a teenager.”

The attempt of countries to protect themselves from such penetration has a number of consequences. First of all, states seek to limit the vulnerability of the network by stimulating import substitution and deep localization – it is easier to trust “their” controlled manufacturer of equipment or solutions. This leads to the disintegration of international production chains and a certain erosion of the principles of the international division of labor. In an environment where everyone who can start producing their own critical equipment and “software” (servers, operating systems, antiviruses and security systems), economic specialization loses its appeal. In addition, the definition of authorized operators, the restriction of competition in the market inevitably leads to a slowdown in the development of technologies, forcing states to live in a dilemma: progress or security. Here, as in many other aspects of the global digital economy, there is a contradiction between information exchange as a global phenomenon and physical infrastructure that has a territorial binding, which means that it is under a certain sovereignty.

This contradiction is evident in the issue of storing, processing and moving information through Internet channels. Historically, there has been a serious imbalance in the geographical distribution of the basic infrastructure and the nationality of the main Internet players. More than 60 percent of the total number of domains are managed by American players (Verisign, Afilias), more than 50 percent of content delivery networks belong to American companies (Amazon, Akamai, CloudFlaire), all major first-tier providers are residents of the United States, and ten of the thirteen DNS servers are located in the United States. It is not surprising that with such an “Internet geography” and awareness of the US readiness to take unilateral sanctions to very extreme measures, states that are not direct allies of Washington seek to create an alternative protected contour of the “national, sovereign Internet” – and the number of such states is increasing. On the other hand, according to experts, satellite Internet can displace cable Internet no later than the middle of this century – and in a new round the struggle will move into space or the upper atmosphere, but its nature, consisting in the unwillingness of states to leave key infrastructure outside their sovereign control zone, will remain.

The desire for sovereign control of an increasing number of States is reflected in their attitude to the issue of storing personal data of citizens. Both the European GDPR and the Russian so-called “Spring package”, with all the nuances of each approach, postulate the need for all Internet market operators to store personal data on servers located in national jurisdiction. This approach is aggressively opposed primarily by the Anglo-Saxon states participating in the “five eyes system” (USA, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia), pointing to this measure as excessive and suppressing rights and freedoms. Taking into account the imbalances described above in the Internet space, the position of the United States and its allies is understandable. Nevertheless, as the digitization of a person’s identity increases, the possibility of his digital identification, moving all his personal data to cloud storage, the price of an error in protecting such information increases many times. In case of violation of the information storage security circuit, the identity of a citizen can not just be taken over by attackers – it can be completely erased, and such a digital death will cut off the victims of the attack from the possibility of realizing basic social rights. That is why the increasing strictness of national data storage requirements is becoming the dominant requirement of the era.

Two major issues arise for nation States in the coming years

The first question is to what extent they are able to guarantee the viability of their critical information infrastructure in the face of cyber warfare and the growth of network piracy. Cyberattacks or system failures in networks can permanently shut down entire industries and cities with unpredictable consequences for the country and its population, but the relevance and magnitude of such threats are still far from being realized.

The second question is how well governments understand the principles and methods of ensuring the security of personal data and how the procedure for the turnover of depersonalized big data will be regulated. Mastering such data by another state will allow it to build a reliable picture of the development of the economy and industry, the vulnerabilities of agriculture, the epidemiological situation, consumption profiles and adjust its political, military or economic strategy accordingly. Obviously, the accelerated development of national legislation regulating the principles of the circulation of national big data and access to interstate negotiations on this issue is a matter of the near future.

States and the future digital world: Duopoly or oligopoly?

Even today, the presence of states in the top league of world politics is unimaginable without a development strategy in the global digital environment, the availability of resources, their own ideas and products in this area. The very category of “great power” in the XXI century implies the creation of its own technological platforms, and ideally – the formation of a techno-economic block. Mandatory attributes of such a block are a significant chunk of the world market controlled by it, its own currency zone with an emission center, its own development model, a set of resources, technologies and scientific competencies that allow the block to be independent from others, at least in such key areas as defense and critical infrastructure.

The attempt of each of the blocks to exclude the influence of competitors on its critical infrastructure inevitably leads to the politicization of technologies and technological wars. Digital technologies, being end-to-end for the entire modern economic and socio-political space, are becoming the main field of a new war. Cyberattacks on digital critical infrastructure can be no less destructive than nuclear or biological weapons.

Against the background of the dominance of a number of developed countries in digital technologies and the emergence of global monopolies controlling network infrastructure and data flows, there is a threat of digital inequality and digital colonialism. Digital technological sovereignty is becoming a necessary condition for the sovereignty of political and national independence.

The restructuring of the principles of functioning of international economic relations and the entire model of global geo-economics provides new opportunities to the leading techno-economic blocs, a kind of “digital neocolonialists” of our time. The gap, now digital, continues to widen between global digital technology providers and recipient countries, which are gradually becoming increasingly dependent on technologically advanced states.

At the current stage, the “digital neocolonialist” countries offer exclusively preferential conditions for the objects of economic development to create the infrastructure necessary for the transition to the digital future. Thus, they immediately ensure their binding to their own solutions – from payment systems to data storage systems and electronic document management. But most importantly, they provide themselves with unlimited and practically free access to big data, getting from this not only an immediate economic effect and an additional advantage in the development of their own artificial intelligence tools and neural networks, but also effective tools for controlling their digital colonies.

Digital colonialism will continue to strengthen, and it is impossible to exclude the revival of the UN Trusteeship Council – already with new, digital functions and powers. At the same time, the canonical borders of the countries of the first, second and third world have already undergone enormous changes and will continue to change. Former third world countries get the opportunity to conditionally jump “from feudalism to socialism, bypassing the stage of capitalism” – the creation of advanced infrastructure of a new generation without the need to maintain the functioning of the old infrastructure (in its absence).

In this sense, it is possible to foresee the digital breakthrough of the richer states of the Middle East and Africa and their entry into significant roles in the digital arena. Finally, international financial and labor relations are also changing – digital assets move to more comfortable jurisdictions even more easily than financial ones, and practically leave no traces of such movement. The emergence of cryptocurrencies deprives the monopoly states of another sovereign right – the right to issue. The concepts of “brain drain” and “labor emigration” are also changing: now national “digital proletarians” should not move abroad – it is enough for them, staying at home, to work for a foreign corporation, alienating all their intellectual property, and vice versa – talented hipsters can move to more comfortable climatic conditions, while continuing to at the same time to develop the national economy.

At the same time, digital technologies, which form both the daily life and the information space of each person, are beginning to have an increasingly noticeable impact on his psyche and decision-making practices. An individual not only becomes a slave to the digital platforms of global monopolies, but is also really placed in a framework where his entire existence is tied to devices – a mobile phone, tablet, smartwatch. Under the guise of providing amenities, they restrict a person’s choice in decision-making and manipulate his behavior, including by pushing him to follow a “certain route”. In these unequal relations, digital monopolies expropriate and uncontrollably exploit personal data and even creative content on pain of exclusion from the social environment.

The widespread introduction of digital technologies, including the digitalization of industry and government agencies, the introduction of 5G networks, forms an imperative to ensure the security and sustainability of the entire digital critical infrastructure. Without solving this problem, digitalization may turn out to be the construction of a “house on the sand”.

In order to eliminate the “barricades” and “minefields” on the path of the digital economy, the state must guarantee both the security of citizens and businesses, as well as clear legal relations in the digital environment. This is especially true for the ownership and use of personal and “depersonalized” data and created content.

The ownership and cost of data is just one of the problems that have accumulated in the digital environment that urgently need to be solved. No less urgent is the need to resolve the contradiction between the requirements of national or local data storage and global transparency of technological and corporate processes, where data on engine operation on an aircraft owned by an airline of one country and flying over another country is processed in real time in a third.

As techno-economic blocks are formed, the competition in the digital space takes the form of a war of platforms and standards. At the same time, a number of countries and regional associations that have neither control over a large part of the global digital market nor dominant platforms (for example, India, Brazil, Japan, Russia or the European Union) will be forced to look for common ways to preserve independence and competitiveness, including by creating common platforms based on an open architecture and open source.

Russia on the digital agenda: Opportunities and limitations

Russia is one of the few countries with technological reserves and human competencies to build its own technological ecosystem. The powerful engineering and mathematical school inherited by Russia from the Soviet Union remains a source of a key resource for digital development – qualified personnel. Russia has most of the features of a sovereign technology platform. A national search engine has been developed and continues to develop. Instagram Facebook and Vkontakte are still more popular than Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, not only in Russia, but also in most CIS countries. Own cloud technologies are developing, domestic processors are being created. Digital solutions of Russian companies have significant export potential – primarily cognitive and self-learning systems, solutions in the field of cybersecurity, secure electronic document management and platforms for providing services to the public. Launched two years ago, the national Digital Economy program will provide 97 percent of all national households and all social infrastructure facilities (schools, hospitals, police stations) with access to high-speed broadband Internet by 2024. This will radically change the opportunities for the development of entrepreneurship, telemedicine and distance education, and will allow Russia to overcome the “digital divide”. Russia is already among the top 10 countries in terms of the number of Internet users, and the website “Gosuslugi” with its two trillion annual transactions is the most popular website of public services in the world.

The share of the digital economy in the country’s GDP is growing. Despite the vagueness of the term itself, it is already about 4-5 percent of GDP, but it continues to grow rapidly at a pace comparable to the digital leaders. In addition, Russia has an impressive satellite and radio frequency resource, which is the key to the successful development of new generation networks.

The challenges that Russia faces in the field of digital development cannot be underestimated. Some of them are only a “digital” consequence of “analog” problems and threats. Others have a fundamentally new, original nature. In particular, Western sanctions not only restrict, among other things, access to foreign technologies, but also increase the risks of maintaining dependence on such technologies to an unacceptable level. The case related to the refusal of Siemens to supply turbines to the Crimea jeopardized plans to provide the peninsula with heat. If we extrapolate this incident to the digital sphere, a similar failure of SAP, Oracle, CISCO or Microsoft to ensure timely updating of their solutions operating in Russia can cause failures – even collapse – in the operation of critical systems, including public administration and the banking sector.

These and other trends in the development of world politics in the last few years have actualized for Russia the task of forming reliable protection of its own digital critical infrastructure. The fulfillment of this task depends both on the effectiveness of a phased and gradual transition from imported software and hardware complexes, and on the creation of an effective command vertical from the regulator to the executor throughout the country.

The decision of the Russian government to create registers of domestic software and electronic equipment is designed to reduce such risks. Without being included in these registers, companies cannot count on delivering their solutions to Russian state corporations and public authorities. Such measures have a long-term positive effect on the development of Russia as a sovereign technological power.

Building a counteraction in the field of information security is complicated by conceptual uncertainty – the fuzzy separation of two close, but different spheres related to information flows. Both the security of signals in a physical network carrying information and malicious ideological content in Russian practice are defined by the same concept of “information security”. In the practice of Russian competitors in digital leadership, the security of signals and networks is defined as cybersecurity. Countering threats in these two areas requires different competencies. While in Russia there is a sufficient understanding of how to deal with cyber threats, in the field of information content, the Russian strategy requires separate reflection and development.

Moscow’s accusations of cyber interference in the internal affairs of a number of states were used as a pretext to increase sanctions pressure and undoubtedly damaged Russia’s international image. However, this campaign had consequences for a number of large Russian enterprises and firms. They faced problems and discrimination in the markets of some Western countries. Perhaps even more significant than the reputational and even economic consequences are the risks that these accusations will be used by the United States and its allies as arguments for conducting “cyberstrikes of retaliation” or even “preventive cyberstrikes” against Russia.

In the information space, Russia’s vulnerabilities are obvious due to the dominance of American monopolies in the domestic segment – Google and Facebook. These monopolies exploit Russian data for free and are increasingly trying to influence the information field and the political situation in Russian domestic politics. Including through manipulation of content and restrictions on Russian users’ access to information and means of communication. Other non-Western countries face similar challenges. It makes sense to establish a more active dialogue with them about the principles of legislation of the digital age, especially in terms of data ownership rights, rules for their storage and use, joint fight against online piracy, general rules of conduct for states and businesses on the Internet. The fundamental challenge for Russian legislation in the digital sphere is to keep pace with the development of technologies and practices themselves as dynamically as possible, especially in such important areas for society as cybercrime and digital finance.

Another problem today is the low ability of Russian companies and the government to compete with global corporations for the best personnel. At the same time, formally, “brain drain” may not occur – Russian talents continue to remain in Russia, but give all the intellectual added value to foreign companies. Taking into account the disparity of the economic potentials of Russian and transnational business, the solution of this problem is possible only within the framework of the administrative or conceptual (but in any case state) plane of relations.

Also, Russia and Russian companies practically do not work on international platforms to introduce technological standards and regulations that are favorable for the functioning of Russian developments. This is partly due to Russia’s lack of a doctrinal document outlining its own international priorities in this area by analogy with the National Security Strategy or the Concept of Foreign Policy. In the future, this omission may cause technological isolation or actual coercion of Moscow to work with internationally recognized standards and protocols, in the development of which Russia actually did not take an active part.

The Roadmap of Russian Leadership in the digital Environment

DIGITAL TOTALITARIANISM: HOW IT IS DONE IN RUSSIA

The Russian digital agenda should reflect the position of our country as one of the main forces in the global system, as an exporter of security and stability. Russia’s global role in the digital world is the role of the leader of the “digital non-aligned movement” for those countries that would like to avoid the technological dictates of “digital neocolonialists”.

It is important that the development of the digital sector of the Russian economy, including electronics and information technology, is accompanied by expansion into global markets. Only in this case will Russia be able to recoup investments in breakthrough technologies, conquer key technological platforms of the next generation economy and build large, competitive businesses.

Spread over eleven time zones, Russia (even in a world where distances are dramatically reduced) continues to play the role of a safe link between Europe and Asia. This applies equally to the global energy infrastructure needed to support the highly energy-intensive digital economy of the future, and to the network of quantum communications necessary for secure data transmission. The cold climate of the northern regions of Russia, coupled with cheap electricity, gives our country a competitive advantage in the location of large data storage and processing centers.

One of the most important challenges for Russia today is the implementation of the EAEU digital integration program. It is necessary in a short time to provide an opportunity for government agencies and businesses of the member states of the Union to exchange legally significant documents through the integrated information system of the EAEU (AIS of the EAEU). This will increase the speed of transit of goods through the territory of the EAEU, increase the economic effects of this process and improve the quality of integration in the Union.

In addition, Russia, as the main “shareholder” of this process, should contribute to ensuring the interoperability of the EAEU AIS with the information systems of the CIS member states that tend to integrate, as well as states with which the EAEU has or is planning a free trade agreement. Digital integration here can and should outpace physical integration. Another important tool may be a special (for example, with the Eurasian Development Bank) program for the implementation of national e-government standards in interested partner countries.

The task of expanding the Russian economic and digital space acutely raises the question of finding strategic allies in the digital world and using existing political mechanisms for this purpose. In this regard, it is worth using the positive potential of our relations with the leading economies of the future – India, Indonesia, Brazil and others.

Equally important is the work on digital dialogue with the European Union. Firstly, digital transport corridors with seamless transit experience for businesses will become possible only if the EAEU AIS is interoperable with the information systems of Europe and China. Secondly, closer coordination is needed in the European direction regarding the use of the radio frequency spectrum – so far there are many contradictions with the EU border states on this issue. The solution to this problem is especially important if in the foreseeable future goods between countries will be moved by unmanned transport. In this case, both Russia and the EU will need a single standard for new generation networks and a single frequency range allocated to them. Thirdly, Russia and the European Union have adopted comparable (at least in terms of principles) regulatory requirements for the storage and transfer of personal data. It is important to harmonize these requirements for business convenience.

In addition, Russia and the EU are drawn closer by the desire to tax foreign digital giants, primarily American companies, with fair taxes. The formation of a consensus on the principles of such taxation will help Russia and the EU to act more effectively on multilateral platforms dealing with this issue. In the medium term, the issue of creating a single cross-border “pool” of big data, marked up in a unified way and accessible (including for a fee) to third parties, primarily American and Chinese companies, is also becoming important

Collaboration with the EU is important, if only because the Russian and European integration blocks are squeezed between two very self-sufficient information platforms – American and Chinese, each of which is already a “bigdata monster”. To become an additional center of gravity, Russia and the European Union, relatively small in terms of population and data generation, simply need to join forces.

At the same time, uniform rules and principles for the functioning of national data management systems, clearly establishing to whom and under what conditions this data may or may not be available, will ensure the national security of Russia and the EU. It is obvious that the entire volume of accumulated big data of a state or group of states is of exceptional intelligence, political, economic and military value, and ensuring their safety is one of the key tasks of national security. But there is also a more immediate political argument in favor of starting cooperation between Russia and the EU in the digital sphere. The progressive degradation of Russian-European relations has exhausted the bilateral agenda for substantive topics. The issues of developing the digital economy and jointly confronting common threats in the digital environment that really bring us closer together can provide fundamentally new areas for non-confrontational interaction.

A separate point for Russia is relations with the leading digital powers – China and the United States. Unlike the European and Eurasian tracks, joint economic projects with Moscow are extremely unlikely in both cases. Nevertheless, the political situation dictates different logics in relations with Washington and Beijing in this area.

With the PRC, it is necessary to continue to coordinate their positions on international platforms regarding issues of Internet regulation and data security. Our approaches are similar, although the Russian one seems to be more liberal and does not imply the creation of an analogue of the “Great Chinese Digital Wall” in our country. But there are two other sensitive issues that need to be discussed with Beijing, putting aside the awkwardness.

The first is China’s technological penetration into the EAEU states within the framework of the “digital Silk Road” doctrine. As in the case of Eurasian integration in general, it is important to interface, coordinate the actions of Chinese business and the state with the activities implemented within the framework of the EAEU – 2025 Digital Agenda.

The second is the development of rules of conduct for Chinese companies in the Russian market of highly qualified personnel and startups. Currently, Huawei is conducting large-scale work on the purchase of Russian technology companies and on attracting Russian specialists to its R&D units. At the same time, salaries in the company are significantly higher than the market, which leads to a flow of specialists from domestic companies. Obviously, in conditions of market rules and freedom of choice, this is a natural process, but it is also necessary to discuss compensatory actions for the national economy with the Chinese side. The Chinese side would never allow similar behavior of third-country companies in its market. The expansion of work with universities, localization of not only I&O departments, but also production, the transition to the creation of joint products, and not the “cannibalization” of startup solutions should become requirements for digital companies operating in our country.

Cooperation on political issues with the United States is even more relevant, despite the confrontational nature of bilateral relations. First of all, it is the development of confidence-building measures in cyberspace, the discussion of restrictions on the military use of digital technologies, the convergence of approaches to Internet regulation. Russia and the United States could initiate negotiations on the creation of new instruments for controlling new types of military technologies. It is also necessary to jointly understand the terminology: speaking of “Russian hackers”, Americans most often give examples of “social engineering”. It is necessary to make every effort to return pragmatism to Russian-American relations, even if Washington’s interest in this is not visible now. We are not talking about giving the United States a new credit of trust. Rather, it is about considering Washington’s every move carefully and assessing its possible consequences, without considering it as a priori hostile to Russian interests.

Russia needs a coordinated, clearly articulated and structured agenda to work in multilateral associations – the ITU, the Digital Twenty, the OECD. It is hardly reasonable to spend all the time pushing through exclusively Russian approaches and engage in fierce diplomatic battles with partners. Instead, at least two groups of “digital truths” should be recognized internally.

First. The location of DNS servers and the main Internet highways really did not work out in favor of Russia. Russia is not a first-level provider. In matters of shaping the digital agenda, Russia is a major regional power, not the second pole of this system. Individual digital corporations have become so powerful that they talk to states on an equal footing.

The second. The world tends much less towards “digital bipolarity” than it may seem. This is especially significant at the level of cyberspace regulation. Despite the proclaimed freedom of information movement, most countries seek to localize data storage in one form or another. In matters of digital regulation, all countries are authoritarian. There are areas that require strict regulation, even in more democratic countries. On the other hand, it is irrational to completely deny the concept of “multistakeholderism” – the plurality of those responsible – in the development of any decisions concerning regulation and further ways of developing new technologies. The regulator must inevitably conduct a dialogue with technology owners, and this is most often a business. Having realized these realities, Russia will be able to act as a conciliatory state in multilateral associations, determined to find a compromise.

Russia also has a chance to become an exponent of the interests of states that want to preserve their digital sovereignty and are not set up to be part of the Chinese or American digital empire, but do not have sufficient “subjectivity” for this. Both lines of behavior will expand our opportunities to realize our leadership potential, our “gravitational core”. This will make it possible to promote Russian candidates for leadership positions of such multilateral associations as, for example, ITU.

Another important step in the restructuring of Russian work in international organizations should be a more thorough selection of members of our delegations, ensuring their versatility. Today, the reality is that Russian diplomats are not always sufficiently aware of the technical aspects of the issues under consideration, while specialized technical specialists do not have enough knowledge of the art of negotiations. A separate role should be assigned to lobbyists – business representatives, who are, in fact, the ultimate beneficiary of most of the decisions taken. This kind of “digital realism”, instead of distractions to provocations and foreign policy “noises”, orients Russia to extremely pressing issues of ensuring the country’s digital interests in the world.

The recognition that in terms of creating 5G networks, Russia has completely lost the initiative or the ability to actively influence the agenda should push Moscow to focus on preparing our proposals for the 7G network standard (or is it 6G?), to step up work to neutralize the threat of isolation of Russia in matters of the radio frequency range allocated for the needs of a new generation of communications spectrum. On this issue, Russian views do not coincide with the overwhelming majority of countries in the world. The peculiarity of the regulatory regulation of the digital sphere is that the new laws will be written by those who write the codes, that is, the technical content of the innovation will largely determine its regulatory framework. Therefore, it is important to intensify the participation of Russian specialists in the development of standards and protocols for tomorrow’s technologies.

Conclusion

Against the background of the virtualization of all aspects of social life, the militarization of the information space is taking place. Taking advantage of the absence of borders in the digital space and generally recognized rules of conduct in it, states and organizations controlled by them distribute biased and disinformation content in order to promote their own interests and values. New technologies of virtual reality formation, such as deepfake, leave almost no chance for an ordinary person to separate lies from reality and are able to provoke religious and ethnic conflicts with impunity, destroy families, destroy the reputations of politicians and innocent people.

In the coming years, the question of the structure of regulation of the entire global Internet will inevitably arise. Under the pressure of block technological confrontation – mainly between the United States and China – and ideological and political struggle, it is already divided into digital “enclaves”. The basic value of the Internet as a worldwide equal and democratic environment (web neutrality) is also undermined by attempts, promoted, in particular, by the United States, to make the quality and speed of network traffic dependent on the client’s wallet. The inclusiveness of the Internet is becoming the key to reducing digital inequality, and with it the guarantor of global economic growth and social development.

Big data as the “new oil” of the digital age should have an understandable owner and an understandable value for the individual, business and the state. Only if a person and a citizen become the center of services and services in the digital environment, a balance of human rights, national priorities and business interests will be ensured, and it will be possible to regulate the currently uncontrolled global digital monopolies for the benefit of the whole society. The removal of the pages of President Trump and his supporters, as well as the “deplatforming” of the Parler social network, popular among Republicans, clearly outline the prospect of actions by tech giants to eliminate economic and political competitors if these tech giants decide to operate outside the United States. Since it is so tough and relatively easy to crack down on ideological opponents in the United States, why can’t this practice be made extraterritorial? Moreover, there are already precedents.

For Russia, the minimum task is to preserve sovereignty when making decisions affecting the main areas of national security. The maximum task is to create your own competitive technological ecosystem, become the leader of the techno-economic block and a key participant in the process of developing new rules of the game in this area. In this sense, gaining economic sovereignty is a simpler task than gaining informational sovereignty. But it seems that the survival of states in the future depends on its solution.

The export of technologies and competencies for the protection of sovereign critical infrastructure to countries wishing to ensure their independence and defense capability can and should become one of the most important political and foreign economic priorities of Russia. This will provide the country with a significant financial inflow and international influence. It is along this path that the powers claiming leadership positions in this area are already following.

Currently, the implementation of the critical infrastructure technology export strategy is hindered by the lack of experience of Russian high-tech companies in creating integrated platform solutions, their weak presence in the markets of potential partners, as well as insufficient financial capacity to work on large long-term projects.

As the civilizational and ideological confrontation escalates, examples of subversive information activity become more frequent, more and more countries are paying attention to the need for more careful control over malicious and subversive content on the Internet. In the United States, where an information war is unfolding between hostile political forces – as the 2020 presidential campaign showed – digital monopolies resort to outright censorship and manipulation in favor of their ideological supporters.

Russia should think about the mechanisms of active formation of the information space, which would allow it to lead in terms of relevance and quality of content and thereby limit foreign influence in its information space.

The challenge of the new time is the “impatience of the spirit”: a short clip or a post on a social network “wins” a full-fledged news report or an analytical article, the variety of multimedia experience distracts a person’s attention, and the speed of changes turns life into a race against time. The conservative, traditionally unhurried sphere of interstate communication is forced to change, “to run very fast in order to at least stay in place.” States that will be able to quickly rebuild clumsy foreign policy mechanisms faster than others have every chance to take a leading position in this rapid “new brave world”.

The post INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AND LEADERSHIP IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT first appeared on Global Policy.

Having discarded the propaganda tinsel of the global mass media with their parochial attachment, we will fix the results of the “Maidan”

1) Georgia – its “flower garden” and the subsequent aggression in Tskhinval lead to the independence of South Ossetia with Abkhazia, guaranteed by Russian military bases.

2) Armenia – its “flower garden” and the subsequent provocation by the “revolutionary” leadership of the Azerbaijani-Turkish (NATO) aggression lead to the appearance of a Russian military base in Nagorno-Karabakh (officially on the territory of Azerbaijan) and the preservation of the Russian base in Armenia (as the largest American embassy in the world did not try to arrange the opposite).

3) Russia – after another attempt to “rock /roll” the Russian Federation, foreign agents are officially designated in it, sponsors of “coups” in the form of NGOs are cleaned, other “sunset lovers” from the internal “elite” are blocked from financing “protestors/protesters / bulk”, “sleeping” enemies are permanently opened with the subsequent cleaning of the nomenclature apparatus and the power unit.

4) Kyrgyzstan – the cycle of clan-tribal (crony) “Maidans” discredited the very idea of “people’s revolutions” + “Yankee go home” from “Manas”.

5) Belarus – the attempt of the “flower garden” pushes Minsk from the policy of “bagatovektornost” to a close rapprochement with Russia, the cleansing of the pro-Western “elite”, the closure of NGOs, the actual resuscitation of the CSTO and in the future (if the Russian proposal not to extend NATO to the East will be ignored) – to the deployment of the NATO borders of the Russian Aerospace Forces with nuclear weapons (a minute to Warsaw and Vilna, a minute and a half to Berlin).

6) Ukraine – the “flower garden” bought by Sunset for 5 “lard” led to the return of Crimea to Russia and to the gradual return of Donbass, that is, to the reunification of Russian lands and millions of compatriots of “the most divided people in the world”, and Western sanctions for fake “aggression against Ukraine” (with trade, transit and bank loans from the Russian Federation to the Zion-Bandera occupiers of Ukraine) led to the long-awaited (after the failure of 1917) revival of Russian agriculture and Russian industry (after the failure of 1991 ). Ukraine, on the other hand, being ragulized – ruinized to a decayed colony of Sunset, has become a clear anti-example of both Ukrainians and “color revolutions” (for those who are able not to succumb to globalist propaganda).

7) Kazakhstan is a “bronzed old man”, who in his old age picked up Russophobia with a “genocide – holodomor” (as if without the USSR with growth, and not depopulation after the “Maidan”, all these national republics could generally take place surrounded by predatory neighbors) and surrendered the bowels of the Homeland to the Americans, with an obese tribe of corrupt relatives – hangers-on removed from power, another “elite”, sold to TNK with NGOs and NGOs, will be cleaned (with the help of Russian special services).

In the former capital of Kazakhstan, the “Maidan” ruin takes place in a day, not in years – this is the peak of Maydaunism. But the epic “cherry on the Kazakh cake” follows – the order to “bring in troops” against the “color” coup is given by the “little pig” who came to power as a result of a similar “revolution”. And then Pashinyan “reformed”, using the “risen from the ashes” of the CSTO (congratulations to NATO on the revival of the analogue of the Warsaw Pact Organization, where such “bankrupted” countries like Iran are now striving).

This is the aerobatics of Putin’s geopolitics, as a result of which the entire “Maidan circle closes”

Russian troops legitimately appear in Kazakhstan, where, if necessary, they will protect the Russian population from “ethnic cleansing” by radical Islamists, preserve Baikonur, strategic deposits, and the southern “underbelly” of Russia from NATO bases, biological laboratories of the Pentagon and launchers of globalist “democratizers”, protect Kazakhstan itself from pan-Turkist plans of the “Big Turan-Erdogan”, from transnational and even Chinese “business on natives”, from the same pan-Islamist radicals from Afghanistan and other “fun” places.

Kazakhstan is too big and too weak for no one to get it during the period of global confrontation and global “turbulence”. After all, all the “well-wishers” always and everywhere use any “shoals” of the local government, any excuse to tear up and plunder the “delicious” (hydrocarbons, metals, uranium, location, etc.) country. But in Kazakhstan, this “scythe of death” found Putin’s “stone” – and instantly, like a fabulous “Phoenix bird”, but the CSTO really resurrected. The “stars” of NATO, the United States and the whole Sunset are in shock. “Hypersonic” (both in terms of armament and speed of decision-making) Russia, unlike them, exports not coups with chaos, but peace and order.

The post PUTIN BEAT THE WEST USING THE “MAIDAN” first appeared on Global Policy.

The American system is the oldest, largest and most developed. It relies on the undisputed technological leadership of the United States. The key goal of the American technology strategy is to maintain the initiative in innovation, extend its own dominance and prevent the emergence of comparable competitors in the global market. For this purpose, active personnel work is being carried out, preferential conditions are being created for the development of the startup ecosystem, and competition methods that are far from economic are being used.

The market capacity and favorable domestic conditions allowed the United States to bring to the market the largest technology and Internet giants, whose intellectual property rights are legally protected. An indirect but significant factor in the American techno-economic system is the creationof numerous common goods products.All this allows American companies to provide the entire world with a trial version of their own products, which gives the user the opportunity to get access to one of the most advanced technologies without excessive costs. The United States ‘ proposed principles of openness and freedom in the digital sphere are fascinating. However, there is no doubt that at the moment when Americans doubt their own hegemony in the technological environment, these principles will be immediately revised. There will be insurmountable borders and barriers designed to deter competitors and protect American leadership.

Even within the United States, the decisions of tech giants to block and delete more than 70,000 accounts, including the pages of President Donald Trump, are similar to open attempts to seize control tools from the authorities. In this case, the companies played for the political establishment against the unwanted” spoiler ” of the system. It is likely that in the coming years, a team of political, financial, and technological globalists will continue to work together to counter the national industrial agenda in America and elsewhere. At the same time, from the camp of Democrats, there are still concerns that, no matter how convenient regardless of the technologies offered by corporations, increasing the influence of tech giants is dangerous both because of their accumulation of “unprecedented economic power” and because of increasing “control over political communication and communications”[1]. The dominance of tech giants in the dissemination of information and their ability to politically mobilize the masses are already a threat to democratic governments.

The Chinese techno-economic platform is smaller than the American one, although the claims to technological leadership are also obvious here. A significant amount of financial and human resources allows the Chinese ecosystem to be self-contained and administratively redistribute resources to those areas of technological development that the CPC Politburo considers most promising. The Chinese were the first in the world to experiment with the autonomy of a number of services and services, building the “Great Firewall of China” (The Great Firewall of ChinaWhile the Americans offer a trial version of their product to the whole world, the competitiveness of the Chinese model is based on the cheapness of their offer and participation in financing advanced developments in other countries2. At the same time, China relies on wait-and-see tactics and does not respond to US provocations. America is rightly viewed in China as a more significant and powerful player in this area. However, the growth rate of the Chinese technology industry allows Beijing to count on the fact that it is only a matter of time before reaching a market position comparable to the United States. It is unlikely that the Americans they will be able to stop this process. There is a demand for pragmatism in world politics. Responding to it, an increasing number of American allies (including Europeans) are favorably accepting China’s proposals for cooperation in the digital sphere [3].

The growing awareness among European countries of the importance of digital sovereignty could potentially be of interest to Russia. Key European countries-Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands-fear dependence on Americans and Chinese. The need to develop a national technology platform is particularly emphasized by the French. Europeans are afraid of losing their subjectivity in the global technological environment and ultimately find themselves in a situation where their voice will not be taken into account [4].

Russia and the Europeans are united by the fear of becoming dependent on leading players and losing their own autonomy. At the same time, Russia, like some other European countries, has the competence to form an independent pole of power in the digital sphere. Russian arguments about developing a data compatibility standard are more likely to be heard in Europe than in China and the United States.

The latter two countries themselves have a significant amount of data and are not ready to share it with third countries. However, Moscow’s political differences with the Europeans can become an insurmountable obstacle to a full-fledged collaboration, which is an additional motivating factor for Russia in forming its own technology platform.

Global trends in the development of the digital environment

The global digital revolution has led to a radical transformation not only of technological and economic structures, but also of social relations and the very philosophy of human life. These changes are fully reflected in the sphere of international relations. The current situation in the world is similar (although at a fundamentally new level) over time of invention nuclear weapons and the beginning of space exploration, when technological changes significantly changed the international behavior of states. It is already possible to identify a number of trends launched by new technologies that will determine the direction of further evolution of the system of international relations.

The rapid development of science and technology has created prerequisites for reducing socio-economic inequality at the national and global levels. However, it also increased the vulnerability – and suspiciousness-of society in the face of new (or old, re-imagined) challenges and threats. New channels and methods of communication have significantly increased the information connectivity of the world. But they also contributed to the atomization of States that seek to protect such channels from foreign interference. The explosive growth of technologies and how they are used continues to blur the line between virtual and real the world, fact and fiction. This increases uncertainty in international relations and reinforces their anarchic state.

This uncertainty is compounded by the growing gap between the dynamics of development and innovation and the speed at which these changes are reflected in the regulatory fabric. Phenomena that are not regulated by international law become a challenge to the classical system of international relations. For example, there are no codified agreements to restrict the use of artificial intelligence or supercomputers and cloud computing in military region engages the Powers that possess such technologies in a vicious cycle of a constant arms race, which diverts resources and attention from the development of their civilian applications. Despite the fact that the Internet is becoming a key source of new threats in the new environment, world governments do not have common approaches to defining the concept of “sovereignty in cyberspace”, and work is not yet underway to develop international agreements similar to the outer space Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty, or the airspace sovereignty Treaty.

The all-encompassing nature of digital transformation processes leads to the fact that they fall into the focus of attention of an increasing number of international organizations – both specialized (ITU) and non-core (UNESCO, UNCTAD, PACE). This disperses the international digital agenda and multiplies mutually exclusive approaches to its issues. The lack of a single and clear conceptual and categorical apparatus in this area exacerbates contradictions and disputes [5].

On more technologically-oriented international platforms – governmental and non – governmental-the struggle is unfolding for universal recognition of technical standards created by states or large corporations. The most successful lobbyists from among governments and businesses get a significant market advantage in the case of codification of their proposed standard: the whole world begins to consume their products, and they get the opportunity to significantly influence the further development of the chosen technology. A similar struggle for standards is far from over ongoing international political implications. Given the continued rapid penetration of digitalization into public life, digital technology suppliers are firmly tying their client states to themselves, making them more dependent on certain standards and types of solutions, making them more dependent on their exports-similar to the export of weapons or energy resources.

The seriousness of this problem is clearly illustrated, for example, by the situation faced by the EAEU member states in implementing digital integration. The creation of a unified system for electronic exchange of legally significant documents was greatly hampered by the fact that different EAEU states use different cryptographic standards, not all of which are recognized as secure. The lack of coordination in their implementation, albeit for objective reasons, has led to the emergence of a technical barrier to the development of integration processes, which has long-term political implications. and the economic consequences.

Global digitalization has significantly increased the international legal personality of non-State participants in international relations. Initially, the technical NGO “Corporation for Domain Names and IP addresses Management”, created with the participation of the US government to regulate issues related to domain names, IP addresses and the functioning of the global network, has become a leading institution of “Internet governance”, where states do not have a dominant role [6].

Multinational giants – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Huawei, TikTok, Alibaba, YouTube – they are already talking to national and foreign governments on equal terms. It is impossible to ignore them as a factor of national security. On the one hand, the information accumulated by such ecosystems and the advanced solutions implemented by them are of great interest to the competent authorities. On the other hand, their ability as information resources to broadcast certain information messages to a huge audience, directly or indirectly – through controlled search results – becomes a factor in national political life. Specified values the properties of such corporations give them a “voice” in the international arena and at the same time make them subject to strict national regulation. The understandable desire of States to control their information activities and gain access to the data they hold leads to an erosion of liberal values – freedom of speech, secrecy of correspondence, secrecy of private life – and raises questions about their applicability in the changed digital age.

A separate issue in the confrontation between corporations and states remains the issue of their fair taxation, especially if their services operate in a foreign jurisdiction [7]. It is important to avoid double taxation of such platforms in order to avoid deterioration of the situation of consumers and the products and services they receive.

Perhaps for the first time, ordinary citizens have gained the ability to directly influence international relations on such a scale as today. Social networks, instant messengers, and Internet television almost won the competition with traditional media, turned every smartphone owner into a potential journalist and gave him the ability to instantly make his “news” for millions of people. This seemingly gratifying display of freedom to speak and be heard is overshadowed by the fact that in the era of “post-truth” verification of fact is no longer a requirement for our trust in it. In the best case scenario unintentional subjectivism or craving for the attention of an” amateur reporter ” who is not bound by professional journalistic ethics or publication policies, or at worst, spreading deliberately false information, can have devastating consequences for society and the state.

At the same time, the example of deleting Trump’s Twitter account demonstrates another trend. During the four years of Trump’s presidency, Twitter was an important resource of his power and the main tool for combating political opponents. With its help, Trump set the information agenda, dictated political will, appointed to positions and ignominiously dismissed yesterday’s like-minded people. For millions of supporters of the president of Twitter he became a mouthpiece of dissatisfaction with Washington. With its help, it was possible, while remaining misunderstood, to be at least heard by the elites. So some people were amused by the president’s tweets, others were scared, and others were annoyed.

At the symbolic level, the removal of Trump’s account – even after he has already backed down and called on his supporters to protest peacefully – is much more demonstrative and sudden “elimination” of him as president two weeks before the end of his term than through a court or impeachment. But more importantly, this mission to” eliminate ” was carried out not by Congress, not by the military, not by the Supreme Court, but by the head of the technology company Twitter.

This case is likely to raise the demand of third countries for “digital sovereignty” from American tech giants, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will strengthen the intention of these states to protect themselves from the dominance of their own and foreign technology companies by more stringent legislative regulation of their activities in their territories. In the long run, this may reinforce the political fragmentation of the world.

Further development of cognitive technologies, primarily deepfake [8], gives attackers unlimited opportunities to create toxic content that can already be classified as weapons of mass destruction by its impact [9].

Thus, the growth of public freedom and the strengthening of tools for its implementation paradoxically develops in parallel with the strengthening of the police power of the state, and this becomes a new norm of everyday life. The second trend is also growing for objective reasons: the desire of states to ensure the safety of citizens, including by restricting their access to the darknet and uncontrolled elements of the network, can hardly be called a dictatorial whim of governments. The degree of deanonymization of users in the network will continue to increase.

The lack of institutions for arbitration or investigation of cyber incidents and cybercrime recognized by all players, as well as the still weak development of digital forensics tools, makes it almost impossible to reliably determine the party responsible for the incident. This, in turn, increases the level of distrust and conflict between countries. At the same time, in the context of the development of new technologies – primarily the Internet of Things and autonomous intelligent systems – it is enough for attackers to have a sufficiently powerful home computer or even a smartphone to crack the security system the hacker may not necessarily be a saboteur or terrorist, but it may also be a technically gifted “teenager”.

Countries ‘ attempt to protect themselves from such infiltration has a number of consequences. First of all, states seek to limit the vulnerability of the network by stimulating import substitution and deep localization – it is easier to trust “their” controlled manufacturer of equipment or solutions. This leads to the disintegration of international production chains and a certain erosion of the principles of the international division of labor. In an environment where everyone who can is starting to produce their own critical hardware and “software” (servers, operating systems, antivirus and security systems), the economic situation is growing. specialization loses its appeal. In addition, the definition of authorized operators, limiting competition in the market inevitably leads to a slowdown in technology development, forcing states to live in a dilemma: progress or security. Here, as in many other aspects of the global digital economy, there is a contradiction between information exchange as a global phenomenon and physical infrastructure that has a territorial connection, and therefore is under a certain sovereignty.

This contradiction is evident in the issue of storing, processing and moving information through Internet channels. Historically, there has been a serious imbalance in the geographical distribution of the basic infrastructure and the nationality of the main Internet players. More than 60 percent of the total number of domains are managed by American players (Verisign, Afilias), more than 50 percent of content delivery networks are owned by American companies (Amazon, Akamai, Cloudflare), all major first-level providers are residents of the United States, and ten of the thirteen DNS servers are located in the United States-servers. It is not surprising that with such an “Internet geography” and the awareness of the US readiness to take very extreme measures in unilateral sanctions [10], states that are not Washington’s direct allies are trying to create an alternative protected contour of the “national, sovereign Internet” – and the number of such states is increasing. On the other hand, according to experts, satellite Internet may displace cable Internet no later than the middle of this century , and the struggle will move to space or the upper atmosphere in a new round [11], but its nature consists in the reluctance of states leaving key infrastructure outside the zone of its sovereign control will continue.

The desire for sovereign control of an increasing number of States is also reflected in their attitude to the issue of storing personal data of citizens. And the European GDPR The Russian so-called “Spring package”, despite all the nuances of each approach, postulate the need for storing personal data by all internet market operators on servers located in national jurisdiction. This approach is aggressively opposed primarily by the Anglo-Saxon member states of the “five eyes system” (USA, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia), pointing out this measure as excessive and suppressing rights and freedoms. Given the imbalances in the Internet space described above, the position of the United States and its allies is understandable. However, as the price increases digitization of a person’s identity, the possibility of his digital identification, moving all his personal data to cloud storage, the cost of an error in protecting such information increases many times. In the event of a breach of the information storage security loop, the identity of a citizen can not just be taken over by intruders – it can be completely erased, and such a digital death will cut off the victims of the attack from the possibility of exercising basic social rights. That is why the increasing strictness of national data storage requirements is becoming the dominant requirement of the era.

For nation-states in the coming years, two crucial questions arise

The first questionis how much they can guarantee the viability of their information-critical infrastructure in the face of cyberwarfare and growing online piracy. Cyber attacks or system failures in networks can permanently shut down entire industries and cities with unpredictable consequences for the country and its population, but the relevance and magnitude of such threats are still far from being realized.

Second question – how well governments understand the principles and methods of ensuring the security of personal data and how the procedure for the turnover of depersonalized big data will be regulated. Mastering such data by another state will allow it to build a reliable picture of the development of the economy and industry, agricultural vulnerabilities, epidemiological situation, consumption profiles, and adjust its political, military, or economic strategy accordingly. Obviously, the accelerated development of national legislation regulating the principles of circulation national big data and entering into interstate negotiations on this issue is a matter of the near future.

States and the future digital world: duopoly or oligopoly?

Even today, the presence of states in the top league of world politics is unimaginable without a development strategy in the global digital environment, the availability of resources, their own ideas and products in this area. The very category of “great power” in the XXI CENTURY this means creating your own technology platforms, and ideally forming a techno-economic block. Mandatory attributes of such a block are a significant chunk of the global market it controls, its own currency zone with an issue center, its own development model, and a set of resources, technologies, and scientific competencies that allow the block to be independent of others, at least in key areas such as defense and critical infrastructure.

The attempt of each of the blocks to exclude the influence of competitors on their critical infrastructure inevitably leads to the politicization of technologies and technology wars. Digital technologies, being end-to-end for the entire modern economic and socio-political space, are becoming the main field of a new war [12]. Cyber attacks on digital critical infrastructure can be no less destructive than nuclear or biological weapons [13].

Against the background of the dominance of a number of developed countries in digital technologies and the emergence of global monopolies that control network infrastructure and data flows, there is a threat of digital inequality and digital colonialism. Digital technological sovereignty is becoming a necessary condition for the sovereignty of political and national independence.

Perestroika of the principles of functioning of international economic relations and the entire model of global geoeconomics provides the leading techno-economic blocks, a kind of” digital neo-colonialists ” of our time, with new opportunities. The gap – now digital-continues to widen between global digital technology providers and recipient countries, which are gradually becoming increasingly dependent on technologically advanced States.

At the current stage, the “digital neocolonialist” countries offer only preferential conditions for creating the infrastructure necessary for the transition to the digital future for objects of economic development. Thus, they immediately ensure that they are linked to their own solutions-from payment systems to data storage systems and electronic document management. But most importantly, they provide themselves with unlimited and almost free access to big data, receiving from this not only an immediate economic effect and an additional advantage when developing their own tools. artificial intelligence and neural networks [14], but also effective tools for controlling their digital colonies.

Digital colonialism will continue to strengthen, and we cannot rule out the revival of the UN Trusteeship Council – already with new, digital functions and powers. At the same time, the canonical borders of the first, second and third world countries have already undergone enormous changes and will continue to change. Former third world countries are given the opportunity to make a conditional leap “from feudalism to socialism, bypassing the stage of capitalism” – creating a new generation of advanced infrastructure without the need to maintain the functioning of the old infrastructure (in its absence).

In this sense, it is possible to foresee the digital breakthrough of the richer states of the Middle East and Africa and their entry into significant roles in the digital arena. Finally, international financial and labor relations are also changing – digital assets move to more comfortable jurisdictions even more easily than financial ones, and leave virtually no traces of such movement. The emergence of cryptocurrencies deprives states of a monopoly on another sovereign right – the right to issue. The concepts of “brain drain” and “labor emigration” are also changing: now national “digital proletarians” do not have to move abroad -they have enough, staying in their home borders, working for a foreign corporation, alienating all their intellectual property, and vice versa-talented hipsters can move to more comfortable climatic conditions, while continuing to develop the national economy.

At the same time, digital technologies that shape both everyday life and the information space of each person are beginning to have an increasingly noticeable impact on their psyche and decision-making practices. The individual not only becomes a slave to the digital platforms of global monopolies, but also really put in a framework where his entire existence is tied to devices – a mobile phone, tablet, “smart watch”. Under the guise of providing convenience, they restrict a person’s choice in decision-making and manipulate their behavior, including by pushing them to follow a “certain route”. In this unequal relationship, digital monopolies expropriate and exploit personal data and even creative content without control, under the threat of exclusion from the social environment.

The widespread adoption of digital technologies, including the digitization of industry and government agencies, and the introductionof 5G networks, creates an imperative to ensure the security and sustainability of the entire digital critical infrastructure. Without solving this problem, digitalization can turn out to be the construction of a “house in the sand”.

In order to eliminate “barricades” and “minefields” on the path of the digital economy, the state must guarantee both the safety of citizens and businesses, as well as clear legal relations in the digital environment. This is especially true for the ownership and use of personal and “depersonalized” data and created content.

Ownership and cost of data is just one of the problems accumulated in the digital environment that urgently need to be addressed. No less urgent is the need to resolve the contradiction between the requirements of national or local data storage and global transparency of technological and corporate processes, where data on engine operation on an aircraft belonging to an airline of one country and flying over another country is processed in real time in a third country.

As techno-economic blocks are formed, competition in the digital space takes the form of a war of platforms and standards [15]. At the same time, a number of countries and regional associations that do not have control over a large part of the global digital market or dominant platforms (for example, India, Brazil, Japan, Russia or the European Union) will have to find common ways to maintain independence and competitiveness, including by creating common platforms based on open architecture and open code.

Russia on the Digital Agenda: Opportunities and Limitations

Russia is one of the few countries that has the technological reserves and human competencies to build its own technological ecosystem. The powerful engineering and mathematics school inherited from the Soviet Union remains a source of a key resource for digital development – qualified personnel. Russia has most of the attributes of a sovereign technology platform. A national search engine has been developed and continues to develop. Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki are still more popular than Facebook and Instagram not only in Russia, but also in most of the CIS countries. Our own cloud technologies are being developed, and domestic processors are being created. Digital solutions of Russian companies have significant export potential – primarily cognitive and self-learning systems, solutions in the field of cybersecurity, secure electronic document management, and platforms for providing services to the public. Launched two years ago, the national Digital Economy program will provide 97 percent of all national households and all social infrastructure facilities (schools, hospitals) by 2024., police stations) with access to high-speed broadband Internet. This will radically change the opportunities for developing entrepreneurship, telemedicine and distance education, and allow Russia to bridge the digital divide. Already, Russia is among the top 10 countries in terms of the number of Internet users, and the Gosuslugi website, with its two trillion annual transactions, is the most popular public service site in the world.

The share of the digital economy in the country’s GDP is growing. Despite the vagueness of the term itself, it is already about 4-5 percent of GDP, but it continues to grow rapidly at a pace comparable to the digital leaders. In addition, Russia has an impressive satellite and radio frequency resource, which is the key to the successful development of new-generation networks.

Thechallenges that Russia faces in the field of digital development shouldnot be underestimated. Some of them are only a “digital” consequence of” analog ” problems and threats. Others have a fundamentally new, original nature. In particular, Western sanctions not only restrict, among other things, access to foreign technologies, but also increase the risks of continuing dependence on such technologies to an unacceptable level. A case related to the refusal of Siemens to supply turbines to Crimea, jeopardized plans to provide the peninsula with heat. If we extrapolate this incident to the digital sphere, a similar failure of SAP, Oracle, CISCO or Microsoft to ensure timely updates of their solutions operating in Russia can cause disruptions – even collapse – in the operation of critical systems, including public administration and the banking sector.

These and other trends in the development of world politics over the past few years have made it more urgent for Russia to form a reliable protection of its own digital critical infrastructure. The implementation of this task depends both on the effectiveness of a gradual and gradual transition from imported software and hardware complexes, and on the creation of an effective command vertical from the regulator to the performer throughout the country.

The decision of the Russian government to create registers of domestic software and electronic equipment is designed to reduce such risks. Without being included in these registers, companies cannot expect to supply their solutions to Russian state corporations and state authorities. Such measures have a long-term positive effect on the development of Russia as a sovereign technological power.

Building counteraction in the field of information security is complicated by conceptual uncertainty – an indistinct separation of two close but different areas related to information flows. Both the security of signals in a physical network carrying information and malicious ideological content in Russian practice are defined by the same concept of “information security”. In the practice of Russian competitors in digital leadership, signal and network security is defined as cybersecurity (cybersecurity) [16]. Countering threats in these two areas requires different competencies. While in Russia there is a sufficient understanding of how to deal with cyber threats, in the field of information content, the Russian strategy requires a separate understanding and development.

Moscow’s accusations of cyber interference in the internal affairs of a number of states were used as a pretext for increasing sanctions pressure and undoubtedly damaged Russia’s international image. However, this campaign also had consequences for a number of large Russian enterprises and firms. They faced problems and discrimination in the markets of some Western countries. Perhaps even more significant than the reputational and even economic consequences are the risks that these accusations will be used by the United States and its allies as arguments for conducting “cyber strikes retaliation” or even “preemptive cyberstrikes” against Russia.

In the information space, Russia’s vulnerabilities are obvious due to the dominance of American monopolies in the domestic segment – Google and Facebook. These monopolies exploit Russian data for free and are increasingly trying to influence the information field and the political situation in Russian domestic politics. This includes manipulating content and restricting Russian users ‘ access to information and communication tools. Other non-Western countries face similar challenges. It makes sense to establish a more active dialogue with them about the principles of digital era legislation, especially in terms of data ownership rights, rules for their storage and use, joint fight against online piracy, and general rules behaviors for governments and businesses on the Internet. The fundamental challenge for Russian legislation in the digital sphere is to keep pace with the development of technologies and practices as dynamically as possible, especially in such important areas for society as cybercrime and digital finance.

Another problem today is the low ability of Russian companies and the government to compete with global corporations for the best personnel. At the same time, there may not be a formal “brain drain” – Russian talents continue to remain in Russia, but provide all the intellectual added value for foreign companies. Given the disparity between the economic potentials of Russian and multinational businesses, the solution to this problem is possible only within the framework of administrative or conceptual (but in any case state) relations.

Also, Russia and Russian companies practically do not work on international platforms to introduce technological standards and regulations that are favorable for the functioning of Russian developments. This is partly due to Russia’s lack of a doctrinal document outlining its own international priorities in this area, similar to the National Security Strategy or Foreign Policy Concept. In the long run, this omission may lead to technological isolation or de facto compulsion of Moscow to work with internationally recognized standards and protocols, including: which Russia did not actually take an active part in.

Roadmap for Russian leadership in the Digital Environment

The Russian digital agenda should reflect the position of our country as one of the main forces in the global system, as an exporter of security and stability. Russia’s global role in the digital world is the role of the leader of the “digital non-aligned movement” for those countries that would like to avoid the technological dictates of the”digital neo-colonialists”.

It is important that the development of the digital sector of the Russian economy, including electronics and information technology, is accompanied by expansion into global markets. Only in this case will Russia be able to recoup its investment in breakthrough technologies, conquer key technology platforms of the next-generation economy, and build large, competitive businesses.

Spread across eleven time zones, Russia (even in a world where distances are dramatically reduced) continues to play the role of a safe link between Europe and Asia. This applies equally to the global energy infrastructure needed to support the highly energy-intensive digital economy of the future, and to the quantum communications network needed for secure data transmission. The cold climate of the northern regions of Russia, coupled with cheap electricity, gives our country competitive advantages in the location of large data storage and processing centers.

One of the most important challenges for Russia today is the implementation of the EAEU digital integration program. It is necessary to ensure that state bodies and businesses of the Union member states can exchange legally relevant documents through the integrated information system of the EAEU (AIS EAEU) in a short time. This will increase the speed of transit cargo passing through the territory of the EAEU, increase the economic effects of this process and improve the quality of integration in the Union.

In addition, Russia, as the main “shareholder” of this process, should contribute to ensuring the interoperability of the EEU information system with the information systems of the CIS member states that tend to integrate, as well as states with which the EEU has or is planning a free trade agreement [17]. Digital integration here can and should outpace physical integration. Another important tool may be a special program (for example, with the Eurasian Development Bank) for implementing national e-government standards in interested countries. partner countries.

The task of expanding the Russian economic and digital space raises the urgent question of finding strategic allies in the digital world and using existing political mechanisms for this purpose. In this regard, we should use the positive potential of our relations with the leading economies of the future – India, Indonesia, Brazil and others.

Equally important is the work on digital dialogue with the European Union. First, digital transport corridors with the experience of seamless transit for business will become possible only if the EEU information system is interoperable with the information systems of Europe and China. Secondly, in the European direction, closer coordination is needed in terms of the use of the radio frequency spectrum – so far there are many contradictions with the EU border states on this issue. The solution to this problem is especially important if in the foreseeable future goods will be moved between countries by unmanned vehicles. In this case, both Russia and the EU you will need a single standard for new-generation networks and a single frequency range allocated to them. Third, Russia and the European Union have adopted comparable (at least in terms of principles) regulatory requirements for the storage and transfer of personal data. It is important to harmonize these requirements for business convenience.

In addition, Russia and the EU are drawn closer by the desire to impose fair taxes on foreign digital giants, primarily American companies. Forming a consensus on the principles of such taxation will help Russia and the EU to act more effectively at multilateral platforms dealing with this issue. In the medium term, the issue of creating a single cross-border “pool” of big data, marked up in a unified way and accessible (including for a certain fee) to third parties, primarily American and Chinese companies, also becomes important [18].

Collaboration with the EU is important, if only because the Russian and European integration blocs are squeezed between two very self – sufficient information platforms-the American and Chinese, each of which is already a “bigdatamonster”. To become an additional center of gravity, Russia and the European Union, which are relatively small in terms of population and data generation, simply need to join forces.

At the same time, common rules and principles for the functioning of national data management systems, which clearly define who and under what conditions this data may or may not be available, will ensure the national security of Russia and the EU. It is obvious that the entire volume of accumulated big data of a state or group of states is of exceptional intelligence, political, economic and military value, and ensuring their safety is one of the key tasks of national security. But there is also a more immediate political argument in favor of starting cooperation between Russia and the EU in the digital sphere. The progressive deterioration of Russian-European relations has drained the bilateral agenda of substantive topics. The issues of developing the digital economy and jointly countering common threats in the digital environment that really bring us together can provide fundamentally new areas for non-confrontational interaction.

A separate point for Russia is relations with the leading digital powers-China and the United States. Unlike the European and Eurasian tracks, joint economic projects with Moscow are extremely unlikely in both cases. Nevertheless, the political situation dictates different logics in relations with Washington and Beijing in this area.

With China, it is necessary to continue to coordinate their positions on international platforms regarding Internet regulation and data security issues. Our approaches are similar, although the Russian one seems more liberal and does not involve creating an analog of the “Great Digital Wall of China”in our country. But there are two other sensitive issues that we need to put aside the awkwardness and start discussing with Beijing.

The first is China’s technological penetration into the EAEU states within the framework of the “digital Silk Road” doctrine. As in the case of Eurasian integration in general, it is important to link and coordinate the actions of Chinese business and the state with the activities implemented within the framework of the EAEU 2025 Digital Agenda.

The second one is thedevelopmentof rules of conduct for Chinese companies in the Russian market of highly qualified labor and startups. Currently, Huawei conducts large-scale work on buying Russian technology companies and attracting Russian specialists to its R & D divisions. At the same time, the company’s salaries are significantly higher than the market, which leads to an influx of specialists from domestic companies. It is obvious that under the conditions of market rules and freedom of choice, this is a natural process, but it is also necessary to discuss compensatory actions for the national economy with the Chinese side. The Chinese side would never allow similar behavior of third-country companies in its market. Expansion of work with universities, localization Not just me&The transition to the creation of joint products, rather than the “cannibalization” of startup solutions, should become requirements for digital companies operating in our country.

Cooperation on political issues with the United States is even more urgent, despite the confrontational nature of bilateral relations. First of all, it is the development of confidence – building measures in cyberspace, discussion of restrictions on the military use of digital technologies, and convergence of approaches to Internet regulation. Russia and the United States could initiate negotiations on the creation of new tools for controlling new types of military technologies. It is also necessary to jointly understand the terminology: when talking about “Russian hackers”, Americans most often cite examples of ” social engineering» [19]. Every effort must be made to restore pragmatism to Russian-American relations, even if Washington is not currently interested in doing so. We are not talking about giving the United States a new credit of trust. Rather, it is about considering each move of Washington carefully and assessing its possible consequences, without considering it as a priori hostile to Russian interests.

Russia needs a coordinated, clearly articulated and structured agenda for work in multilateral organizations such as the ITU, the Digital Twenty, and the OECD. It is hardly reasonable to spend all your time pushing exclusively Russian approaches and engaging in fierce diplomatic battles with your partners. Instead, two groups of “digital truths”should be recognized at least internally.

The first. The location of DNSservers and the main Internet highways really did not work out in favor of Russia. Russia is not a first-level provider. When it comes to shaping the digital agenda, Russia is a major regional power, not the second pole of this system. Individual digital corporations have become so powerful that they talk to states on equal terms.

Second. The world tends much less towards “digital bipolarity” than it might seem. This is especially significant at the level of cyberspace regulation. Despite the proclaimed freedom of movement of information, most countries strive to localize data storage in one form or another. When it comes to digital regulation, all countries are authoritarian. There are areas that require strict regulation, even in more democratic countries. On the other hand, it is irrational to completely deny the concept of “multistakeholderism” – the multiplicity of responsible people – in the development of any decisions, related to regulation and further development of new technologies. The regulator must inevitably engage in a dialogue with technology owners, and this is most often a business. Having realized these realities, Russia will be able to act as a conciliatory state in multilateral associations, determined to find a compromise.

Russia also has a chance to become a representative of the interests of states that want to preserve their digital sovereignty and are not in the mood to be part of the Chinese or American digital empire, but do not have sufficient “subjectivity”for this. Both behaviors will expand our ability to realize our leadership potential, our ” gravity core.” This will make it possible to promote Russian candidates for leadership positions in such multilateral organizations as, for example, the ITU.

A more thorough selection of the members of our delegations and ensuring their versatility should be another important step in restructuring Russia’s work in international organizations. Today, the reality is that Russian diplomats are not always sufficiently aware of the technical aspects of the issues under consideration, while specialized technical specialists do not have enough knowledge of the art of negotiations. A separate role should be assigned to lobbyists – business representatives who are, in fact, the ultimate beneficiary of most decisions made. This kind of ” digital realism” instead of distractions to provocations and foreign policy “noises” orients Russia to exclusively pressing issues of ensuring the country’s digital interests in the world.

Recognizing that the 5G networking plan Russia has completely lost the initiative or the ability to actively influence the agenda, which should push Moscow to focus on preparing our proposals for the 7G network standard (or 6G after all?), to step up efforts to neutralize the threat of isolation of Russia in the issues of the radio frequency spectrum allocated for the needs of a new generation of communications. On this issue, Russian views do not coincide with the vast majority of countries in the world. The peculiarity of digital regulatory regulation is that new laws will be written by those who write the codes, that is, the technical content of the innovation will largely determine its regulatory framework. Therefore, it is important to increase the participation of Russian specialists in the development of standards and protocols for tomorrow’s technologies.

Among the technology markets of the future, the market for platforms for sovereign critical infrastructure – cybersecurity systems, communications, energy management, transport, financial flows and urban management systems, biosecurity and food control-stands out in particular. In the face of increasing tensions and uncertainty in the world, States are forced to pay increasing attention to their security and strengthen national control over their critical infrastructure.

The sovereign critical infrastructure market, which represents many trillions of dollars of orders for decades to come, is much like the global arms market. Decisions about technology partnerships are made at the sovereign level on the “friend – or-foe” principle, sales are made by systems, not components, implementation implies a high level of trust with localization of some technologies and forms a long-term political influence.

As in the arms market, Russia has its own “niche” in the market of sovereign critical infrastructure, estimated at 2030 percent of the total global market [20]. An important factor is that Russia positions itself as one of the leaders in the security systems market and has engineering schools with extensive experience in creating complex systems.

For Russia, the critical sovereign infrastructure market may become the most promising export destination. Recognized unique competencies in creating complex systems make Russia one of the leading potential suppliers of such systems – along with the United States and partly China. The independent software and hardware environment created in Russia is also an obvious competitive advantage. The “cold war” situation between the United States and China hypothetically opens up markets for Russia in the countries of Greater Eurasia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, which will try to reduce their technological infrastructure. and political dependence on the warring parties.

Having established itself as a “security exporter” in Eurasia, Russia can become a guarantor of its partners ‘ technological sovereignty. The presence of a trillion-dollar market of potential partners and unique competencies can help build a high-tech export strategy for years to come [21]. Thus, the country will have the opportunity to ensure its own security, increase international influence and try its hand at advancing technological development.

However, the conquest of sovereign critical infrastructure markets is impossible without the creation of breakthrough integrated platform solutions. Similarly, the implementation of such a strategy is impossible without creating strong ties with technological partners, without creating Russian educational and technological bases abroad [22].

Conclusions

Against the background of virtualization of all aspects of social life, the militarization of the information space is taking place. Taking advantage of the lack of borders in the digital space and generally accepted rules of conduct in it, states and organizations under their control distribute biased and disinformation content in order to promote their own interests and values. New technologies for creating virtual reality, such as deepfake They leave virtually no chance for the average person to separate lies from reality and can provoke religious and ethnic conflicts, destroy families, and destroy the reputations of politicians and innocent people with impunity.

In the coming years, the question of the regulatory structure of the entire global Internet will inevitably arise. Under the pressure of the block technological confrontation-mainly between the United States and China – and the ideological and political struggle, it is already divided into digital “enclaves”. The basic value of the Internet as a global equal and democratic environment (web neutrality The attempts promoted, in particular, by the United States, to make the quality and speed of network traffic dependent on the client’s wallet, also undermine it. The inclusiveness of the Internet is becoming the key to reducing digital inequality, and with it, the guarantor of global economic growth and social development.

Big data as the” new oil ” of the digital age should have an understandable owner and an understandable cost for the individual, business and the state. Only if a person and a citizen become the center of services and services in the digital environment, a balance of human rights, national priorities and business interests will be ensured, and it will be possible to regulate the currently uncontrolled global digital monopolies for the benefit of the entire society. Deleting the pages of President Trump and his supporters, as well as “deplatforming” the popular social network Parler among Republicans They clearly outline the prospect of actions by tech giants to eliminate economic and political competitors if these tech giants decide to operate outside the United States. If ideological opponents can be dealt with so harshly and relatively easily in the United States, why can’t this practice be made extraterritorial? Moreover, there are already precedents.

For Russia, the minimum task is to preserve its sovereignty when making decisions affecting the main areas of national security>. The maximum goal is to create your own competitive technological ecosystem, become the leader of the techno-economic block and a key participant in the process of developing new rules of the game in this area. In this sense, gaining economic sovereignty is a simpler task than gaining informational sovereignty. But it seems that the survival of states in the future depends on its solution.

Export oftechnologies and competencies for protecting sovereign critical infrastructure to countries that want to ensure their independence and defense capability can and should become one of the most important political and foreign economic priorities of Russia. This will provide the country with a significant financial inflow and international influence. This is exactly the path that the powers claiming leadership positions in this area are already following.

Currently, the implementation of the critical infrastructure technology export strategy is hindered by the lack of experience of Russian high-tech companies in creating integrated platform solutions, their weak presence in the markets of potential partners, and insufficient financial capacity to work on large long-term projects.

As civilizational and ideological confrontation escalates and examples of subversive information activity become more frequent, more and more countries are paying attention to the need for more careful monitoring of malicious and subversive content on the Internet. In the United States, where an information war is being waged between hostile political forces – as the 2020 presidential campaign showed-digital monopolies are resorting to outright censorship and manipulation in favor of their ideological supporters.

Russia should think about mechanisms for actively forming the information space, which would allow it to lead in terms of relevance and quality of content and thereby limit foreign influence in its information space.

The challenge of the new age is ” impatience of the spirit»: a short clip or post on a social network “wins” a full-fledged news report or analytical article, the variety of multimedia experiences distracts a person’s attention, and the speed of changes turns life into a race against time. The conservative, traditionally unhurried sphere of interstate communication is forced to change, ” run very fast in order to at least stay in place.” States that can quickly rebuild clumsy foreign policy mechanisms faster than others have every chance to take a leading position in this area. a fast-paced “brave new world”.

The post INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AND DIGITAL LEADERSHIP first appeared on Global Policy.

It is symbolic that exactly 41 years ago, on November 26, 1975, the United States adopted the national security Memorandum NSSM-200 (National Security Study Memorandum), which set the task to control the growth of the world’s population and ensure a global decline in fertility.

THE TALE OF OVERPOPULATION OR THE CREEPING GENOCIDE OF HUMANITY

The reason was that further population growth poses a threat to US dominance over global resources, as it increases political instability in the world, especially in rapidly growing regions. It took less than half a century for humanity to face the real threat of the end of the pension system on a global scale.

Shami notes that just half a century ago, in 1965, the proportions in the world between children under 15 and old people over 65 were about 7:1, including in Africa 14:1, Asia and Latin America-11: 1, Europe and North America-3: 1. At present, according to the UN, this proportion in the world is even less than 3:1, and is steadily deteriorating, and on the global age pyramid, you can see that about 30 years ago, the growth of a younger population sharply slowed down. After 10 years, the NSSM-200 began to bear its thin fruit. The world quickly began to age…

NSSM-200

The NSSM-200 Memorandum was the two-hundredth analytical document submitted by national security adviser Henry Kissinger to the President of the United States. On November 26, 1975, it was approved by President Gerald Ford and remained classified until the early 1990s.With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many goals could not be hidden.

Making up 6% of the world’s population, the Memorandum says, the US consumes a third of the world’s resources, and they are mostly located in regions with rapidly growing populations. Therefore, it is in the interests of the United States to control the growth of their population, which threatens unpredictable consequences. The United States was recommended to start a long-term program to reduce the birth rate around the world by all available methods, involving various international organizations – who, UNICEF, UNESCO, the world Bank, the International Federation of “family planning” and so on.

THE ERA OF GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION

The most threatening to US interests were named 13 countries: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. Some of them do not reproduce themselves today (Thailand), some-on the verge (Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil).

Henry Kissinger defines the ways to achieve this goal:

1. The introduction of “family planning” as an integral part of the health systems of “underdeveloped” countries and the strict linking of the development of any medical services, especially in the field of motherhood and childhood, with “family planning”. Simply put, medicine in exchange for a lower birth rate.

2. The development of medical technologies for the neutralization and suppression of human fertility.

3. The introduction of “family planning” as a right (“safe sex” and so on) into the minds of the younger generation, that is, spiritual corruption. Moreover, the Memorandum recommends “influencing national leaders” on this issue.

HOLLYWOOD AS A SUPRANATIONAL WEAPON

After 40 years, we can say with bitterness that the plan was a success, when the call of Turkish President Recep Erdogan to give birth to three children even many Turks were subjected to derogatory criticism-before the plan of supranational elites to reduce the population as their alleged PERSONAL choice for the right to “family planning” (in fact – to have as few children as possible) took root in the minds of people.

Kissinger writes that ” there is an urgent need to take a number of measures to start reducing the birth rate and do it effectively in the 1970s and 1980s.” Now, looking back, it becomes clear that the debauchery that became the norm in Hollywood at that time (how strikingly different are the films made before the 1960s!), was an integral part of the global plan.

“The key factor in the effective use of existing contraceptive techniques has been and remains the problem of education. Without reducing the efforts aimed at the adult population, it is necessary to focus on the younger generation – those who are now in elementary school or even younger, ” Kissinger suggests.

The Memorandum provides for “orientation of new generations to create a small family”. “The desired family size is four or more children.” Therefore, “it is imperative to convince the General public that it is in their individual and national interest to have an average of three and then two children,” the secret plan says. In order to avoid suspicion, “we must make sure that our activities are not perceived by developing countries as policies of a developed country directed against these countries.”

As for the implementing organizations of the plan, ” the US should bring together donor countries, who, UNFPA, UNICEF and the world Bank to create a consortium that would help the most needy countries in the organization… a health system that will be an integral part of family planning.” UNESCO was asked to lead the work with primary school students. The current school “sexprosvet” grows legs from there.

It is noteworthy that in 1989, in the pages of the magazine “Washington Quarterly” in the article “Global demographic trends in 2010 in the aspect of US security”, the Pentagon openly called for “population planning” to be given the status of a program for the development of new weapons! It is not known whether this was done, but in fact the NSSM-200 became a real weapon in the demographic war waged against the whole world. And before humanity in it loomed the real threat of defeat and-enslavement. In fact, it had a global character and was only framed in terms of the state. The real customer was the bigger players.

MYTHS ABOUT OVERPOPULATION OF THE EARTH

Ordering supranational elites

According to the historian Andrei Fursov, in 1974 in the United States was over “creeping coup”, which began with the shooting of John F. Kennedy and ended with the removal of Richard Nixon, when power over the United States established transnational corporations, designed in supranational structures. By that time, the club of Rome (1968) and the Tripartite Commission (1973) had been established. Kissinger was one of their active participants and actually ran the United States in the 1970s.

Interestingly, the NSSM-200 memo was filed with the new President Ford four months after Nixon’s ouster.

As Olga Chetverikova, a specialist in closed Western structures, writes, in the early 1970s, transnational business, having “pumped out” everything necessary from the economy of mass consumption and the state of “universal welfare”, came to the conclusion that it is necessary to develop a strategy for global governance. The Rome club and the Trilateral Commission have become new front structures (the real ones can only be guessed at), uniting representatives of the world’s political, financial and scientific elites and implementing the ideas of globalism.

THE SECOND CIRCUIT OF POWER IN THE WEST AND CAPITALISM

It was during these years that the reports of the Rome club “limits of growth” (1972) appeared with the aim of controlling the growth of the world’s population, “Humanity at a turning point” (1974), “Revision of the international order” (1975) – the names of which speak for themselves – as well as the famous “Crisis of democracy” (1975) – about the need to create a “managed democracy” in the interests of the ruling elites. They, and not the US state, were the main customers of the plan for total control of The earth’s population, at first – at the level of population management.

At the same time, a new term was introduced, which entered the Russian language as “sustainable development”, although this is not entirely accurate. Sustainable development means, rather, development supported by long-term interests, that is, managed. Thus, in the 1970s, the goal was announced-global governance in the interests of the world’s ecology. However, the goal of supranational elites was and remains global power. Birth control out of concern for the environment is only one of the means.

International legalization

FEMINIZM AS AN IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON OF GLOBALISM

The International conference on population and development in Cairo in 1994 adopted a Programme of action that reaffirmed the right of all married couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly on the number of their children and the length of time between their births. What was new in this Programme of action was that the focus should be on the individual and their rights. Ensuring universal access to” family planning services ” (i.e., ways to reduce the birth rate) has been identified as one of the main goals on a global scale. That is, humanity’s dissatisfaction with “family planning services” and its rapid growth was recorded as a postulate. The policy of all-round reduction of the birth rate was legalized.

Tragic result

According to the UN forecast (the average version), the world’s population will grow until the end of the XXI century.

POPULATION OF THE EARTH IN THE PERIOD 1950-2100 YEARS

However, its growth rate will steadily decline.

The total fertility rate will also decrease. In the middle of the century, the average birth rate on Earth will fall below the level of simple reproduction, that is, humanity will begin to die out, although its population will still grow by inertia.

At the same time, the age structure of the world population will deteriorate. Since the mid-1960s, when children made up 40% of the world’s population, their numbers have been steadily decreasing. The proportion of old people, on the contrary, is growing all the time and will continue to grow. The current three-fold superiority of children will double in the early 2030s, and around 2070 there will be fewer children than old people. Earth will become the planet of old men. However, the big problems begin now, because all these trends are already in effect, especially in the “developed countries”, and the working population is declining.

The median age of the World’s population is also growing steadily. In 40 years, it has grown from 21 years to 30 years, and by the end of the century will reach 42 years. The world will become a world of pensioners. The trouble is that the old people will no longer be pensioners by that time: they will have no one to pay their pensions.

MEDIAN AGE OF THE EARTH’S POPULATION IN YEARS

On all charts, we can see that the first 20-25 years after the Second world war, the population really multiplied rapidly: the number of children increased, the annual population growth accelerated, the birth rate was very high (about 5), the median age decreased. The world was a world of young people who had a future to build, and it was encouraging. Less than half a century later, the world quickly grew old, and the future darkened, burdened with the main concern for food.

Gloomy prospect

In 1970, only 0.7% of the World’s population was over 80 years old. According to the UN forecast, by the end of the XXI century, this will be almost one in ten. In 1995, Italy became the first country in the world where the number of elderly people aged 65 years exceeded the number of children under 15 years, after which almost all countries in Europe experienced this ominous change. Aging is expected all over the world: by 2050, everywhere except Africa, the share of the population from 60 years and older will be 25-30%!

PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION AGED 60 YEARS BY REGION OF THE EARTH

All this will happen against the background of a declining birth rate. Already, 75 countries (almost half of the World’s population) have a birth rate below the level of simple reproduction, which is just over two children per woman. In General, in the world it is about 2.5, that is, only slightly higher than the level of simple replacement of generations.

FUTURE MIGRATIONS OF PEOPLES. . HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF UNTIL IT IS REALIZED

This means that almost half of the planet is already virtually extinct, and in General the planet is facing a real prospect of global extinction. The population structure is rapidly deteriorating almost all over the world. And with it, a real threat of extinction looms over the social state. As can be seen from the global fertility map, almost all over the world, except for Africa and some countries in South Asia, the total fertility rate is below the global average.

That is, almost the entire world, except for these regions, is either facing the immediate threat of inability to reproduce itself, or already in a state of hidden extinction (when the population is still growing by inertia, but the birth rate is already below the level of reproduction), or at all at the stage of explicit extinction (Europe). The” end of history ” that Fukuyama dreamed of is quite real, and it is clearly visible in the demographic dimension.

WHO NEEDS LGBT PEOPLE

The UN predicts that by the end of the twenty-first century, almost the entire world will die out: the birth rate will ensure the reproduction of the population only in some countries of Central Africa. This managed “sustainable development” will become total control in exchange for maintaining the lives of an aging population that will only be interested in old-age benefits. “Family planning” in the long run turns out to be a slow way to take away humanity’s freedom in exchange for the Chimera of “reproductive rights”. Although it is precisely the right to procreation that is most hindered. This explains the worldwide decline in financial support for families. And all the tools continue to work to reduce the birth rate: propaganda of egoism, individualism, careerism, consumerism, equality, sodomy, contraception, sterilization, abortion, euthanasia, debauchery and other abominations. The fact that this plan is not subject to revision, recently said us President-elect Donald trump, when he said that about Sodom “marriages” “the issue has already been resolved.”

SODOM

The stable state of humanity that some dreamers dream of, when the population simply moves to a stable zero population growth, is impossible without breaking the fundamental institutions of marriage and the state. Before humanity reaches this imaginary stable state, it is doomed to a catastrophic deterioration of its socio-economic situation, when, rather, will agree to give all power in private hands, if only they provide it with a minimum that the “demographically exhausted” state will no longer be able to fulfill. This will be the finest hour of transnational corporations, which will declare that they are more effectively performing those services that can not be performed by the state, and will take all power into their own hands. In fact, the process of discrediting the state as an effective economic regulator has been unfolding for several decades, when private companies duplicate state institutions under the pretext that they supposedly more effectively perform their role. Like, what difference does it make who provides services to the population, because the state is only a tool for providing services. The term “public services” is promoted for a reason.

And as for the desired stable state, in demographic science, a stable population is one that is characterized by a constant level of birth rate and mortality and a constant age structure. That is, for example, a stably dying population is also stable, since at the same time it changes by the same relative value, only “in minus”. “Sustainable development” in fact turns out to be a planned and managed “legacy”.

In Russia, the nssm-200 plan has largely achieved its goals. “The rapid political, economic, social and demographic changes that took place in the Russian Federation in the 1990s have historical significance and far-reaching consequences,” the UN population Fund mission said in a report. Unfortunately, this is true: the damage to Russia has been done for decades. However, since the beginning of the XXI century, our country has embarked on the path of restoring sovereignty. As psychologists Irina Medvedeva and Tatiana Shishova write, ” Russia’s policy should be aimed at multiplying and protecting life, and not at planning non-existence.” At the same time, the policy of a country is largely determined by its residents by their actions or inaction.

The post GLOBAL POPULATION MANAGEMENT PLAN first appeared on Global Policy.

Telegram company admitted a bug with the leak of confidential data

She also explained that this is not a bug, but the organization of its work.

DIAGRAM OF THE EXPLOIT FOR THE MESSENGER TELEGRAM

Diagram of the exploit. Left to right:

1) the script generates a contact list with 10 000 phone numbers in order;
2) added to the group of protesters;
3) Telegram tells which users from the contact list are already in the group;
4) the script generates a new contact list and repeats the above steps until you go through all the numbers.

The scheme of alleged actions of the Hong Kong police is shown in the screenshot above.

The police generate a contact list with thousands of phone numbers in order. It is added to the group of protesters. Telegram tells you which users from the contact list are already in the group. This scheme can be easily automated to search a large number of phone numbers.

Activists say that in this way you can find phone numbers even if the user has specified in the telegram settings to show no one your phone number.

Binding to a phone number is one of the main disadvantages of the messenger, which tries to preserve the anonymity of users. The authorities have rich tools to de-anonymize users by their phone numbers, to track their movements, identify other phone numbers that are always nearby, and so on.

Basic information law enforcement agencies can immediately request from the telecommunications company

After the information about the telegram exploit appeared, the information was checked and confirmed by several information security specialists.

“Telegram phone number privacy has been discussed since the beginning of this year, ” says Chu Ka — cheong, Director of the Hong Kong Internet society and one of the software engineers who independently confirmed the error. — We knew that setting the privacy of the number to “My contacts” would allow people from the contact list to see your number, so activists always asked people to set the setting .

“Nobody” expecting it to hide a phone number in a public group. Until today, we didn’t know that setting “Nobody” would still allow users who have stored their phone number in the address book to map the phone number to public group members. It was a revelation to all of us.”

PRIVACY SETTINGS IN TELEGRAM

Setting “Nobody” will still allow users who have saved their phone number in the address book to map the phone number to public group members.

After the disclosure of this bug, users began to actively leave the groups of protesters in Telegram. Activists worry that this will make it difficult to coordinate future demonstrations and actions.

Chu said there is no workaround at the moment to avoid this data leak. Protesters are advised to switch to disposable SIM cards registered anonymously or in someone else’s name instead of their main phone numbers. But it is obvious that the bulk of users will not be able to do this.

Unfortunately, for many users of the messenger Telegram is too late

AS IN HONG KONG NEATLY CRUSHED THE MAIDAN, WITHOUT VIOLATING ANY LETTER OF THE LAW

“We suspected that some government — sponsored attackers used this error and used it to calculate Hong Kong protesters, in some cases creating an immediate danger to the lives of protesters, “Chu says of the so-called” aunts”, that is, bandits who came to Hong Kong from mainland China and perform informal tasks of the security services, including dealing with activists.

Chu Ka-Chong says that Telegram is now the main channel of communication, and it is very difficult to abandon it: “Switching to another application such as Signal is not a viable option for us,” he said. “Because the way protesters communicate strongly depends on the support of very large groups [ … ] that Telegram has really good support for,” Chu said.

“On the other hand, Signal or Wire groups are limited to a few hundred people, and Signal shows everyone your phone number anyway. Some of us already use Signal and Wire in a small closed group, but public discussions and announcements will still rely heavily on Telegram.”

Response Telegram

Edition ZDNet asked for comments to the Telegram, and the company has studied the problem: “we Have protective measures to prevent the import too many contacts — it was to prevent such a scenario,” — said the representative of the Telegram [actually confirming that the bug with leak of confidential data is a feature]. — Our data shows that the bot in the screenshots was locked to import contacts after two seconds — and it managed to successfully import 85 contacts (not 10,000). Once you get banned from importing contacts, you can add a maximum of five new numbers per day. The rest of the contacts you add will look like they don’t use Telegram, even if they do.”

However, experts say that this limitation can be circumvented

An attacker with rich resources, like a government intelligence Agency, can easily use multiple bots rather than one — and end up importing the entire sequence of phone numbers he wants to cover.

The essence of the problem is that the users themselves did not expect such a trick from the messenger. They expected the “Nobody” setting to forbid viewing their phone numbers, whether they were on the contact list or not.

But Telegram said that this particular setting doesn’t work like that, and it never worked like that: “there’s no mistake: just like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, Telegram messenger is based on phone contacts. This means you should be able to see your contacts who are also using the app, the company said in a statement. – Phone number settings control phone number visibility for users who don’t HAVE your number (unlike WhatsApp, which shows your phone number to everyone in any group).”

Thus, Telegram confirms that once your phone number is added to any contact list, this person (the attacker) will be able to associate it with the “anonymous” nickname of the user, regardless of the settings.

Telegram warns users that the “Nobody” setting doesn’t actually act the way they think it does. And it’s not a mistake, everything works as it should.

It turns out that the developers of Telegram (like most other messengers) deliberately sacrificed the anonymity of users for the sake of the growth of the social graph. Through address books, it is easier for users to establish contacts with their friends. This helps the” viral ” spread of the messenger and the growth of the audience.

The post FOR MANY PARTICIPANTS OF THE CHINESE MAIDAN IN HONG KONG IT IS TOO LATE first appeared on Global Policy.

Despite the exotic, at first glance, the nature of the idea of the us President, such initiatives fit within the framework of the American political tradition.

The same Greenland States tried to buy twice: in 1946 the head of state Harry Truman offered Denmark for the island of $100 million, and in 1967, the Kingdom rejected the first request of the US State Department on the deal (then it was also supposed to include neighboring Iceland).

The history of territorial expansion of the United States in General is inseparable from the history of land purchases by the country’s leadership

In 1803 France was bought “territory of Louisiana” (not to be confused with the present state of Louisiana, which occupies only a small part of this “territory”) for $15 million. This acquisition, President Thomas Jefferson more than 2 million sq. km virtually doubled the size of the States and opened the possibility of expansion in the valley of the Mississippi and West of it. In 1819, Florida was acquired from Spain. Formally, the territory was ceded, because Madrid had neither the strength nor the ability to defend it, but de facto it was bought — the USA government paid more than $5 million to settle other land disputes on the continent with a European country at the same time with the deal. In 1853, the U.S. paid $10 million to Mexico for 120 000 sq km, the state needs to align the boundaries (now these lands is Arizona the city of Tucson, which is named in honor of a popular car model).

In 1867, America pulled off one of the most famous territorial transactions — $7.2 million for Alaska received tsarist Russia. In the United States purchase caused controversy: critics sarcastically called a new earth, the benefits of the acquisition which in the 60-ies of the XIX century was not obvious, “Seward’s icebox” — named after then Secretary of state William Henry Seward (he was the first author of the idea of buying Greenland).

Later, the Philippines and the virgin Islands joined the States in the same “business” way. For example, the apparent arbitrariness of the amounts of political transactions: if in the densely populated and strategically important to the balance of forces in the Pacific region of the Philippines in 1898 the United States paid Spain $20 million for a tiny (346 sq miles) of virgin Islands in 1917 Denmark (by the way, the owner of Greenland.) — $25 million.

In the last 100 years, the territorial business activity of the us government has come to naught. The world by the beginning of the XX century was already divided, there were no significant “free” and undeveloped territories on the planet, and the fall of the colonial system led to the fact that the purchase and sale of land is considered as something unacceptable and “absurd”. Trump and his advisers could not help but guess the reaction of the Danish authorities, but still threw into the information field the topic of the acquisition of Greenland. Why?

Another reason could be the growing rivalry in the Arctic — at stake and access to natural resources, and geopolitical interests.

This struggle becomes particularly relevant against the background of formally denied by trump global warming, obvious in the polar regions due to the melting of ice. Just recently, Iceland was buried the first “victim” of climate change — melted glacier Ocicoll.

The melting of ice has the potential to facilitate access to mineral deposits in the Northern Islands. Kudlow in the interview really emphasizes the rich bowhead stocks “valuable minerals.”

It is very likely that with loud verbal interventions, the us leadership would first of all want to expand its economic presence in Greenland — to stake out the rights to mining of the island’s not yet mined minerals. In the future race for Arctic wealth, the very interest in buying Danish territory can be a serious help for Trump.

The rich Greenland

More than 80% of the island is covered by ice. The population is only about 60 thousand people. But the coast is quite fish, and in the depths of a lot of useful things. And as the melting of glaciers to extract minerals easier.

Greenland has oil, uranium, and rare earth metals: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. They are vital for modern high-tech industries, but more than 70% is produced in China, with which Trump is a trade war.

China also bought the largest deposits in Africa. And even if he keeps his promise not to limit supplies to the world market, open stocks will last only for a couple of decades. The USA is the richest country on the planet, the world leader in high technologies and the world’s largest oil producer. To save these positions Greenland America by the way.

Why Greenland Pentagon

Copyright holder illustrations Keystone-France / Getty Images Image caption Thule us Military base in Greenland built in the 1950s.

The island is located in the strategically important Arctic. Through Greenland is the shortest path from Europe to North America, and geographically it is much closer to the latter, though it is an Autonomous territory of European Denmark. Strategically it would be great to buy Greenland, Trump explained his plans.

Since the cold war with the USSR, the US has a military base on the island. And the Pentagon is not against expanding its presence in the Arctic to counter threats from China and Russia.

China is nurturing the idea of an Arctic trade route, and last year was going to build two airports in Greenland – but Denmark has convinced the authorities of autonomy to give her both contracts.

Russia, for its part, is increasing its military power in the Arctic by expanding its northernmost military base ,the Arctic Shamrock, on Franz Josef land. The Nagurskoye airfield located there is almost ready to receive heavy Il-78s, which are used to refuel fighters and bombers in the air.

The post BATTLE FOR GREENLAND first appeared on Global Policy.

However, on closer examination, the event highlighted two extremely important points. First, such a direct formulation is usually not peculiar to Chinese diplomacy. The culture of the middle Kingdom, as well as traditions, especially business, and especially public and official communication in Pakistan are based on allegories, hints and very soft streamlined formulations. To clear specifics it comes only when very much pressed. Secondly, it turned out that some key indicators of the strategic project “Belt and Road” do not stand the test of practice.

Pakistan has become a key partner of China in Asia is not accidental

And not even because China is very large and rich. As one of the poorest countries in the region, Pakistan had been seeking economic growth for many years. In the life of their choice are usually small. It is possible to develop only at the expense of market capacity, internal or external. For beginners, the internal volumes are usually small and do not allow to start rapidly.

All successful projects of the past years, from Japan and South Korea to Western Europe, Malaysia, Singapore and even China itself, were implemented in the same way. At the heart of success lies the opening of access to the rich domestic consumer market of some of the grants, plus their investment in the development of local industries.

Plants are built on investments, the products of which are sold profitably on the foreign market, providing an opportunity for themselves to spread caviar on sandwiches, and return the money invested, and improve the economic way of life, and raise the prosperity of their own population, thereby expanding domestic demand, increasing the pace of economic growth.

For a number of reasons, Islamabad was seriously late for the start

European and American markets were overcrowded. Of all the options, only China remained, also demonstrating a desire to “be friends with houses” and give money “without political conditions”, which strongly distinguished its investments from Western ones, always associated with serious interference in internal Affairs.

This is how the China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) project, which is part of the global Belt and Road plan, emerged. Beijing announced its readiness to invest 62 billion dollars, which for a country with its own GDP for 2012 in 214 billion looked fantastic. And it would be fine if the money itself, the calculations promised not just new roads, bridges and expansion of ports, there was an opportunity to raise the rate of economic growth from the then 4.5−5 to 8-9% per year. The difference in” three percentage points ” provided additional income, which allowed to repay loans while maintaining the process of economic development.

More accurately, must was provide, but, as it turned out, not secured. At the moment, Chinese companies have already invested about 55 billion dollars. The flagship of the cooperation is Gwadar port (the opening ceremony took place in 2016) and the first in Pakistan orange line metro line in Lahore, which is scheduled to open in March 2019.

This is not counting a few power plants, Railways and highways, bridges, water treatment plants and other infrastructure. All this is excellent, but the growth of the promised additional “three percentage points” has not led.

China has built only the transport infrastructure, for which the capacity of the domestic Pakistan economy was absolutely insufficient. Yes, in General, this was not planned. According to the CPEC, the flow of Chinese goods to Europe and Africa was supposed to flow, but by now the external conditions have changed greatly in relation to how they looked in 2002-2004, when the idea of a “Belt and Road” was just being formed.

The Sino-American economic war began a decade and a half earlier than expected

The closure of the us market and sanctions have significantly lowered demand in Europe, and even forced the celestial Empire on the move to adjust the project in the direction of construction, especially of the Asian economic space, and at a much higher rate. According to the initial plan, this stage was not to begin until 2030.

Judging by what is happening, in the project “Belt and Road” there was a serious misalignment, the consequences of which are beginning to appear publicly now. Instead of the growth of mutual trade and export revenues, Pakistan and China began to increase the trade deficit. More precisely, the foreign trade deficit as a whole, 2/3 of which are in China.

If for 2012-2015 the volume of Pakistan exports to China increased by 77%, the trade deficit with it almost doubled, from 9.3 to 16.5 billion dollars., and by the end of 2017 it reached 20 billion with China’s share in the country’s exports is 8%, while in a much poorer Afghanistan — 7%, as much as in Germany.

At the same time, the external debt of Islamabad reached 33.1 billion dollars, 57.4% of which is also accounted for by China. Already in 2015, the government of the country gave the company China Overseas Port Holding for rent for 43 years, not only the port of Gwadar, but the right to create a free economic zone around it. Under the agreement, Beijing takes 91% of all revenues of the port and 85% of the revenues of the “free zone”. The press mentions a number of similar, in fact, transactions “to repay the debt” for other key objects.

However, this is not something out of the ordinary. Similarly, for debts Beijing took Sri Lanka they also built the Hambantota port. 99-year lease. With the right to deduct in their favor almost all revenue from economic activities. At the same time, out of 48.3 billion dollars of the “Chinese” debt of Sri Lanka, the agreement “closed” only 1.1 billion.

As a result of these processes, Pakistan is at an impasse. Instead of increasing revenues, participation in the CPEC turns on the contrary to their reduction and growth of debt. Yes, actually loans Red dragon provides very cheap, much lower than the world market, but it allows them to invest only in infrastructure facilities under local government guarantees. For example, a loan for the construction of a power plant costs 3.7−4.3% per annum, but at the same time the government of Pakistan guarantees the investor a subsequent income of 34% per annum for 30 years. There was a situation that has no easy way out.

On the one hand, China is eager to invest at least another 12 “planned” billion dollars in the Pakistani economy, and, according to some reports, more (up to 20-24 billion), but it can not, because there is nowhere. In this small country, all serious and profitable already “Spud”. The potential for increasing food production for export to China is small. No, the demand for it is huge, but the problem lies in the lack of fertile soils and even greater lack of water for irrigation. If the second is still somehow possible to solve, the first-no. The Chinese need, first of all, cheap food, because the Israeli technology of vertical hydroponic farms does not suit them.

On the other hand, the authorities of Islamabad see how the investor’s gold is turning into shards, and begin to gradually limit the areas of access, demanding new factories instead of new roads. And once with a high amount of contributions to the Treasury from their activities. Why else? China is not interested in such conditions due to the presence of significantly more profitable (read — cheap) alternatives in the form of Cambodia and India. Here, by the way, the Indo-Pakistani confrontation is in the hands of Beijing. To circumvent the main regional enemy, new Delhi agrees to rather sweet conditions.

It came to the point that the government of Pakistan was forced to start negotiations on a stabilization loan with the IMF. It appealed to China too. Moreover, it even received $ 3 billion, but not in the form of a grant and not under the standard for the IMF 2.7−3.5%, but at an average commercial rate. Without any discounts on strategic partnership.

It’s not because Islamabad as something special framed or China somehow uniquely greedy. All easier and more cynical. The accumulated discrepancies between the plan and reality is already significantly beyond the possibilities of purely tactical tools. There comes a moment of truth with a test of strength of the whole concept of the project “Belt and Road”.

It was originally intended to invest a lot of money in improving logistics and improving the efficiency of transport channels to key markets in Europe and America, while significantly reducing the cost of delivery of goods and receiving raw materials. Related “roadside businesses” in transit countries were mentioned and even estimated in the discussions, but they were not of key importance in the framework of the strategic idea as a whole. They were just a nice added bonus, increasing the attractiveness of the project for local governments. The main income was planned from servicing transit flows.

In theory, everything had to work normally

The formation of the infrastructure provided for the loading of Chinese industry now, and transit revenues became not only a very long-term (at least until the last quarter of this century, and even before the next) external source of financial well-being of China, but also created the preconditions for obtaining new infrastructure orders.

Further, as once in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the rapid growth of the middle class in transit countries, caused by this powerful expansion of the capacity of domestic markets, the further growth of demand for everything (including houses, roads and other benefits of civilization) and all this is completely confined to the industrial and financial block of China. Asia is turning into a new economic center of the world, and China is becoming the only center and unconditional hegemon in Asia.

But now it becomes clear that this is the way “to everyone’s joy” the process can not go. A major review of the strategy is required. Asia is already beginning to tear from the apparent overabundance of Chinese money. The territory and population it is large, but the actual purchasing power and scale of its economy is inferior to the Red dragon by orders of magnitude. Almost like a cat to an elephant. If the “Belt and Road” project continues in its current form, then within 3-5 years the potential for development will be simply chosen, Chinese investment from the development tool will inevitably turn into shackles of colonization.

And though China Civilization and ancient as the history of mammoths, but of experience in the construction of the colonies and control them from China is not quite the word. While the experience of the twentieth century clearly proves that with due perseverance and a high degree of economic exploitation by the metropolis, the colonies successfully impose on it the war of independence, which the metropolis consistently loses with serious losses for itself.

What is happening with Pakistan is an important bell indicating an increase in the risk of changing the attitude of neighbors to Beijing from friendly to negative. War, of course, will not go, but to start “expel investors” are quite capable. But whether the Chinese leadership, and most importantly-will be able to “protect investment” for decades to fight with the guerrillas, for example, in the jungle of Borneo — the question is more than interesting.

So there is every reason to expect serious changes in the Chinese strategy of the “Belt and Road”. However, to predict what they will be, today is impossible. But they will be for sure, as Beijing simply has no other option.

The post CHINESE PROJECT “BELT AND ROAD” SERIOUSLY STALLED IN PAKISTAN first appeared on Global Policy.