Wednesday, August 1 2018 13:42

ArmInfo.The prosecution of the incumbent CSTO Secretary General is perceived in Russia as an insulting and demonstrative step, perhaps even inspired by the third  side. I will venture to say that those who took this decision in  Yerevan, did not consider its international consequences, famous  Russian analyst, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Russia in Global  Politics," Chairman of the presidium of the "Council for Foreign and  Defense Policy" NGO Fyodor Lukyanov expressed this opinion in the  article "Is simplicity better?" published yesterday in the  "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" newspaper.

In his opinion, the necessity of redrawing one's political landscape  - the fight against corruption, which was the main slogan of  Pashinyan's supporters, and getting rid of the influence of deeply  rooted political clans (the most powerful of which is Kocharyan) is  the obvious priority of the "revolutionary" government.  When a  leader comes to power on the wave of street protests, he/she needs  evidences of his/her willingness.  And "collateral damage", such as  embarrassment related to the CSTO, which has had eggs on its face, is  not taken into account.

Lukyanov is not inclined to consider the developments in Armenia, as,  indeed, in other states, exclusively from the point of view of  confrontation between the West and Russia, as most analysts used to  do in previous years, Lukyanov considers that such an approach  simplifies the developments. Armenia is an example of how global  development tendencies are reflected in the countries, which are, to  put it mildly, not key players and, of course, do not set the  political moods. The general trend in changes occurring in these  countries is domination of the internal situation over the external  one. Changes in moods in societies, their dissatisfaction with the  establishment make politicians to urgently change the course. If they  are incapable or unable to make adjustments quickly and elegantly,  the wave brings new forces. It is not considered whether these new  forces are ready to conduct a responsible, sensible policy or not,  people just support new faces and slogans. In this context, Trump,  Macron, Salvini and Pashinyan are phenomena of the same kind,  although of a completely different scale.

The key goal of the new forces is to demonstrate to citizens that  they can really respond to the requests coming from society. If not -  support quickly halts (for instance, the latest figures show Macron's  record anti-rating). If yes, that is, the course that is being  conducted brings the promises into life, even the most crushing  attack of opponents will fail, such as for example the stability of  Trump's position among his electorate in recent weeks. Nevertheless,  politicians of the new wave have only one addressee - their own  voters, and those politicians do not pay or almost do not pay  attention to how their actions affect international relations. Trump,  is a good example of this. 

Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum and everything has a  background, so the influence of the West can be considered, but not  in the usual sense. The current dynamics of Armenia's policy (and not  only) is fully a product of internal development. However, this  development was determined by a variety of factors, including a very  important Western one. The generation with the help of which the  "color revolutions" are usually conducted, is a generation of those  times, when the West actively supported the formation of young  political elites through numerous programs of assistance to  democratic development. They were carried out in an accelerated mode  and according to simplified schemes. This produced a cohort of  political activists who rejected everything that existed before them  and operated with a set of undisputed slogans - fight against  corruption, democracy, freedom, civil society, etc. And, of course,  operated with anti-imperial pathos, because in the 2000s and in the  first half of 2010s, Western institutions were in the phase of  expansion and willingly supported the anti-Russian riots.

As Lukyanov writes, Armenia will definitely not benefit from the  tricks in the relations with the allies.  Conducting such actions in  conditions of growing geopolitical tension is a game with fire, no  matter how weighty the claims to General Khachaturov might be. And  the fact that Yerevan does not have any real anti-Russian implication  in its actions or the desire to make a demarche against the allies  will not necessarily be recognized as a mitigating circumstance. As  the Russian proverb says, simplicity is sometimes worse than robbery.