Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 7 – Ukraine has a
chance to “finally get out from under the influence of Russia” because Vladimir
Putin is going against the flow of history and attempting to re-establish a
land-based empire, Aleksandr Paskhaver says. Were he a neo-imperialist using
financial instruments, the situation would be “100 times worse for Ukraine.”
On the one hand, the Ukrainian
economist says, shifting from a land based to a financial empire would benefit
the Russian economy and Russia’s attractiveness to others. And on the other, it would allow Moscow to
maintain and even extend its influence in neighboring countries far more
effectively (politolog.net/interview/sudya-po-sociologicheskim-issledovaniyam-ukraina-uxodit-iz-russkogo-mira-pasxaver/).
But fortunately for Ukraine and the
others, Paskhaver says, Putin has neither the inclination nor the resources to
make this shift and consequently, he is beggaring his own country and at the
same time alienating the peoples of the countries living around the periphery
of Russia.
Two centuries ago, there were six
major empires in Europe: the French, the British, the Russian, the German, the
Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman. In the 20th century, the economist
says, “all these empires ceased their existence. Only Germany in the form of
the Nazi Reich and Russia in the form of the Soviet Union tried to restore
theirs.”
All the other imperial powers
recognized that this form of rule was no longer benefitting them, and all the
others experienced significant economic and social development as a result.
Those that tried to restore a land empire lost out in that regard, Germany
suffering an enormous loss in a war; and the Soviet Union disintegrating.
Today, only Russia under the rule of
Vladimir Putin retains a land imperial project.
“What is the source of its mistake? It is at a minimum late by some 80
years, because an empire of land, when you seize land with a population ceased
then to be economically effective,” Paskhaver says.
“Land empires have passed into
history,” the economist says. “In their place have arisen empires of assets,
when strong countries purchase the best assets throughout the entire world.
That is how the US behaves and that is how China does. Were Russia to follow that
course, it would be 100 times more dangerous for Ukraine” than Moscow’s effort
to restore a land empire.
“Thank God,” the Ukrainian economist
says, Putin appeared among the Russians and tried to do something that is a
century out of date.
He continues: “If you are late, if
you go against historical trends, you will lose because the relationship of
forces does not have any significance.” History proceeds in its own way, and
the Russian people are going to suffer as a result. Eventually, they will change direction and “quite
likely become a well-off country as all without exception former empires have.”
As long as that does not happen too
soon, he suggests, Ukraine will have a good chance to escape from Russia’s
orbit and become part of Europe; and it is even “possible,” he suggests, “that
in the future [Ukrainians] will erect a monument to Putin as the founder of the
Ukrainian civic nation,” given his unintentionally “role in the formation of
today’s Ukraine.”
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