The third world war may start soon. The world is teetering on the brink of the largest conflict in history. A YouGov survey showed that most Westerners live in anticipation of the apocalypse.

According to The Independent, the analysis polled nine thousand people in nine countries, including the US, UK, Germany and France.

The respondents said that, in their opinion, the establishment of peace on Earth in the coming years is unlikely. But a major international armed conflict may begin soon. In particular, among Americans, 64% of respondents predict a world war, among the British - 61%.

Residents of the Nordic countries believe less in such a development of events. For example, about 39% of Danes believe that the planet is seriously threatened by a global conflict.

Anthony Wells, head of political and social research at YouGov, states that France and the United States are most afraid of a major conflict, but for different reasons. This is how Americans, paradoxically, explain their fears of a world war by the imminent assumption of the office of President-elect Donald Trump.

59% of Americans polled name Russia as the main threat, their fears are shared by 71% of Britons. Moreover, there are more Russophobes in the UK than, for example, in Finland or Germany, which are geographically located much closer to Moscow. In France, people are most afraid of the threat of an escalation of terrorism. First of all, Islamic. More than 81% of respondents are convinced that new terrorist attacks are expected in the near future.

In general, residents of each of the countries participating in the study, with the exception of Finland, said that the likelihood of terrorist attacks in their states is extremely high.

Are such sentiments in Western society a consequence of the influence of the media, or is there a real underlying reason for them?

The issue of the emergence of a new hot world war has been actively discussed in Russian political science for several years, - says Boris Shmelev, head of the Center for Political Studies at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the Department of International Relations of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The new Foreign Policy Concept of Russia says that the outbreak of such a war is unlikely. But, as we see, such a formulation does not exclude such a possibility at all.

As for public sentiment in Western countries, one must understand that they are mainly influenced by propaganda. The media has been whipping up hysteria about the threat posed by Russia for several years now. We can recall the speech of the former commander of the NATO military group in Europe, Breedlove, who “predicted” an imminent war with Russia. Two months ago, US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley also said that war was inevitable. We heard a number of similar statements. As a result, even people who are inclined to soberly assess the situation begin to fear a real military catastrophe.

At the same time, the scenario of a future war implies that the West will fight on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. Since the bulk of the population is not dedicated to the intricacies of political scientists, they do not delve deeply into the world situation, people believe what they say in the media. Mainly on television. As you know, our actions in Crimea and Syria became the main pretext for anti-Russian propaganda. We were appointed the main aggressor. True, recently more and more people are trying to appoint China to this role.

"SP": - Is it possible to talk about the inevitability of the Third World War?

- You have to understand that the world is full of contradictions. There is a paradigm shift in international relations. The unipolar world is changing into a multipolar one. World economic relations are changing. The world economy itself is changing. New centers of economic power are emerging. In such a situation, a clash of interests of major powers is inevitable, which, in turn, protect the interests of global companies and financial institutions. Global financial capital, as you know, imposes its conditions of development on the world. He seeks to unify the whole world according to his interests. Some countries, mostly Western ones, even benefit from this. Many other states, on the contrary, lose. And this cannot but cause conflicts and frictions. That is, the prerequisites for a clash of world powers exist. Since the major world players would like to revise the rules of the game, based on their interests. To some extent, this also applies to Russia.

As for the inevitability of a global conflict, it should be noted that the very concept of war is now changing significantly. The old formula that war is the continuation of politics by other means needs to be revised. War today may not necessarily take the form of armed clashes. It takes the form of information wars, financial wars, cyber wars, color revolutions, and so on. The consequences of such wars are sometimes no less and even more destructive than head-on military clashes. And if we talk about the above methods, then the Third World War is already underway. The information war against Russia has been going on since the second half of the 90s, and now it has only taken on the most acute forms. An information war against China is unfolding. There is an economic war between Russia and the West, a diplomatic war.

"SP": - Is the beginning of a new "hot" world war, which is likely to become thermonuclear, realistic?

- Yes, as I said, such a possibility cannot be ruled out. This war can arise both between Russia and the USA, and between the USA and China. However, the contradictions between Russia and the West are not yet insoluble. By and large, politicians in the West understand that Russia does not pose a threat to them. Yes, there are contradictions in the problem, but they can still be resolved without resorting to military means. And it is precisely with the coming to power in the United States of Donald Trump that we pin our hopes that a compromise will be found that will make it possible to avoid a hot global war.

As for the confrontation between China and the United States, it is most likely that it will take economic forms. But these countries are very closely interconnected economically, and the possibilities for compromise here have not been exhausted either. Moreover, the United States, as Trump said, in the near future will rely on a certain isolationism, on resolving internal contradictions that threaten the security of this country. This, I think, will distract the US elite from an aggressive foreign policy, which in turn will reduce the risk of a hot world war. As for Russia, we do not need a war. It is very dangerous for us due to the unresolved nature of many internal problems.

"SP": - Why do Western politicians constantly convince their citizens of the inevitability of a new global war?

- Western politicians resort to the old trick: the mobilization of society against the backdrop of an external threat. Many problems have accumulated in the West. Almost every major EU country has them. Not to mention the USA. Therefore, a bet is being made on inflating psychosis about a new world war, which Russia or China will allegedly start, or maybe both of these countries at once. In the face of such a threat, residents of the EU and the US pay less attention to the problems that surround them in everyday life.

"SP": - However, until recently, terrorism was called the main world threat in the United States. This is now a real danger, why not continue to rally our citizens precisely in the face of that threat, without “turning the arrows” on Russia?

- The thing is that global capital today not only uses the possibilities of the USA as a superpower, but actually privatized the American state. With the help of the United States, global capital, in fact, controls most of the world. Remained uncontrolled, for example, Libya, Iraq. These countries, as they say, have been taken out of the game, out of world politics. Much the same can be said about Syria, which no longer exists as an independent state. Remain Iran (although it is very limited in its capabilities), Russia and China. Russia was considered the weak link. Therefore, they were going to deal with us first, and then come to grips with China. Now Trump is trying to deploy his policy, to enlist, if not friendship with Russia, then at least our neutrality in the confrontation between the United States and China. Because Washington understands that a real union between Russia and China will be too tough for the Americans.

As for the fight against terrorism, the United States and the collective West, under the guise of fighting this evil, are playing their big geopolitical game, solving their own geo-economic and geo-strategic problems. Therefore, the slogan of the fight against terrorism has a rather weak effect on the consciousness of Western society.

The war in Ukraine became predictable when, in the summer of 2012, the “great project” of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria failed. And it became inevitable in December of that year, when the EU and Russia failed to agree on the terms of the energy package, writes NSNBC editor, psychologist and independent political consultant Christoph Leimann.

And the geopolitical environment that led to the war in Ukraine was created in the early 1980s.

One hundred years after the fatal shot in Sarajevo that led the world to the First World War, Europe is once again being pushed into disaster. A hundred years ago, loyal statesmen could have prevented a war. And today, many of the Western leaders dress up in military uniforms, although they would not even be hired to work as a flight attendant.

The war in Ukraine began in Libya and Syria.

In 2007, the discovery of the world's largest gas reserves in Iran and Qatar led to the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood project, which then provoked the "Arab Spring".

A joint project with Iran, Iraq, Syria, the gas pipeline project was supposed to transport Iranian gas from gas fields in Pars in the Persian Gulf to eastern Syria, and then to Europe.

The implementation of this project between Iran, Iraq and Syria would lead to conflicts that were unacceptable for the US, UK, Israel and Qatar. Although some European countries, including Germany, Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic, saw for themselves an undoubted benefit from such cooperation: thanks to Russian gas received through Nord Stream and Iranian gas, the EU would be able to cover about 50 percent of needs.

It would be naive to assume that Israel was not seriously concerned about the prospect of Iran becoming one of the main sources of natural gas for the EU. Energy security concerns affect foreign policy. Relations between the EU and Israel and Tehran's influence on the EU's position on the question of Palestine and the situation in the Middle East are no exception to this rule.

The US and UK were not interested in competing with the Nabucco project. Qatar, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, saw a chance to gain recognition as a regional power in the Arab world and sent Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a check for $10 billion to be used to prepare for war in Syria.

The US and UK will never allow the Russian-European Union to control 50 percent of energy flows. As a NATO admiral from a northern European country told me in the early 1980s on a yacht, his “American colleagues in the Pentagon told me that the US and Britain would never allow Soviet-European relations to develop to such an extent as to challenge the political, economic and military superiority of the USA and Great Britain on the European continent.
Such a development of events will be prevented by all means necessary for this, including by provoking a war in Central Europe.”

As we can see, his forecasts are still relevant today.

By 2009, the Muslim Brotherhood project was already in full swing. The former French foreign minister recalled during an appearance on the French TV channel LPC: “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria. I met with high-ranking British officials who admitted to me that they were preparing for a war in Syria. It was in the UK, not in America. Britain orchestrated the rebel invasion of Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Foreign Minister, if I would like to take part. Naturally, I refused, I said that I was French and I was not interested. There are some countries that dream of destroying the Arab states - remember the events in Libya, and now - the relationship between Syria and Russia.

A small note. Note that the announcement was made after NATO abused UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) and invaded Libya.

Then the US Permanent Representative to NATO, Ivo H. Daalder, and after him, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and the commander of the US European Command, James G. Stavridis, published in March 2012 the article "NATO invasion in Libya: an opportunity and a model for future interventions."

The defeat of the West in Syria made war in Ukraine inevitable.

In June and July 2012, about 20,000 NATO mercenaries, who were recruited and trained in Libya and then deployed to the Jordanian border, forcibly took over the city of Aleppo. The campaign failed and the "Libyan Brigade" was razed to the ground by the Syrian army.

It was after this decisive defeat that Saudi Arabia launched a massive jihadist recruitment campaign through the al-Qaeda network.

Washington was forced to make an attempt "politically" to distance itself from the "extremists". It became clear that the war with Syria would not be won. This is why the British Parliament banned the bombing of Syria in August 2013.

The war with Ukraine became predictable from that moment on, and events in Ukraine throughout 2012 and 2013 strongly suggest that plans to overthrow the Yanukovych government and destabilize Ukraine were launched after July 2012.

The only chance to turn the tide with respect to Ukraine was given at the end of 2012, during the negotiations on the third energy package.

On December 21, 2012, the leaders of the 27 EU member states and Russia held a summit in Brussels, but did not solve the problem. This is the starting point. On December 22, 2012, NSNBC published an article "Russia-EU meeting in Brussels: Risk of war in the Middle East and Europe rises".

Until February 9, 2013, relations between Russia and the main NATO members, due to a lack of mutual understanding in energy matters, deteriorated so much that Russian Ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko said during a meeting with colleagues in Brussels:

"We believe that the world community has ample opportunities to participate in energy cooperation and ensure energy security without using military-political organizations as a tool."

Not everyone understood the words of the Russian ambassador.

On February 21, the Ukrainian parliament was occupied by masked armed men. The president was removed from office. One of the first official decrees of the new government was a ban on the use of the Russian language as a second state language in the regions.
Naturally, such statements tore Ukraine into two parts. On February 22, 2014, the governors of the southeastern and southern regions of the country gathered a congress in Kharkov and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government.

Was the Boeing tragedy a new shot in Sarajevo or, on the contrary, an impetus for the peaceful integration of the Russian and European economies?

The logic of history says that the former is more correct.

New Eastern Outlook

Experts are confident that the world is on the verge of war and name 10 potential military conflicts that could erupt literally tomorrow.

1. Sino-Russian Siberian War

One superpower is going through hard times. Another superpower is actually ready to conquer the whole world. For now, China and Russia are "big players" in the territory east of the Ural Mountains. Both countries have huge armies. Both have nuclear weapons. Both are expansionist. And both have claims to Siberia, a sparsely populated, resource-rich territory larger than Canada. Siberia has long been in the sphere of China's interests.
Recently, the Celestial Empire has begun to actively buy up plots of Siberian land. Beijing is now beginning to make historical claims, at least to the eastern part of Siberia, where many ethnic Chinese live. For Moscow, this is becoming an increasing problem. A potential Sino-Russian war over Siberian territory could be devastating and there are only two possible outcomes. Either the Chinese army will recapture most of Russia, or Moscow will unleash a nuclear war. In any case, the death toll will have catastrophic consequences for the entire world.

2. War for the Baltic

Recently, Europe has become quite worried about the possibility of war with Russia. According to former NATO Deputy Commander Alexander Richard Shirreff, this is a very possible scenario. Shirreff cites Russia's unwillingness to be surrounded by NATO countries as a possible reason for this. According to the British general, as early as May 2017, Moscow will build a land corridor through Ukraine, connecting Crimea with Russia, and then invade one or more of the Baltic countries. Since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are members of NATO, this could lead to a mad war between the West and Russia. Than it threatens, it is not necessary to explain.

3. North Korean spring

This summer, a senior North Korean diplomat in London defected to South Korea. This was just the latest in a string of incidents that point to the imminent collapse of Kim Jong-un's regime. Kim fell out with powerful allies such as China. He is no longer able to provide a luxurious life for the country's elite.
Cheap smartphone technology has allowed the people of the country, for the first time in decades, to see how life is in the rest of the world. At the same time, a crisis is about to break out in the country, in comparison with which the famine of 1994 will look like a cakewalk. The result of this could be a revolution in the DPRK. People can take to the streets, the army can be divided into warring factions, and hell will begin in the country.

4. ISIS guerrilla war in Europe

Faced with airstrikes, economic upheavals, and advances by the armies of many nations, ISIS is on the brink of collapse. But don't expect terrorists to just put up with it. Most likely, the jihadists will fight directly in Europe with the help of deadly urban guerrilla warfare. The big cities of Europe can turn into burial grounds, where explosions and shooting will be heard in the streets every day. In such a scenario, France and Belgium would be the first to suffer, followed by Germany and the UK.

5 Venezuelan Civil War

Lawlessness reigns in the streets of Caracas. Ordinary household goods are simply impossible to buy, inflation is over 500 percent and could soon reach 1600 percent. Civil protests, violence, corruption, police brutality and a paranoid government that refuses to see anything have become the norm in the country. The potential end result of this anarchy could be civil war.
Since Maduro does not want to step down, hungry and angry Venezuelans may take up arms. Mass desertions from the police and the army are also possible. But even a coup may be the best course of events in Venezuela. The history of Latin America shows that such a move is likely to lead to repression and bloodshed on a horrendous scale.

6. Second Cultural Revolution in China

The Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao was stunningly brutal. About 1.5 million people died. Millions of people were tortured and mutilated. Widespread corruption, popular discontent and a sense of betrayal have escalated into a deadly massacre.
But what happens in 2016, when China has become a developed country. China has a long history of peasant uprisings. Mao himself came to power as a result of an uprising during which 8,000,000 people died. Several decades ago, the Boxer Rebellion resulted in over 100,000 deaths.
Decades before, the Taiping Rebellion killed 20-30 million (more than 70 million according to some sources).
Now, despite all the developments, there are 500 popular protests in China every day, and about 100,000 riots break out every year. If another financial crisis breaks out suddenly, there will again be catastrophic bloodshed.

7. Bosnia #2

In the 1990s, the world watched in horror as Bosnia fell apart. Some 100,000 civilians died during the ethnic cleansing. In 1995, two "states within a state" were eventually created: Bosnia and Herzegovina for Bosniaks and Croats, and the Republika Srpska for Serbs. The trouble is that this new division is also unstable. Ethnic divisions have created a world of growing tension, bitter resentment, and a desire for revenge. Today everyone wants the best.
Youth unemployment is over 60%, the highest on Earth. Serbs and Croats still want to split up. Bosnians still want to live together. The leader of Serbia recently literally "threw a burning match into this powder keg." Ethnic Serbs will hold a referendum on whether to secede from Bosnia. As a result of this vote, the horrific civil war in Bosnia could flare up again.

8 Saudi Revolution

Saudi Arabia got off lightly during the Arab Spring. While dictators were overthrown in Tunisia and Egypt, and a real war broke out in Syria and Libya, members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia managed to hold on to power. At least until now. According to the American Washington Institute, conditions in Saudi Arabia today are similar to those that preceded the Egyptian revolution.
The nation is ready to explode. The collapse in oil prices has brought the country, which has a very high level of spending, to the brink of bankruptcy. Youth unemployment in a country dominated by young people is out of control. Anger among educated twentysomethings just rolls over. Local ethnic minorities are rioting, and terrorists are relentlessly attacking. It is easy to imagine the revolution that will break out in connection with this discontent.

9. Indo-Pakistani nuclear war

In the winter of 2008, the world put one foot in the grave. This year, the confrontation between Pakistan and India has almost escalated into a nuclear war. In the end, the diplomats barely managed to resolve the conflict. But relations between the two countries are still very tense. If next time everything happens differently, then this could mean the end of the world. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan will put Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi and Islamabad on fire, and tens of millions will die in real hell. A nuclear winter will destroy crops across Asia, leading to massive famines. It is estimated that about two billion people will die in the process. A similar terrible conflict could be provoked by the situation in Kashmir, a region claimed by both countries.

10. South China Sea or World War III

The only thing more terrifying than a war between Pakistan and India is a war between China and the United States. Especially if such countries as the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and many others are drawn into this conflict. The stumbling point could be the South China Sea, a region that is likely to provoke a third world war.
Over the past few years, China has aggressively expanded into the sea. This is mainly due to small countries that are allies of the United States. America responded with an official warning, and China responded with clear threats. If this all escalates into a war, the world will perish.

From the report of Russian scientists - members of the Academy of Military Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences V. Aladin, V. Kovalev, S. Malkov and G. Malinetsky.

One of the authors of the concept of “leadership cycles”, the American political scientist J. Modelsky, argues that war “justifies and legitimizes the international system of statuses, at the top of which are the great powers; in turn, the status system sees war as a means of self-preservation.

Within the framework of this approach, the global processes that take place in the system of the modern world inevitably lead to significant transformations of its status structure, which consists of three basic elements: the center, the semi-periphery and the periphery. These changes can be seen as a potential source of large-scale military conflicts.

The systemic crisis, combining the imbalance of the pirating financial system with the exhaustion of the economic growth model based on credit stimulation of consumption, brought the Western countries, led by the United States, to the line of strategic resource starvation, thereby increasing the risk of military resolution of competitive contradictions. The situation is aggravated by the spiritual crisis of the modern West, which at one time, succumbing to mercantile passion, exchanged the Bible for a code of human rights and freedoms, eventually depleting its spiritual resource to the last limit.

Recently, the thesis that today's world is on the eve of large-scale geopolitical and technological shifts has been actively discussed. The world is going through a phase of "great upheavals" in the world evolutionary cycle, which began in the 1980s and is expected to end by the middle of the 21st century.

The world-system is expected to grow in economic, political and social instability, which, according to experts, will lead to a second wave of the global economic crisis. This stage of the crisis can become a historical milestone in the development of the world political system. At the same time, destabilization of the world financial, economic and political system is expected, which will give rise to an unprecedented increase in social, as well as domestic and foreign political tension in most countries of the world.

The second wave of the crisis will put the main players of the G20 in front of the need to find alternatives to the weakening dollar, optimize the mechanisms for regulating financial markets, balance the conditions of international trade, and look for ways to stabilize food prices.

Political and financial and economic crises of 2013 - 2014 can become a prelude to the dramatic events of the alleged third, final part (2014 - 2018) of the "great upheavals". These events may be determined by the uncontrolled and unpredictable disintegration of the current geopolitical and social structures. Thus, between 2012 and 2018 the world may witness major geopolitical transformations.

According to RAS experts, the result of the current financial and economic crisis will inevitably be a radical change in the alignment of forces on the political map of the world. The sole military-political dominance of the United States in the world, as well as their world economic leadership, which lasted a whole century, is coming to an end. The US has failed the test of monopolarity, having exhausted itself with continuous wars in the Middle East in the last decade. The US today does not have enough resources to remain a world leader. "The role of the United States as a superpower is ending," says German Federal Finance Minister P. Steinbrock.

Real multipolarity implies a more balanced international distribution of wealth, as well as the transformation of international institutions - the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and others. Especially outdated are the global institutions for managing the world economy - the IMF, the World Bank, etc. Today, the interests of the United States and Western Europe predominate in them, and the interests of countries with rapidly developing economies are poorly represented. Recently, even the IMF itself, at its regular annual session in 2011, admitted that the "Washington Consensus" finally collapsed and called for the creation of a global economy in which there will be less risks and uncertainty, the financial sector will be regulated by the state, and incomes and benefits will be distributed according to justice.

... the masters of the modern global world are mentally structured and very small subjective political formations based on the foundations of Protestant mental-dogmatic thinking. They are able, unlike everyone else, to carry out design functions in geopolitics, while pursuing an anti-Christian policy both in the post-Christian world and beyond.

The United States as a state has existed for a little more than two centuries and makes up a very small part of the world's population. But as a real mental formation they rely on their unified truths. a priori which they dogmatically prescribe to all other states of the world.

…the operators of the power of the unipolar world and the elite of the “golden billion” aggressively, consistently and totally assert their values ​​and standards in the process of globalization as obligatory requirements for the whole world as an indispensable condition for their leadership. They act, in the words of A.S. Panarin, in the spirit of messianic self-confidence, dogmatically repressive, totalitarian methods. They do not stop at the threat of the use of military force and its actual use. Suffice it to recall the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the three million Vietnamese who died as a result of American aggression in the 60s and 70s of the twentieth century. Let's also not forget about the numerous coups d'état organized by the US intelligence services, finally, about the bombing of Yugoslavia with its subsequent dismemberment, the destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, about the hidden but real aggression against Syria.

In order to understand and predict the global processes taking place in the world, it is necessary to remember the dogma underlying the national strategy of the United States - the dogma of unacceptability for America to lose world leadership. As the analysis of American declarative documents shows, the leadership in the world geopolitical hierarchy is considered by the American ruling regime and the political elite as a necessary condition for the country's prosperity and development in the 21st century.

The results of mathematical modeling of geopolitical dynamics, which was carried out by analysts of the Academy of Military Sciences together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, allow us to conclude that a victorious war, and, moreover, necessarily a “conventional” one, is practically the only US tool to neutralize the risk of losing geopolitical leadership.

At the same time, we must understand that leadership as such has a purely pragmatic character for the weakening world hegemon in the American way. First of all, it is necessary to ensure the consumer interests of the "golden billion", that is, it is directly or indirectly directed against the rest of humanity. Global leadership is a kind of and fairly reliable certificate for the right to undivided ownership, disposal and use of all the resources of the planet.

The way to maintain dominance by initiating a large-scale armed conflict has long been known in political theory and practice. Based on this, the following regularity can be postulated: a cardinal change in the geopolitical configuration of the world, including the possibility of changing the leader, is realized only with corresponding radical changes in the geopolitical qualities of the leading countries of the world. Large-scale war just leads, as history shows, to such changes. There is, of course, a "cold" way to neutralize geopolitical opponents, similar to what happened with the Soviet Union. Development and "finishing" of such technology continues even now in the framework of the so-called "Arab spring". But it cannot yet be considered as universal, since, for example, it is not yet applicable to China, Iran, etc.

interesting to note , that the United States has already used the military method of cardinal geopolitical rise at least three times. As the analysis of the political configuration of the world after two world wars shows, the United States has always received a significant geopolitical benefit as a result, raising its status, changing the “geopolitical distance” between the world leader or other contenders in its favor.

Thus, as a result of the First World War, the United States reduced the geopolitical gap from the then leader, the British Empire, by almost a third. Moreover, it is interesting to note a kind of paradox, revealed quantitatively, and quite consistent with the conclusions of historians - the United States turned out to be the only state, which eventually increased their geopolitical status compared to its pre-war level.

World War II “helped” the United States, against the backdrop of a weakened Europe and the devastated Soviet Union, to become a world leader, and the subsequent collapse of the USSR, rightly called a geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, saved, however, only for a while, from a dangerous ideological and geopolitical enemy.

However, this gave the United States only a brief reprieve, as almost instantly, by historical standards, a new challenger, a new geopolitical rival, China emerged. At the same time, China, in our opinion, is dangerous not so much as a contender for leadership, but as a contender for consumption of world resources that is above the norm, from the point of view of the United States, which objectively creates problems for the “golden billion”. The possibility of neutralizing these problems with the rapidly developing PRC, provides, as already noted, only war. At the same time, the essence of the American approach lies in the fact that it is not the applicant himself who is attacked, but another state, the choice of which is determined by the "price of the issue."

Thus, if at one time, with the help of Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans tried to solve smaller economic and “sub-geopolitical” problems, then with this “big stake”, an appropriate “big partner” will be needed. According to military analysts, it is Iran, together with non-Arab Shiite forces such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syria that is most suitable for the role of such an “involuntary partner” in a new redistribution of resources, which, of course, is implemented at their expense.

The redistribution process has already started. At present, as a result of the "Arab spring" provoked and controlled by America, conditions have been formed to unite the states of the Islamic world into a new "Arab caliphate", replacing their leaders with new American proteges. In addition to maintaining control over the world's oil and gas treasury, armed by the West and based on Islamic fundamentalism, an alliance of fellow Muslim states is designed to protect the American economy and, in general, US energy interests in the East and Africa. The question arises - "from whom"? According to experts, primarily from the steadily growing economic and military power of China.

In light of the foregoing, the next logical step for the United States is to eliminate the last obstacle to the implementation of plans to maintain American dominance. These obstacles are Syria and Iran. The "peaceful" way to overthrow the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as you know, failed. Therefore, as military analysts note, the same scenario will be applied to it as in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that today the United States cannot even withdraw troops from there without human and material losses.

It is expected that in addition to the economic, an important result of the alleged victory of America in the "big war" will be the implementation of the "New Greater Middle East" project. This project should cause very serious damage not only to China, but also to Russia. Plans to "reformat" the Middle East have already been announced in America in connection with the publication of the so-called "Peters Map" in the Armed Forces Journal.

As follows from the published materials, Russia and China are "expelled" from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Russia is cut off from the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and China is deprived of the last strategic energy supplier.

The “New Greater Middle East” excludes peaceful prospects for Russia, the possibility of any relatively “calm” development, since the unstable South Caucasus, which is under the external control of the United States, will become a zone of constant tension and a “detonator” for the “explosion” of the North Caucasus. And since in this case the main destabilizing role will be played by Islamic fundamentalism, other subjects of the Russian Federation will also fall into the “kill zone”.

Today, China is actively "working" to crowd out the dollar, and the share of the dollar in China's foreign exchange reserves is steadily declining. In April 2011, the Central Bank of China informed about the complete rejection of the dollar in international settlements. It is clear that such a blow to the American system of economic dominance cannot go unanswered.

Iran is also "working" tirelessly in the direction of crowding out the dollar. In July 2011, the Iranian International Petroleum Exchange was launched. On it, the settlement of transactions is carried out only in euros and Emirati dirhams. At the same time, negotiations are underway with China on organizing the supply of Chinese goods in exchange for Iranian oil. Thus, it becomes possible to circumvent sanctions against Iran. The President of Iran announced plans to reach $100 billion of bilateral trade between Iran and China. Under these conditions, the US efforts to organize the international isolation of Iran lose all meaning.

These trends, unacceptable for the United States, are apparently irreversible and are capable of causing a sharp reaction, up to the organization of a "forceful" counteraction to emerging challenges and threats. According to experts, the deliberate undermining of stability in the countries of the Middle East and the Maghreb is the result of active actions by the United States, which can count on the fact that the destroyed infrastructure of the countries of the region will require huge dollar injections. revival of the USA.

Thus, it becomes clear that the strategy being implemented by America to maintain world leadership in a changing world is already beginning to move into real politics “from a position of strength”, where the way out of the crisis of the debt economy of the “paper dollar” is seen , including in the "zeroing" of the debt accounts of the "bubble" of empty wealth. For this, a “big war” becomes necessary, as a result of which the winner, as in his time at Bretton Woods, expects to dictate his terms to the rest of the world. The will to wage war for America, viewed from a perspective, is the will to govern after the war.

In this regard, the following should be noted.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the German writer Thomas Mann perspicaciously noted that war is "just an escape from the problems of peacetime." The French prose writer Romain Rolland also spoke in his tone: “Only bankrupt states resort to war as a last resort. War is the last trump card of a lost and desperate player, a disgusting speculation of swindlers and swindlers…”.

US President D. Eisenhower owns a statement that characterizes the essence of American policy to this day: "We will achieve peace, even if we have to fight for this." Naturally, he had in mind a peace that suits America. At the same time, it is impossible not to understand that this rhetoric is intended only for one thing - to justify the possibility of waging wars in the modern world.

The wars "for world peace" that the United States is unleashing are an indication of the inability of the American political system to resolve a bunch of acute problems associated with the impending collapse of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and the collapse of the American financial pyramid.

On June 9, 2012, the Penultimate Director of the Strategic Planning Division of the US State Department, A.M. According to data, in addition to the fact that a crushing blow will be dealt to the economies of Europe and Russia, the US plan provides for the consistent implementation of the following military-political actions:

• The physical liquidation of President B. Assad, followed by the organization in Syria of the massacre of Christians, Allavites, Druze, representatives of other faiths and small national groups.
• A preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon with the organization of a provocation against Iran and the launch of the process of physical destruction of Christians and Copts.
• Preparation and conduct of the military operation "Great Thunderstorm" against Iran.

In addition to this, the evangelical Zionist hawks from Washington are actively appearing on American television ostensibly with Bible prophecies and calling on the US to support the "King of the North" (Israel) in the coming Armageddon against the "King of the South" (Iran). They believe that a victorious war against Iran and Syria will give the West the opportunity to impose a "divinely sanctioned" New World Order, taking into account the interests of the NATO-OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) empire.

Obviously, we are talking, first of all, about the unleashing of the "Great War" in the Near and Middle East, the beginning of which was being prepared by the events of the so-called. "Arab spring".

There is no doubt that the Americans have been carefully and pragmatically preparing the space for a "Great War" in the Middle East for a long time. In this regard, it can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that the "Big War" is coming. The most important issue remains the degree of involvement and the form of Russia's participation in it. The participation itself is not in doubt and it is already becoming obvious that we are being “led” to the “Great War” consistently and purposefully.

That is why today all decisions of the country's leadership in the political, economic, social and military-technical spheres must be considered "through a conceptual lens", which can provide early recognition of the realities of the coming "Great War" and the possibility of designing a worthy place for Russia in the post-war world order.

The expert and analytical community is actively discussing the set of "nested" goals, which, according to the "Planner" of the "Great War", can be realized only as a result of its unleashing.

The first group includes a number of fairly obvious, "lying on the surface" goals:

• divert the attention of the Western population from the negative processes of the global crisis, switch it to the image of the “global” enemy constructed by political technologists;
• writing off huge public debts to the maximum;
• to avoid the “rolling down” of the USA in 1932, to revive the economy, to create conditions for development “from scratch”;
• maintain a financial system based on the "Washington Consensus" and extend the existence of the Fed as a global issuer after 2012;
• ensure America's dominance in the World System.

The second group includes the "taboo" and therefore not publicly discussed goal - providing a strategic perspective for Israel. The Jewish state in its present form can only sustainably exist in conditions of permanent confrontation with the Islamic world. It has a "victorious" advantage in the military-technical sphere, is distinguished by a high level of corporate subjectivity and, as a result, a higher quality of "human material". Israel is still able to defeat almost any Arab coalition. The monopoly possession of nuclear weapons in the region gives it a certain guarantee against the accidents of war and acts as an effective deterrent against the large-scale use of military force by a possible coalition of states in the region.

Today, Israel is more than ever interested in unleashing a "Great War" in order to:

• to confirm and permanently consolidate, as a result of a victorious war, their highest possible status, both in the regional and global political context;
• exclude the decline or complete cessation of financial support from the West and, first of all, the United States, which accounts for 22% of Israel's foreign trade and another $ 3.71 billion of direct gratuitous financial assistance caused by the global economic crisis;
• denuclearize Iran and thereby maintain a monopoly on the possession of nuclear weapons in the region.

The third most nested and most hidden goal is to launch the mechanisms of "reincarnation" of the colonial system in the 21st century format.

In this regard, it is worth recalling that the Western world developed intensively within the framework of the colonial system for more than five centuries. And only in the second half of the 20th century, after the end of the World War, as a result of the formation of a powerful center of power in the face of the USSR, conditions were created that ensured its collapse. Thus, the current post-colonial state of the World-system lasts a little more than half a century. The logic of the development of the Western economy predetermines the end of this period of material prosperity. As was shown above, the West in a market economy can exist stably only with the constant receipt of additional resources from outside. Thus, for such a system to succeed, it is necessary to have a controlled, politically subjectless colonial periphery from which cheap resources can be drawn.

Recent events, starting with the defeat of Yugoslavia, the capture of Iraq and Afghanistan, the adoption of a new strategic concept of NATO, ending with the aggression against Libya and the expansion of the Arab Spring process, clearly show that the periphery of the World System is in for a new colonization. This is already a geopolitical inevitability, since there are no strategic actors in the world capable of preventing this.

In the process of "new colonization" there should be a re-codification of international law with the final rejection of the principles of the Yalta-Potsdam system of political world order. The world is waiting for the destruction of the UN foundations, the elimination or significant reduction of the role of the institution of permanent members of the UN Security Council, the correction of the principle of sovereign equality of states, which in the new colonial World-system will contradict its basic principles. As part of the recodification, there will be a forced adaptation of international law to the consumer interests of the West. In the foreseeable future, it can be expected that “legal” occupation or colonization within “recognized” zones of influence will take the place of the declared principles of self-determination and “non-interference” in the internal affairs of other countries. Through the efforts of the West, the system of international state structure will again be introduced into international practice, in which real sovereignty will be retained only by the states that make up the "Core" of the World-system. The “states” of the periphery will be allowed to have sovereignty only to the extent that it does not interfere with the activities of transnational corporations under certain conditions.

In accordance with the ideas of Z. Brzezinski, the basis of the new World should be the "Big West" - the United States and the European Union, and the "Big East" - Japan, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. In the coming colonial world, Russia as a subject of world politics has no place. At the same time, they have been demanding from us for a long time - they say "we need to share." One gets the impression that the frankly predatory ideas of M. Albright and D. Cheney resonate with Russian liberals such as a well-known academician who publicly discusses the possibility of "joint" management of the resources of Siberia with the "world powers".

This scenario does not seem fantastic now, given the fact that the Russian Empire, of which the Russian Federation is the successor, in 1884 signed an international convention containing the "principle of effective occupation." It follows from this that if a country is not able to "effectively" manage its resources, then external management can be introduced in relation to it. At the end of the XIX century. this principle legitimized the colonial system, but in the 21st century it can become the current norm of international law and will be the formal basis for the “legitimacy” of depriving Russia of its sovereign rights to manage its own territories and resources.

Over the past two decades, the real instrument of new colonization, the NATO bloc, has been significantly expanded, modernized and tested in numerous military actions. For those who consider this statement alarmist and anti-Western, we refer to the new NATO strategic concept adopted in 2010. in Lisbon. … if you just read it carefully without “reset filters of awareness”, you can see that in modern conditions NATO is a geopolitical instrument for ensuring the functioning of the “center-colonial periphery” system, in which only the Western world can safely exist. This is the military-political and police functions of the alliance. In fact, NATO is the combined military and political power of the states of the Western world, which constitute the center of the World System, intended for new "crusades", which, as you know, were primarily economic enterprises. Therefore, the NATO military system, in accordance with the plans of its masters, will be regularly sent to various regions of the world - to ensure the uninterrupted supply of raw materials, energy carriers and solve punitive tasks.

At the same time, one of the few positive trends in the modern periphery of the World-system is the search for opportunities "to unite the weak around the strong against the strong." And here it is fundamentally important for the West to prevent the uncontrolled growth of any major raw material power with a geopolitical status. Thus, the West completely “does not notice” such nuclear states as Israel, which constantly destabilizes the situation in the Middle East, and unpredictable Pakistan, which cannot or does not want to exercise control over the activities of the Taliban military-terrorist organization on its territory. But oil and gas Iran - a member of the NPT with its ambitions for regional leadership - is for the West the primary object of forced "democratization". In this regard, the so-called "nuclear program" of Iran for the United States and its allies is just a "casus belli". Even if Iran completely abandons nuclear technology, this will not stop the West from planning to unleash a "Great War".

Iran, as an object of Western interests, acts as a kind of "foreground" of Russia, a blow to which will cause significant damage to its foreign and domestic interests.

In this regard, it is appropriate to recall Z. Brzezinski's well-known statement that in the 21st century America will develop against Russia, at the expense of Russia and on the ruins of Russia. It is obvious that one of the goals of the "Great War" is to block Russia's efforts to create the Eurasian Union - a potentially powerful world "player" and, in the long term, a strategic subject of geopolitics, which could formulate an alternative project not only for its own, but also for global development.

Speaking about alternative Projects or Scenarios of global development, it is necessary to remember that they are based on one or another spiritual imperative. With a tendency to expansion, one or another scenario of globalization affects the mental and dogmatic foundation, values ​​and traditions of the carriers of a different civilizational code. This, in turn, can give rise to religious and ethnic conflicts that lead to a change in the political landscape of the Western and Eastern worlds. The cultural isolation arising as a result of such processes inevitably causes political-psychological and national-cultural contradictions, the underlying causes of which are religious and dogmatic differences.

…globalism implies the entry of the world into a qualitatively new era associated with post-industrial society and postmodernity. The matrix of this model is the US political structure, its federalism and liberal democracy, the spiritual foundations of which are based on a specific form of Protestantism - unitarism, which is close in its dogmatic content to Judaism. According to European researchers A. Negri and M. Hardt, the American "revolutionary project" means the gradual loss of ethnic, social, cultural, racial, religious identity and requires an even more accelerated transformation of "peoples" and "nations" into a quantitative cosmopolitan majority. But even if we ignore such a “revolutionary” position, the American global strategy itself, called by the authors “Empire”, is based on the fact that it does not recognize any political sovereignty for any collective entity - be it an ethnic group, class, people or nation.

... the history of interaction with the West, and above all with the United States, shows that it is realistic to build relationships with them, based on such a concept as "partners" - criminal short-sightedness. As C. Doyle used to say through the mouth of S. Holmes, since you, Watson, will deal not with the criminal world, but with British politicians, then do not believe a single word they say.

The history of the "Great Wars" teaches that the side that enters into it at the final stage can get the maximum advantage in the coming "Great War". With a high probability, she will be among the winners. In the light of the foregoing, one cannot but agree with B. Borisov's opinion that the creation of a geopolitical configuration similar to the Eurasian Union will make it possible to delay Russia's direct entry into the war. This can be achieved through a multiple increase in coalition power and the creation of buffer border zones, tk. fighting in them, according to the experience of past wars, may not spread to the territory of the metropolis, and this is a key foreign policy task ...