The New Cold War as a Geopolitical and civilizational Reality

Abstract

In contrast to the previous optimistic forecasts of the ruling elite in the late USSR and in the new Russia about how our country's relations with the West will develop positively after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist system in Eastern Europe, Russia's successful entry into the Western community; after the triumphalist sentiments in the West itself regarding the "collapse of communism", the after the victory in the cold war and the role of Russia, which has lost its role as a superpower, subordinate to the interests of the Western community, the real reality of international relations turned out to be completely different. At the turn of the century, as a result of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia, the approach of troops and weapons of this bloc to our borders, open support in the West for separatist movements and wars on the territory of the Russian Federation, the process of disillusionment with previous illusions began. It sharply intensified after Vladimir Putin's Munich speech in 2007, Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and especially the conflict in Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea, which actually led to the beginning of a new cold war. Gradually, the ruling elites of Russia and the West began to realize that the decisive reason for the former "cold war" of 1946-1989 was not so much the notorious "communism" in the USSR and in Eastern European countries, but above all the fundamental civilizational and geopolitical differences between the West and Russia, dating back centuries, stable Russophobic sentiments of public opinion in the West. As the experience of history and modernity shows, Russia's successful domestic and international position is possible only if it preserves and strengthens the status of a great Eurasian power based on a sovereign domestic and foreign policy, a successful socio-economic course approved by the people and a wise state ideology.