Rates Are Rising

There are no negotiations with Russia.

There is “implicative action” in civil law, this means “default deal”. This is when the parties to the transaction neither verbally nor in writing agreed on anything like this, but at the same time behave as if they had come to an agreement. Well, for example, there is some kind of goat, which was once bought together on the occasion, but now no one needs it, and the concession participants cannot agree among themselves what to do with it. No one says out loud that it would be good to sell it, but everyone behaves as if this is the plan: one gives an ad to the newspaper, the other looks for a van to take out, and so on.

The current situation around the war unleashed by Russia is very much reminiscent of such a default deal. There is no agreement on negotiations with Russia, but all parties to the conflict behave as if this matter has been resolved. That is, there are no negotiations, the very idea of the possibility of such negotiations seems at least controversial, and the parties act within the framework of negotiation algorithms, the main of which is the tactics of raising rates. Well, Putin wants to discuss the annexation of territories within the framework of the negotiation process on the principle of "I will take as much as I have time to chop off." Biden raises rates to ATCMS and confiscation of assets. Putin traditionally answers with a return to the primary triad: demilitarization, denazification and desatanization (the destruction of the independent Ukrainian patriarchy). To this, Sunak responds with permission to strike with British weapons on the territory of "canonical Russia", and Macron proposes to think about the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine. Putin does not hesitate to resuscitate Lukashenka, who is starting to move nuclear weapons around Belarus. And all this is still in the virtual space.

A rather peculiar situation arises. The internal goal of the parties is to reach an agreement and improve the negotiating position, but these negotiation maneuvers objectively lead to a giant escalation of the conflict, which, nevertheless, is not taken seriously by anyone, because everyone is sure that this is only for the sake of peace and strengthening the negotiating leverage. The danger of such behavior is that the implied transaction, in which everything must be resolved, may turn out to be a myth. It will play the role of an axe in porridge from the famous Russian fairy tale about a soldier. This axe will then disappear imperceptibly, but all the "ingredients" of a large European (and maybe world) war will remain. That is, at the moment when it becomes clear that this is a win-win situation and no negotiations are possible, it will turn out that the stakes are already fixed in the highest possible position, that is, on the line of the West's direct participation in the conflict and Russia's readiness to use nuclear weapons.

The problem is that the reverse process - lowering rates - is much less technological than raising them. De-escalation is impossible without loss of face, and loss of face is an expensive political pleasure that not everyone can afford. In such a situation, any accidental "unplanned" exacerbation can be fatal. Tentatively speaking, the destruction of the Crimean Bridge, which seems to be a matter of time (in the sense that if the conflict drags on, it will sooner or later happen, if not as a result of shelling, then as a result of sabotage), will force the Kremlin to invent a response that in the eyes of its own population will be recognized as an adequate confirmation of strength.

I think that the scenarios for such an answer have long been spelled out. Most likely, this answer will lead to a provocative and even shocking number of civilian casualties, which will pose the question to the political leadership of the West: "What other signs, signals are you waiting for to implement all those promises (the introduction of troops, strikes on Russia) that you so easily gave in the hope that you would never have to fulfil it?".

As a result, a big war will begin naturally and immediately as a continuation of the appeasement policy of...

Vladimir Pastukhov, Telegram