Source – solari.com
– “…The West intentionally brought down the price of oil. They manipulated the price of oil and managed to lower it in the 1980’s for the purpose of bringing down the Soviet Union. It was essentially an act of national security targeted at trying to weaken the Russian government….The Oil Card worked; it really did help to bring down the Soviet machinery. This is a tactic that has been used very successfully by the West”:
(The Emerging Multipolar World with Saker: Russia, Syria & Recommendations for a Trump Presidency – Interviewed by Catherine Austin Fitts
C. Austin Fitts:
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to welcome back the Saker for our
quarterly discussion of the shift to a multipolar world. Every quarter when I arrive, the shift
has become so dense, complex, interesting and so, sometimes exciting and scary, that I build
a list and think, “I can’t wait to talk to the Saker.”
Saker, we have a lot to talk about. Welcome to The Solari Report.
Saker:
Thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure. And, yes, there is a lot of ground to
cover this time.
C. Austin Fitts:
For the last three months in the American press, every other headline is,
“Well, the Russians did it!”
Saker:
Oh yes.
C. Austin Fitts:
In the American press, the Russians are becoming all powerful.
We’ve just had elections, and had a really great discussion about what it means for Putin and
what it means for the Russian sanctions and the relationship between the two countries. Tell
us about the elections and what it means, both for Putin and his administration as well as
our relationship with Russia.
Saker:
Alright. First of all, when you say that the US blames everything on Putin, you
know that that regularly makes it to the news on Russian TV where everybody laughs. They
say, “Look at how powerful we are! We now influence even the elections. We influence
everything!”
Everybody is laughing about that. “We must be totally invincible if we’re so powerful that
we hack everybody and we meddle with US politics. Aren’t we great!”
Seriously, the elections were very interesting because the party in power actually increased its
share. It was a complete, total victory for the United Russia Party, which is very important.
It’s often misunderstood in the West as to why it is important. The reason for that is:
Remember that Russia is under sanctions that are not really hurting Russia too much, but the
fall in the price of oil has hurt Russia tremendously.
Plus, as we discussed, Russian governments under Medvedev, specifically the economic
blocks and everything that is dealing with the economy have done a pretty poor job, I would
say. As a result, there is definitely an economic crisis in Russia. That is the important fact.
Now why would a party in power – during a time of crisis – actually substantially increase
the number of seats it has in a parliament? When people say that this is going to be a rubber
stamp parliament, this is absolutely true. But this is exactly what the Russian people wanted.
The people wanted a rubber stamp parliament because what really happened was a vote of
confidence to Putin personally. That’s the only reason that kind
of score was made by the ruling party.
In reality, if you look at the popularity of pretty much all the
other politicians, including those of the main party, they’re not
that popular at all. It was really a referendum on Putin and on
his stance. From that point of view, he received a huge
mandate from the people. Clearly the vast majority is standing
behind him. That sends two signals. First of all, of course, to
the West that the idea of sanctioning Russia somehow can
trigger regime change by means of color revolution in response
to an economic crisis completely failed. What happened was
the opposite; people circled the wagons around their President.
Secondly, as I mentioned on this show in the past, the real
opposition in Russia sits inside the Kremlin. It’s the pro-
western, pro-AMF Washington consensus types who are in the
government of Medvedev. To them it sends the very same
signal: We stand behind Putin, so don’t try something.
It’s actually an extremely important election because it really reestablished a power of Putin
personally.
C. Austin Fitts:
Right. Now let me just go back because I want to talk a little bit about the
power of the lower oil price and the sanctions.
We had on The Solari Report, Jim Norman several times and Anne Williamson, and we’ve
talked about how the West intentionally brought down the price of oil. They manipulated
the price of oil and managed to lower it in the 1980’s for the purpose of bringing down the
Soviet Union. It was essentially an act of national security targeted at trying to weaken the
Russian government.
Jim has a wonderful book called The Oil Card, and The Oil Card worked; it really did help to
bring down the Soviet machinery. This is a tactic that has been used very successfully by the
West .
I’m not trying to say that the oil prices coming down has to do only with the Soviet Union,
because there are plenty of things going on in the energy industry with technology to bring
The people wanted a
rubber stamp
parliament because
what really happened
was a vote of
confidence to Putin
personally.
THE SOLARI REPORT
MULTIPOLAR WORLD
SEPTEMBER 2016
the oil price down as well. But the reality is that that tactic worked before, and this time it’s
not working. Is that fair to say?
Saker: I would say that it is working in the economic sense. Russia has most definitely
heard. They are actually discussing reducing the budget for the first time, including the
finance minister suggesting a 6% reduction of the military budget, which I don’t think will
happen.
It has worked in a sense of hurting Russia. That has hurt Russia way more than the formal
sanctions. But it failed politically because there is a completely different environment. For
one thing, during the Soviet Union there was really very little support for the Soviet state as
it was, whereas today there is a complete and different informational picture in Russia.
People get their information in a competitive market. They see the Western media and the
blogosphere, and they clearly have come to the conclusion that this is a war. In case of a
war, once you are aware of that, you accept sacrifice – particularly the Russian people.
C. Austin Fitts:
Right.
Saker:
The party in power has a very easy argument to make. It says, “Do you want to
surrender Crimea in order to get French cheese back on the market?”
Over ninety percent of the people say, “No.” As a matter of fact, during the election,
another thing that was very interesting to see, was that the very pro-Western parties – those
that essentially don’t accept what is called the ‘Crimea Consensus’ which is, “Crimea is ours,”
as they say in Russia –scored about 3%. They couldn’t even make a single seat in parliament.
So politically that factor completely failed. Economically it worked.
C. Austin Fitts:
The Russians experienced what happened when they embraced the West
in the 1990’s.
Saker:
Absolutely.
C. Austin Fitts:
So that was kind of an economic siege of Leningrad.
Saker:
And that argument always comes up, “You think we have it bad now? Do you want
to go back to the 1990’s?” That is one argument, which Putin supporters are using to
demonstrate that effect.
The second one is, “Look across the border at Ukraine.”
C. Austin Fitts:
Right. There is one other point that I wanted to bring up, and that is the
fact that I’ve had experience with the equivalent of the sanctions that the Russians are
dealing with in the United States. When they want to bring pressure to bear, they know how
to mess with the individual’s finances. They always go after the lieutenants.
You try to take out the lieutenants before you try to take out the generals. If you had applied
those sanctions in the United States, I assure you that it would have gone very differently.
The speed at which our system is held together by how much money you’re making this year
or certain kinds of approvals this year, you’re talking about sanctions, that if they had been
applied to the United States, would have been highly successful, in my opinion, relatively
quickly.
Saker:
Agreed.
C. Austin Fitts:
The comparison of how these tactics would have worked in the United
States in the US system versus how they’re working in a Russian system says that you have a
system in Russia that is being held together by a strategic plan vision values, whereas in the
United States, you have something that is held together by much more monetary and short-
term alignments, not by a shared vision.
Saker:
Yes, but in all fairness, Russians feel – and I think correctly – that they have
absolutely nowhere to retreat. What is happening right now is existential war for survival.
I think that if the American people felt similarly – similarly threatened and absolutely knew
that negotiation just didn’t work and have nowhere else to go – I think they would take
sanctions, too, and just say, “We’re not going to retreat anymore.”
C. Austin Fitts:
Right. Although I would say that the media machine has been able to
create a ‘divide and conquer’ mentality when, in fact, there are large parts of the American
population which are cornered.
Saker:
Yes, that is true.
C. Austin Fitts:
But they are so busy dividing and conquering each other that, to this day,
they have not yet seen it together.
Saker:
That is true.
C. Austin Fitts:
When you listen to the people who I think relatively reflect the CIA line
like George Friedman at Stratfor, he is very adamant that the sanctions are going to wear
people down and things are going to come apart. Is that line going to change, or are they
just going to hold the line in the face of the Duma elections? What are they saying about the
Duma elections?
Saker:
I don’t know what Stratfor said about the Duma elections, but you have to
understand who these people work for. Essentially they really work for those who pay them,
and they have to be in a specific line. It has been a very distressing feature of the United
States – the beltway community, the think tanks, etc. They will write things, which have
nothing to do with reality, and they keep on writing things, which are just not based on
reality for the sole purpose of feeding a political agenda or a financial agenda, in many cases.
5
THE SOLARI REPORT
MULTIPOLAR WORLD
SEPTEMBER 2016
That reminds me of when Obama said that the Russian economy is in tatters. I think
yesterday he spoke at the UN, and said that Russia is trying to regain past glory by military
means or something similar. This is absolute nonsense, which is based on nothing, but as
long as the people you are speaking to are willing to pay for it, they will do it. But I think it’s
irrelevant.
For instance, I can assure you that the sanctions are not having
that effect at all. It’s not only the Duma elections that the
people stand behind, but even the economy is doing fairly well.
There are some hopes that the economy is going to go out of
recession, if only mildly, but fairly soon.
Even if it doesn’t, the staying power of the Russian people is
absolutely huge, particularly when they’re cornered. And they
are cornered. That is the key thing.
When they say that the sanctions are working, I say, “Great!
What do you think the Russians will do in response to that?”
They have nothing to do. They don’t have an option.
C. Austin Fitts:
Here is what is interesting. If you look at
what they’re doing in the area of financial payment systems or
in the area of agriculture or any place where the sanction is
biting, they are building up their own capacity – which I think,
in the long run, will be very healthy for the economy.
Saker
: Yes, absolutely. And there are sectors that are terrified
that the sanctions might be lifted, which I don’t think will happen in the near future. But that
is one of the concerns, particularly in this culture. They say they need five years of sanctions
to really fully become competitive.
The thing is that the sanctions are infinitely worse by the policies of the government.
We said the fall in oil prices has hurt Russia, and that is true, but I would say that the first
thing that has hurt Russia is the economic policies of the Medvedev government. They have
hurt Russia way more because they’re in the Washington consensus; they are still concerned
about inflation. They want a ruble that is not fixed but ‘free-floating’.
All of these things – high interest rates and borrowing inside Russia and still a heavy
dependence and imbrications into the Western economic system – are not helpful, but I
think that Putin does not have the means.
I wrote an article about that, saying, “There is a purge coming,” because I think what Putin
is doing is actually preparing for a purge of that fifth column inside Russia. But I think he
needs to have unconditional support of the Russian people and prove that that policy is
Read Full Interview…
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