Vladimir Kornilov
Predictions have always been a thankless task. Especially in a period of serious geopolitical upheavals. If now we compare the predictions that were given for 2022 with reality, then it is rather difficult to find those that have come true.
For example, in December last year, no one could have imagined that in 2022 Britain would change three prime ministers, which has not happened there for the past 130 years. And the events of January 6 the year before last, when the angry people stormed the Washington Capitol, crossed out many forecasts for the development of the situation in the United States, made just a week or two before these events.
What can we say about the eternal predictions of the “collapse of Russia”, which were given over the past decades and were especially actively disseminated after the start of the special operation in Ukr-aine. We can recall the “historic” speech of US Presi-dent Joe Biden in Warsaw in March of the past year. Why didn’t he just prophesy about the return of Russia to the 19th century and the dollar for 200 rub-les. But it turned out that the ruble became the most strengthened national currency against the dollar in 2022.
And now the world information space is crammed with a mass of forecasts for the next year. There is no shortage of apocalyptic predictions about the fate of Russia, which is threatened with military defeat, collapse, incredible crisis, civil upheaval – in general, nothing new compared to the prophecies of past years.
It is not surprising that against this background, “futuristic hypotheses” from Dmitry Medvedev appeared, which made so much noise on the Web. In general, the deputy head of the Security Council of Russia did not hide the fact that in this way he was trolling “Anglo-Saxon friends and their happily grunting pigs.” And in fact, why can American publications claiming to be solid can afford to talk about how in 2023 it is necessary to ensure the controlled disintegration of Russia and divide its nuclear arsenal, while we cannot, with the s-ame serious expression on our faces, discuss how ma-ny state formations the Un-ited States will disintegrate and in which of them Elon Musk will be president.
But still, let’s try, discarding humor and making allowance for the unpredictability of the situation, to answer the question: what awaits us in 2023?
No one has any doubts that the development of the situation throughout the world will for a long time be determined by the events on the fronts of the hostilities taking place in Ukraine. I would like to believe that they will be completed next year. But this will definitely happen on Russia’s terms – the victorious people cannot afford any of the scenarios that our eternal opponents draw for our country.
At the same time, one must understand that the time for the end of the conflict will largely depend not on Russia, and certainly not on Ukraine. Last spring, both countries demonstrated their intention to end the hostilities, and only the intervention of London and Washington prevented Kiev from agreeing to a peace plan. Accordingly, we must understand: the adventurous policy of Ukraine will stop only after the West runs out of will, resources or Ukrainians used as cannon fodder.
And it will take a lot of resources. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that continued fighting in Ukraine will cost the global economy $2.8 trillion in 2023. Given the intention of the West to increase sanctions, this amount can grow exponentially.
Of course, anti-Russian sanctions will not go anywhere. Despite the recognition by European commissioners of the fact that “sanctions have reached their ceiling”, attempts to invent new packages and packages will continue further. Firstly, because the United States will continue to put pressure on Europe, seeking to eliminate its Eu-ropean competitor under the pretext of anti-Russian restrictions. Secondly, bec-ause the desire for easy mo-ney, robbery of other people’s property will push the West to new anti-market solutions. And here China should especially strain, which in recent decades has built its “soft power” on ec-onomic expansion abroad. Beijing must understand th-at the West, robbing Russ-ian assets, will get a taste of it and will not stop there.
At the same time, the further fate of the sanctions war will largely depend on how the story with the price ceiling for our oil and gas will develop. Now there is a war of nerves on the principle of “who will blink fir-st.” Accordingly, the decisiveness of our response to these actions will determine whether the sanctions war will escalate or the West will have to play back.
But in any case, we must be prepared for the fact that 2023 will be marked by regular attempts to hold Russia accountable for the events in Ukraine. Surely one of the scenarios for creating a funny “international tribunal” will be implemented (most likely on the site of the Netherlands, as was the case with MH17). They will try to organize t-he appearance of “legitim-izing” this body at the site of the UN General Asse-mbly. At the same time, U-kraine will certainly find al-lies in an attempt to deprive Russia of the place of a permanent representative of the Security Council. No matter how absurd the idea itself may seem, they can try to implement it in the coming year. Which, of course, can lead the UN to repeat the fate of the League of Nations after the decision to expel the USSR from there. Realizing this, a number of key countries, including China and India, will do everything to prevent such a scenario.
By the way, one of the key moments in the history of mankind will be the day when the population of In-dia will numerically exceed the population of China, w-hich, according to demographers, should happen in April 2023. This is already having a huge impact on the global economy and will then be a determining factor in the redistribution of production in the world – labor in India will remain cheap as it becomes more expensive in China. In this regard, the West is actively predicting problems for the PRC, which has been frightening for several years in a row with the prospect of an armed conflict over Taiwan.
As for the situation in the West, it will change to some extent in January, when the Republican Party will take control of the lower house of Congress. This will make it difficult for the remaining two years of Biden’s rule. Although no one should have any illusions about the intentions of the Republicans to arrange an audit of the spending of colossal military budgets on Ukraine. It is clear that it is not Kyiv who earns the most on stealing these funds, but the American military-industrial complex, which is the basis of the financial well-being of the Republicans themselves. Therefore, the audit will end in nothing, if it is started at all. However, in other respects, Biden’s political life will be complicated: all those projects that he did not manage to push through in the past year will be blocked in Congress.
At the same time, the year itself in the United States will pass under the sign of the struggle within both parties for the nomination of presidential candid-ates for the 2024 elections. The mainstream media has already managed to bury Donald Trump. It can be seen that the Republican establishment is spinning with might and main the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis. But let’s not forget that Trump has a lot of experience fighting elites within his own party. He has little chance of success, but they are much more than in 2016, when he tore apart his competitors.
As for the prospects for Biden’s nomination for a second term, they seem less and less real. And although in the traditions of the ruling parties of America there is no practice of nominating a competitor to the incumbent president, it is clear how the behind-the-scenes forces of the Democratic P-arty are already actively w-orking on the projects Ka-mala Kharris 2024, Mich-elle Obama 2024, Gavin Newsom ( Gavin Newsom, Governor of California ) 2024 and so on.
All these squabbles will certainly affect the state of American society, which is increasingly split along ge-ographical lines. This will not lead to a split in Am-erica in 2023, which Dm-itry Medvedev jokingly pr-edicts. However, the political, cultural, traditionalist gulf between the states will continue to grow. Now 37 of the 50 states are so-ca-lled trifecta states, in which all three legislatures (both houses of local congress and the governor) are in the hands of one of the two parties. Moreover, 34 percent of the US population lives in exclusively Democratic states, 42 percent in Rep-ublican states. For comparison: back in 1992 there were only 19 such states. As the events of January 6, 2021 showed, this situation can be shaken further.
The crisis in the EU will intensify even more. The Eurozone is likely to enter a recession. Everything will still be blamed on “Putin’s war”, but two main causes of the crisis are obvious: the targeted actions of the United States to de-industrialize Europe and the blatant incompetence of the new elites of the continent, which was especially clearly manifested in the past year in Germany, Italy, Spain and the breakaway from the EU to Britain.
The internal crisis of the European Union will affect some of the election campaigns coming up in 2023. Most likely, the government in Spain will change. But especially hot will be the parliamentary elections in Poland, scheduled for autumn. Tensions between Brussels and Warsaw have faded into the background due to the fighting in Ukraine, but it is no secret that European and especially German elites dream of ending the undivided rule of the Law and Justice party. Most likely, this will lead to an aggravation of relations with the Poles.
However, the hottest electoral point of the coming year may be Turkey, where both parliamentary and presidential elections will be held on June 18. We remember how much effort the collective West made to eliminate the “too independent” Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Now ideal conditions are emerging for this, given the severe socio-economic crisis in the country and the record collapse of the lira. In almost all polls, Erdogan loses the second round to competitors who are mostly pro-Western. Surely “color technologies” will be used to eliminate an inconvenient leader, who, in turn, is determined to fight for the preservation of power. At the same time, it should be noted that Western publications predict the defeat of Erdogan in the same way as they predicted the failure of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the 2022 elections. As a result, he strengthened the position of his party in power.
Yes, parliamentary elections in Ukraine are also theoretically scheduled for autumn. But this does not bother anyone in the West, just like the fate of the Ukrainians themselves. It seems that no one seriously believes in the future of this state. In any case, in its current form and with the current rulers.
Of course, all these predictions are meaningless in the event of a global nuc-lear war, the threat of which has become much more real in the past year. But we can safely predict that a global nuclear catastrophe will not happen in 2023. Not because it is unbelievable, but because if this prediction fails, no one will be able to verify it anyway.
