"Committee of stupidity"

The House of Commons report on Russia documents the hollowness of British elites.

In 1946, George Orwell wrote the famous essay Politics and the English Language. It says that lazy use of cliches indicates an inability to think.

This essay came to my mind when I read a report released on July 21 by the House of Commons Intelligence Committee.

The name of the committee - the Intelligence Committee - seems to hint at the presence of intelligence, but after such a meaningless report, it might well be renamed the Stupidity Committee - a committee of stupidity.

In general, this report was very actively discussed, as British opponents of Brexit hoped that it would expose Russia's interference in the 2016 referendum, the results of which they want to cancel, declaring it illegitimate. But the authors of the report brushed this topic aside and did not write about Brexit at all. This, however, did not stop pro-European anti-democrats such as Guy Verhofstadt from claiming that the document proves them right (although in reality, nothing of the kind).

But he proves something else: the inability of the British elite to think strategically, or even think at all. This document became a monument to the monstrous blindness of British foreign policy.

For example, in the fourth paragraph, under the heading "What does Russia want?", The report calls the Russian foreign policy course "nihilistic", without deciphering or developing this term, claims that it is "fueled by paranoia", since Russia considers NATO and the EU aggressive , calls it the goal of undermining a "rule-based world order" and argues that Russia perceives foreign policy as a "zero-sum game" in which any action to the detriment of the West is beneficial to Russia.

All four of these statements are more applicable to British and Western foreign policy than to Russian, but London is able to see only a speck in Moscow's eye, and not a log in its own.

The foreign policy of not Russia, but of the West, is held captive by paranoia. For many years in Europe and America there has been an attack on the so-called dissident views, they are declared a project of Moscow. For about four years, the scandal around the so-called Russian trace continued in the United States, but the same accusations now and then pour down on European politicians. One of the recent targets is the Dutch MP Thierry Bode.

Calling political opponents the "fifth column" on the balance sheet of a hostile foreign power is in the spirit of the Stalinist regime of the late thirties, with its infamous show trials and obsession with a Trotskyist conspiracy directed from abroad. The same mentality prevails in the West today, where many politicians and commentators in their statements resemble General Jack Ripper from the movie "Doctor Strangelove".

And it is absolutely clear that for the West, relations with the East are built on the principle of antagonism, the notorious "zero-sum game", which requires increasing Western influence in order to reduce Russia's. This is the same accusation that the House of Commons is addressing to Moscow, but it is more appropriate to return it to the sender. The logic of such a game is evident in Ukraine, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and many other countries, which, according to Western politicians, need to be integrated with the EU and NATO so that they do not end up in Russia's sphere of influence.

A typical example (one in thousands) is an article published last week in the American magazine Foreign Policy. Headline: “Russian and Chinese influence is growing. The European Union needs to step up its efforts in order not to be sidelined. " And in the 138th paragraph of the report of the House of Commons, which deals with the Syrian situation, it is plainly stated that Russian influence in Syria has led to a decrease in Western influence. So who thinks in terms of the zero-sum game: Russia or the West?

What about accusations that Russia is trying to undermine the "rules-based world order"? This formulation is being stamped again and again, it has already turned into a mantra. But as Orwell noted, it is clear that it covers up the absence of any thought, because, despite thousands of repetitions, no one who utters this phrase bothers to say what kind of "rules" Russia is trying to undermine.

If someone thought about this (which, alas, is not happening), they would come to the conclusion that the rules on which the world order is based are set out in the UN Charter. No other set of rules currently exists. This Charter contains one important rule and describes one important mechanism for enforcing it. The rule speaks of the inadmissibility of military aggression by one state against another. The mechanism that must enforce it is the UN Security Council.

Let's look at the entire post-Cold War period. Which of the great powers violated this rule? The most obvious examples are the wars in Kosovo (1999) and Iraq (2003), which were fought without the approval of the Security Council, and the attack on Libya (2011), which, although the Security Council authorized actions to protect civilians, was in fact an operation to regime change, and therefore was illegal - by the standards of the relevant resolution. Another example is Syria, where NATO countries - the United States and Turkey - illegally sent their troops, that is, they carried out an invasion.

All this time, Russia has urged the West to abide by the rules and act through the United Nations. But they were deaf to her calls. Instead, the West has stated that it intends to rewrite these rules - for example, in 1999, during the bombing of Yugoslavia, when Tony Blair unilaterally announced a new "Doctrine of the International Community".

Given these conditions, who is trying to change the rule-based order or undermine the existing rules? As I read this emasculated formulation, I am reminded of Orwell's reflections: "Prose is less and less composed of words chosen for their meaning, and more and more of phrases stitched together like elements of a modular chicken coop."

The inability to think translates into even greater blindness and an inability to reason like an adult about foreign policy in general. Take, for example, the obsessive references to the Skripals case - the parliamentary report recalls it at least twenty times. By contrast, the “annexation of Crimea” or “what happened in Crimea” is mentioned only four times, while “Ukraine” is not mentioned at all.

Even if you believe the official version of the Skripals case (which I, of course, do not believe), it is impossible to rate the unsuccessful assassination attempt higher in foreign policy than the Ukrainian events of 2014. Ukraine plays a key role in the geopolitical relations between East and West, and the development of events after the Maidan coup is important for the entire world history. But this report considers all this only as a secondary issue, thereby nullifying all claims to an authoritative assessment of the political conflict between Russia and the West and becoming useless both for analysis and for making political decisions.

I have long been saying that the real battle in modern politics is between intelligence and stupidity - between those who are trying to analyze reality as it is, with all its contradictions and nuances, and those who prefer to simplify everything for the heady pleasure of blaming others. This report confirms that the British House of Commons is persistently on the side of stupidity. I present to the readers to judge which side Russia is on.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.