Russia’s natural resource wealth and new role in accelerating multipolar processes incentivize the West to continue its Hybrid War on Russia even in the event of peace in Ukraine. The US’ neoconservative policymaking faction and the EU’s liberal-globalists (essentially one and the same at this point) continue to perceive Russia as an enduring rival to contain and ideally dismember. That’s why they’re expected to refine their ongoing Hybrid War on Russia in the coming future through the following three means.
The first involves their efforts to win the “tech race”, specifically in terms of AI and the Internet of Things, which they envisage will enable them to lead the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR). The consequent economic and military edge that they anticipate is supposed to “leave Russia in the dust” as they see it. They believe that economic and then political instability will eventually follow in Russia. This could take the form of Color Revolutions, renewed terrorist insurgencies, and/or uncontrollable elite infighting.
The second aspect concerns the West’s division of labor in containing Russia. The US will “Lead From Behind” by providing back-end support for its European junior partners as it prioritizes containing China. Meanwhile, the UK wants a sphere of influence in the Arctic-Baltic, Germany just in the Baltic, Poland in Central & Eastern Europe, and France in Romania-Moldova. The EU’s associated €800 billion “ReArm Europe Plan”, which will likely lead to social spending cuts, is being spun as a ‘defense of democracy’.
And finally, the last element of the West’s refined Hybrid War on Russia will focus on AI-generated anti-Russian infowars, both to demoralize Russians and boost morale among Westerners. They’ll write entire articles, control more realistic bots on social media, create lifelike videos, and ultimately masquerade as policy experts and average folks alike. Years of secretly scraping Mainstream Media, Alt-Media, social media (including non-Western platforms), and YouTube for data will make these fakes very convincing.
For as compelling as these plans may be, they won’t destabilize Russia. Its economy has already proven itself remarkably resilient and China can help it catch up to the West in the tech race. As for conventional Western military threats, Russia’s military-industrial production far surpasses NATO’s, while Russia’s effective “Democratic Security” policies have preemptively neutralized infowar threats. The end result will be that Europe becomes more subordinate to the US without either of them subordinating Russia.
The West’s plans could also backfire. The European public might embrace populist-nationalists who promise to restore social spending levels by cutting newly planned military spending. Even if they’re kept out of power through Romanian-like machinations, that would be at the expense of further discrediting the myth of “Western democracy”, which might fuel an even greater public trust crisis. At the very least, standards of living will stagnate or even decline, and Europe might thus be the one “left in the dust”.
The West’s refined Hybrid War on Russia that’s expected to follow peace in Ukraine, whenever that might come and regardless of the terms, is inevitable due to how deeply embedded neoconservatives and liberal-globalists are in its decision-making ecosystem. Even the best-case scenario of Trump coercing Zelensky into Putin’s demanded concessions and then Russia and the US agreeing to a resource-centric strategic partnership can’t avert this. Russia is ready, however, so this will all be for naught.
