The world is changing. In general, I am afraid that the world order that was established after 1945 is coming to an end. I am afraid that we are entering an era of new global changes, redistribution of the world order.

And one of the tools of this redistribution of the world is the hybrid war.

It can not be said that hybrid wars are a modern invention. They existed quite a long time ago. This type of war was practiced by the USSR in Afghanistan. When along with the regular army used and local irregular formations. So this is not news.

But we can not and do not admit that Russia, undoubtedly, has brought hybrid wars to a new level. And achieved impressive success in this field.

Hybrid war is not only various power operations that we are currently seeing in Syria and Ukraine. It is also the use of propaganda, information technology, money, insurgents, national communities, interference in elections, agents of influence and corruption. Yes, and corruption too. And corruption is the most effective tool in these wars.

Export of corruption influence, corruption erosion of societies is one of the main components of this type of war.

It took only a quarter of a century after the collapse of the USSR and, it would seem, Russia's transition to democracy, but by the eighteenth year of the twenty-first century it has to be ascertained that this transition did not happen. At the moment, Russia has once again embarked on a policy of imperialism and again turns into a xenophobic aggressive imperialist country. Only this time to achieve its goals, it uses not panzer divisions, but creeping influence.

Export of corrupt officials with money is one of the most important components of this influence.

Coming to the countries of the first world, they bring with them not only their money, but their worldview. Affect and the practices of business and politics in the societies of those countries that take them. And, worse yet, they corrupt them.

The attempt to turn a blind eye to the origin of this money, in the overwhelming majority of cases obtained by criminal means, is the first step in this expansion. If a thief and a criminal becomes a respected person in society as a man of labor who has achieved everything himself, the question automatically arises - why work and observe laws, if theft and corruption are a much shorter path to success? If it is possible for them, why can not we? If society does not make the difference between a thief and an honest man, then why be honest?.

Unfortunately, Western democracies still can not understand what they faced. What new challenges are facing them. What is Putin's Russia of the twenty-first century?. And everyone is trying and trying to play by the rules with the cheater, who does not observe these rules - he a priori was going to break them, using honesty and decency of the enemy.

That's why they become such shocks about tens of thousands of fake pro-Russian accounts in social networks trying to influence the elections. Although oppositionists in Russia have written about it more than once and not twice. That is why such a shock is the exposure of fake news that in Germany refugees to the right and left are raping Russian girls, and that by such outlaws, propagandists are trying to swing the situation towards xenophobia. That is why the shock is the investigation of how in this or that western country the radical ultra-right parties so rise on Russian money. That's why news about the attempted coup in Montenegro becomes such a shock. That is why the shock is the news that popular accounts in Twitter, which assign demonstrations of both ultra-right and migrants for the same time in the same place, are fake pro-Russian trolls.

Freedom of speech is good where it is good. Freedom of speech is an instrument of a democratic established society. And it works, respectively, only in democratic societies. As the most important instrument of the influence of society on power. But in authoritarian societies, it turns into an instrument of propaganda. Influences no longer society on power, and power on society. Enslavement of his. And, which is much worse - corruption.

Recently, a strange communist action took place in Berlin - Friedrichstrasse drove the Soviet tanks and the cruiser Aurora with slogans "Revolution is better than war". What is the revolution in Germany? Why Germany needs a revolution? What does the Russian tanks and cruiser Aurora mean, which has become a symbol of one of the most terrible coups that led to millions of dead? Who pays for this is not the cheapest procession? Yes, once such an action looks ridiculous. The second time is funny. But if you hollow one point year after year - believe me, this tactic brings its results.

Democracy is a sign of an adult free society. Sign of authoritarian immature society - infantilism. The inability to build logical connectives and understand that such and such actions lead to such and such results.

Attempts to play democracy with authoritarian regimes in infantile societies that want simple solutions to complex problems have once brought Europe to the brink of disaster. I am now talking about Hitler's fascism. An attempt to talk with such regimes in the language of democracy is not an achievement, but a weakness. Such regimes do not understand this language. They should be spoken in the language that they understand. To beat on hands at once. Immediately. To give a tough rebuff. Do not let them take root.

To give freedom of expression to cannibals is not just haphazard - it's dangerous. Unfortunately, the West is still not fully aware of this danger. I quite often have to communicate with people, including politicians in Europe, and I see that people simply do not understand the dangers I'm talking about. Still by inertia they are trying to perceive Russia as a crooked, but still a rule-of-law state. This has long been wrong.

Russia has long understood the cynical idea: to play not according to the rules is more profitable. Especially if you are allowed to do so. If you can not win the Olympics honestly, then you need to conduct a special operation with doping. And a major FSB climbs into the repository of urine test tubes of athletes and changes dirty urine samples with meldonia to clean. This is not the plot of Kafka's stories. This is the reality that led to the recent Meldonian scandal. It is still the same part of the creeping influence, which is also the corruption export.

Now in Russia - and not only in Russia, throughout the post-Soviet space - the term "kleptocracy". The power of thieves, corrupt officials. This is a very accurate term. Kleptocracy was made possible precisely because of the infantilism about which he wrote above. That irresponsibility of the population in front of the territory on which they live. Before future generations, which they will leave behind.

But what is even worse is the export of this corruption erosion at the moment is the most effective tool for creeping influence.

What kind of money do you admit to your country? How and with whom will they work? How will they influence society? How will they decompose it? How and what manifestations, parties, forces, corruption schemes, fake bot farms and mechanisms of influence will be paid next time through them? And, most importantly, I repeat - how will they continue to disintegrate the society? Because if you hit for a long time in one point, it will invariably bring your results. And to beat in one point such modes are able.

It seems to me that it is very important to ask precisely these questions. It is very important, at last, to understand that corruption erosion is no longer just a theft and laundering of money acquired by criminal means. This is now - and already, perhaps, in the first place - about a hybrid war.

And already based on this understanding, build strategies for confronting it. As part of this comment, it is impossible to go into more detail about how this strategy might exactly look like. But it is obvious that the first step towards a successful strategy of confrontation is a broad awareness among politicians and society that the West is under the influence of, in fact, attack by corruption, that its open channels of business are used for the dark political purposes of Putin's regime. After realizing the scale of this phenomenon, which, in my opinion, is an obligatory first step towards creating a strategy, one can further argue - whether all business flows from Russia to the West should be blocked or selectively, how to separate more or less pure money from the Kremlin ones, as To keep the West's relations with Russian society, but to restrain the undermining influence of Kremlin kleptocrats.

In February 2013, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov published an article in the industry weekly "Military Industrial Courier" "The Value of Science in Foresight". In it, he talks about the so-called "theory of chaos," the essence of which boils down to the fact that military actions are only the final part of a new hybrid war. And its main part is the loosening of the situation.

Creation of chaos in the state and society of a likely enemy.

And, most importantly, to understand - corruption erosion, like cyberattacks or attempts to influence the policies of other countries through fake accounts in social networks - and there is exactly the same doctrine of Gerasimov. The very theory of chaos in action. That same hybrid war.

And she's already here..

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