ROAR: Russian Opinion and Analytics Review, Apr.15
This Wednesday ROAR presents opinions on the botched revolution in Moldova, on real and imagined threats to Russia and on the terms ‘media war’ versus ‘propaganda campaign’.
In Tuesday’s edition of ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA (April 14, 2009) political scientist and columnist Leonid Radzikhovskiy wrote that Moldova is the only European nation with a Communist for a president, and also the only post-Soviet nation where the ‘Orange revolution’ turned into a bubble and exploded bloodlessly (or rather ‘corpselessly’, adds the author).
President Voronin, says the columnist, won the day fair and square by winning the informational war both inside the country and outside, but in a ‘color revolution’ so fashionable today, there can only be a psychological victory or a psychological defeat. A victory or defeat in the eyes of the aggressive minority of one’s own nation and in the eyes of ‘the world community’ meaning European (Western) journalists and observers from various European (Western) institutions.
The author says that there aren’t fewer lies or less cynicism in a colour revolution compared to a regular one. The methods changed somehow in our humanitarian-virtual times. Now, he says, one should prove (or show) himself as a psychologically stronger party at the right moment in front of the right TV camera. In the past it was always the ‘colored’ side that won. If it didn’t, the victory went to the government, but always at a price paid in blood. Voronin, says the author, has managed to make his own mark upon history: he defeated the ‘orange’ without spilling ‘the red’.
Radzikhovskiy makes a few more important conclusions, two of which stand out. The first: president Voronin has spent two terms in office (the maximum according to the Moldovan Constitution). For the whole duration of that period he masterfully maneuvered on his tiny stage, and by the end of it gave a master class.
And the second point: no nation in the world, however young or inexperienced in self-governance, will ever give away its independence after it has received it.
NEAVISIMAYA GAZETA publishes an editorial that gives definitions of the terms ‘media war’ and ‘propaganda campaign’. A media war, says the paper, goes on for a certain period of time, is directed first on the citizens of the country waging that war, and only upon achieving consensus in its own society is it taken to the enemy. Media war is choosy and picky about methods and means.
A propaganda campaign, says the editorial, is a local and short-lived event. It takes whatever it can grab to throw in the enemy’s face, and everything in it is directed from the inside out – from the pursuer of the campaign towards his target.
Taking into consideration the above, the editorial concludes that the defeat of the ‘Orange’ revolution in Moldova will not cause a media war between Russia and the West like it happened with the Caucasus crisis in August.
The same paper has an article on the North Korean nuclear and missile programs by Dr. Evgeny Bazhanov, the recipient of the Distinguished Scientist of Russia award. The academic writes that while in Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US, the launch of the North Korean satellite had only one meaning: North Korea now has a missile capable of hitting Alaska, and has caused lots of concern. In Russia the news was met with a chuckle: who has actually used a nuclear weapon on humankind? The US. So we should be concerned about their missile launches, not North Korea’s. Pyongyang will never attack Russia!
It may be so, says the author, but such an approach is a grave mistake. The US used its nukes against the enemy in WW II in the times when little was known about the hazardous aftereffects of a nuclear bombing. North Korea is trying to build a system of nuclear arms and seeks to join the ‘nuclear club’ in full awareness of all the aftereffects and of the non-proliferation regime supported and conducted by the leading nuclear powers.
Non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are the fruit of willpower and good will of the two nuclear superpowers of the world: the US and the USSR. They became possible after decades of negotiations and efforts, all the while North Korea has gone the way of India and Pakistan who ‘sneaked’ into the nuclear club while its members were looking elsewhere.
The situation in the world, continues the scientist, is more dangerous than ever with nukes in the hands of many: the Indo-Pakistani confrontation, if it happens again, may have a nuclear aspect. The same is true of the face-off between Israel and Iran.
The fact that the younger generations of the world, including those in the countries with nuclear capabilities, know very little of Mutually Assured Destruction and the efforts that have been invested in the non-proliferation process, speaks of the lack of clear understanding of these matters that is going to worsen in the years and decades to come as the ignorant youth become ignorant adults who can teach nothing to their own young.
All that increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict way beyond the levels known in the time of the Cold War, concludes the academic.
Evgeny Belenkiy, RT
