Military-defense calls for Russia: geography and the historical outlook

The influence of geography on the development of the society is studying the disciplines such as historical geography and geopolitics. This effect is quite broad and multidimensional, and in the XIX century. he studied geopolitics. One of the basic tenets of the historical geography and geopolitics - the specifics of the "sea" and "continental" powers - "tallasokratii" and "tellurocracy" -has been noticed in the XIX century. The question arises: does the specifics of this in the future? And will it be in a more and more globalized and Westernized culture-act such factors as the opposition of the maritime and continental powers (in political terms) and civilization (culturally)?

It is possible to make the following points. Different mentalities, is likely to continue. The levels of the social consciousness:

• a)    low - where the concentrated experience of the centuries-old civilization and values, rooted in cultural traditions, archetypal images and ideals;

• b)    medium - where there is an accumulation of experience, which is associated with long waves of socio-economic and political cycles. This is the dominant values in society norms that define the interpretation of such moral categories such as national identity, freedom, justice, dignity, etc.;

• c)    the top - where is the current recycling practices and recently borrowed cultural values , is the formation and implementation of situational logic action [1, p. 42].

These levels are difficult and direct connectionn with each other, as currently concentrated in the historical experience of different lengths, are subject to the laws of different eras. "Bottom" is set to "top" what is possible and acceptable in real activity. And if the study of the upper level is more applicable formal methods of the political science and sociology, for the study of the lower levels of required methods of the historical geography, cultural studies and other disciplines.

Political confrontation between continental and maritime powers - it's possible, but it will not be dominant. Thus, in all the major wars in the last 200 years - Napoleonic, 1, and 2 nd World - continental Russia fought in alliance with the maritime powers against their continental rivals well.

With the possible transition to the noosphere civilization it more in line with the features of the classic "continental" type of personality: a man, a devotee of a lofty idea, ascetic, capable of heroism. A number of features of "continental" type may prevent: tolerance to arbitrary powers, blurring the concepts of "honor" and "dignity," the capacity for self-organization of the public only through the all-pervasive state that gives rise to the absolute power of the bureaucracy and the arbitrariness of the authorities. In the "sea" type of personality fundamental feature - focus on the type of consumer culture and personal development - clearly not the noosphere thinking, but at the same time understanding the dignity of and respect for the uniqueness of the individual, the focus on self-actualization can be claimed by the new era. Of course, the dominance of the Western pop culture and postmodern destructive penetration into the layers of the reflection of the national cultures unifies these differences, but for a possible breakout to a new noosphere civilization will likely have to abandon the consumer race, and this is the backbone factor "sea" type of culture.

In the historical geography and geopolitics, there are interesting developments in the analysis of geo-economic and political trends. Here are a few ideas. The researcher A.I. Vladimirov in describing the features of the domestic upgrades highlights the following features of the Russian civilization [2, p 39]

• a)    the underlying ideological and moral role of Orthodoxy in the society and the state in the pre-revolutionary period;

• b)    the fundamental role and importance of the institution of the autocracy in the prerevolutionary period, the government - in the post;

• c)    a huge role of the army as a state power, protecting, expanding and fastening the state; d) the state of almost continuous war for survival;

• e)    the unique geography of the area of theresettlement, open borders, undeveloped space and harsh living conditions;

• f)    the colossal space and natural resources;

• g)    nedostatochtnost expression of national identity itself of the Russian population in the vibrant multiethnic general picture;

• h)    the age-old tradition of living in poverty, the lack of private property rights and freedom, the need for the collective survival and submission to the State;

• i)    customary tolerance of lawlessness and arbitrariness of the authorities, combined with a natural love of freedom and a keen sense of justice;

• j)    the specificity of the state personnel, lack of training and education of national managers.

These factors determined the following characteristics of Russian modernization:

• 1)    were carried out "from above" and had a radical;

• 2)    introduced in unprepared for their perception of the national soil, negatively perceived by the majority of the population;

• 3)    modernization reforms have usually been forced, at the cost of great sacrifices, while historically had short-term success, raising the question of the comparability of ends and means;

• 4)    people perceived, not all the values imposed on him by rearranging them under its own mentality.

According to A.I. Vladimirov, thus formed the "information and cultural codes, sealed in the national genetics, carried the genes potentially deadly revolt against their unrealized, the longing for justice and Nesbit, internal anarchy and pessimistic fatalism" [2, c. 45]. Therefore, future reforms or modernization of the state should not be an end in itself the power, but only a means to achieve the objectives clear to the people - improving the conditions of the collective existence, rather than individual survival.

Also interesting is the system of the evaluation factors of the geostrategic position of the society proposed by zhennaya Novosibirsk team of the researchers led by N.S. Rozov. For the analysis of the perspectives, the following hypothetical factors:

A (resource superiority) - superior to the actual and potential opponents by demographics, military power, Outskirts / centrality, access to natural resources, the accumulation of wealth;

C (stiffness / compromise nature of the fiscal policy) - The compromise, if not threatening reproduction, and in the tradition of socially accepted norms, promote social cohesion (no tax riots);

D (conflict of economic / military / political elites) – is the presence of the significant differences on the strategies of development of society, undermining social cohesion, society needs the reforms are not carried out as a result of sabotage their part of the elite, inability to collect taxes in the amount required by the state;

E (a large-scale war) - War of the superpowers of the geopolitical system;

F (the revolt of the masses) - open social conflict, mass rallies by force or threat of force, if successful, lead to a change in the political-legal regime;

G (the functioning of state institutions) - in the case of the dysfunction - a loss of control and supervision over the territory where the decisions are not implemented, there is a "shortage of solutions," ie, the gap between the recognition of the need for, and the actual adoption of the implementation of any decision and the functions of the state are not provided (no security - internal and external, no rights or legitimate);

H (ethno-political conflict) - the sharp differences between ethno-political elites about the strategy of the company;

K (crisis provides world-system) - the loss of access to trade routes, communications and media exchange over long distances, eliminating or reducing the massive redistribution of resources within the world system, undermining the status hierarchy (core - periphery - semiperiphery);

L (accommodation world-system with respect to this company) - the absence / presence of an effective system in the world system discriminatory measures - access to the redistribution of resources, exclusion from decision-making for most of the countries in the world system, limiting the opportunities to improve their status in the world system;

N (external commercial activity) - access to trade routes, export-oriented manufacturing activities, a high degree of influence of social class that implements this activity;

P (geopolitical success) - expansion of the territorial control, increased geopolitical status;

R (geo-cultural prestige) - at low values - the absence of mass takings other cultures, lower status in the geo-cultural system, the lack of success is geo-cultural dynamic strategy [3, p.396397].

According to himself, N.S. Rozov, this scheme is designed them with a creative analysis of the works of the American sociologist Randall Collins, who in 1980 compared the specific data to assess the geopolitical position of the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of 1970. and found that all indicators resource and the United States have a marginal advantage, while the Soviet Union loses in resources and a number of key areas of the geopolitical situation. On this basis, an American researcher has forecast the collapse of the Soviet empire in the next 30-50 years [3, c. 20-21]. It is curious that this forecast has much in common with the arguments of the famous Soviet economist Yu Jaremenko, who in the early 1980s. said: "Our society is increasingly taking on the traits of a degenerate civilization. Need a change of economic policy "[4, c. 12]. The main factor of degradation, according to Yu Jaremenko - maintaining military parity with the more economically strong contender in the arms race, which takes the predominant portion of the resources. Why was possible such a suicidal policy? Fatal weakening of the role played by the centralizing role of the party, the disintegration of the state. Departmental structures, the former constituent parts of a state body, in 1960-1970 autonomized and began to pursue their own goals, to speedily devouring the resources of the country. A key point of the economic reform program Y. Jaremenko was the conversion of the defense industry and uses it to uplift the overall technical level of the Russian economy. The solution to this problem was to be a planned, centralized way.

The traditional way of the development of Russian mobilization, based primarily on human resources, people's willingness to self-sacrifice, the awakening of national consciousness and patriotism in a critical situation for the country, collectivism, exhausted. But the innovative way in his classic, European-American form, of course, not be realized in the country. And while we have seen the implementation of the forecast of experts, the U.S. special services in 2002: "Most likely, Russia will remain internally weak institutionally involved in the international system primarily through its permanent membership in the Co-Vete UN Security Council [5, c. 26] ... Russia will remain the most important actor in the former Soviet Union. However, its power in relation to neighboring regions will decline, and it will continue to lack the resources needed to implement their plans ... In addition to deteriorating infrastructure, causing heavy damage to the population for a long neglect of the environment ... The population of Russia is not only declining, but be- comes less and less healthy, and thus loses its ability to serve as a driving force for economic revival "[5, p. 95-96].

Unfortunately, this pessimistic forecast comes true. With all the conventions of the historical analogies are reviewed some of the features of Russia after the Time of Troubles in the early XVII: Slow and difficult recovery of the economy, curbing the expansion of its neighbors, the gradual strengthening of the centralism in the management.

Technological modernization of Russia held grossly inefficient. Obsolete equipment in power plants and industrial facilities, the economy is largely dependent on world oil prices. In the press there mention of the fact that a number of Russian military equipment was purchased abroad -domestic military-industrial complex that was once the pride of the economy and focus of advanced technology, is rapidly losing competitiveness. High social polarization, the degradation of the educational system, maintaining cumbersome and corrupt system of governance, the demographic crisis of the Slavic population (European type of birth at the African level of death and illness of the population), the ideological vacuum, the dominance of the negative flow of information (including news and television dominate containing crime, scenes of physical and psychological abuse, destructive behavior) - all these factors pose a serious threat to the political and economic stability of the society. This increases the probability of the most pessimistic scenarios.

Of all the contradictions of the late USSR in the socio-economic and political spheres agreed, by and large, only one - the commodity market is saturated with food and manufactured goods. But this saturation has a downside - has increased dramatically and reached the critical exponents Russia's dependence on food imports, and a number of consumer goods. Some serious contradictions of the late USSR were unresolved::

• a)    continues to remain the fuel and raw-material dependence of the economy and the state budget is largely dependent on world market prices for energy. Compared with the late USSR, the situation has worsened;

• b)    as well as in the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, persist the high cost of maintenance of military-industrial complex and power structures;

• c)    continues to stand acute housing problem - the acquisition of property is still difficult for the majority of Russian citizens;

• d)    the poor development of high-tech, knowledge-intensive industries (compared to the late USSR, the situation has deteriorated). The economy is still poorly susceptible to the achievements of scientific and technological revolution and the introduction of high technology, a number of modern high-tech industries, such as manufacturing of electronics and computers, civil aviation, domestic producer is extremely precarious position, even in the domestic market;

• e)    weak accountability of public authorities, the low efficiency and professionalism in management..

In addition to these problems, appeared new ones, which the USSR did not know:

• f)    depopulation. Demographers have estimated that for the simple reproduction of the population needs fertility 2.4-2.6 children per woman. In the Russia of the 1990s. the figure was much lower, and even now, despite a number of measures, the birth rate only approaches the simple reproduction. This provokes a certain danger. The population of the southern and eastern neighbors, Russia is growing. Increased migration from the south and east faced by European countries, where there is also depopulation of indigenous populations. There are certain social conflicts between migrants and indigenous people belonging to different ethnic and religious groups, and in the community are not well developed mechanisms for resolving these conflicts, uprisings of ethnic minorities in France in 2006-2007. confirmed this. Before Russia could also be a similar problem. The growth in the southeastern neighbors Russia and downsizing of the Russian ethnos creates a dangerous situation when one ecological niche is full, and the other is blank. Any natural system tends to equilibrium, and in this case it can contribute to the expansionist tendencies in relation to the Russian Federation;

• g)    an increase in the gap in living standards, information, education between center and periphery, Moscow and the regions;

• h)    an identity crisis and historical identity of the Russian people. If the means of propaganda in the Soviet Union and asked the media perception of the image of the Russian people as a historically successful, created a powerful state, the victory of fascism, the first to launch a man into space and living in the best socio-economic system, in the 1990s. quite the opposite happened: the dark side of bloated Russian history, especially of the Soviet period, and the image of the people presented as historically unsuccessful. The negative self-identity, non-patriotic values (spoofed the idea of "entering into the world civilization") is currently being overcome, but their devastating impact on the consciousness of the Russian nation is difficult to overestimate. This is also indicated alarming data of various opinion polls: a significant proportion of young people with user-friendly features are ready to emigrate, and few believe that they can live with dignity in Russia.

Moreover, in the modern Russian life problems come from the pre-revolutionary period, which, as it seemed at the time of the Soviet Union, in the past

• i)    sharp social stratification of society, the income gap between rich and poor. Hence - the growth of class contradictions, which became particularly acute with the onset of the economic crisis, when most employers began to cut workers in violation of the law itself thereby providing retention of profits;

• j)    a large dependence on the world market, the global economic situation, and, therefore, a significant impact of economic crisis on the state.

All this is happening against the background of the growing crisis of the industrial civilization on a global scale. Material prosperity and technological advances of the modern world has its source in use of non-renewable natural resources, especially oil and gas. It is assumed that humanity has developed for nearly half of all explored these resources. Increasingly scarce resource is fresh drinking water. And since Russia has these resources in large enough quantities, compared to most countries, this would add to the pressure on her to gain control over these resources. All this will aggravate the control data for the resources, including the Arctic region.

Pic. 1. Russia on the Worlds Map. URL:

It is not clear programs and ideas to make large-scale civilizational breakthrough. Ideologies of "rule of law" and "civil society" are completely devoid of the unifying, charismatic force, which was with the Soviet myth, and, in some periods of history, from the monarchy. In an extreme socioeconomic and political situation can be realized again the scenario of "Time of Troubles".