In its lifetime, the Russian state has seen more than one “reformer tsar”. With good reason, the current head of Russia, V.V. Putin, can be attributed to them.
How it all began…
The beginning of a new, second millennium for the Russian Federation was marked by the unexpected appearance on the government Olympus of a new political figure - V.V. Putin.
With the advent of Vladimir Putin to power, Russia's foreign policy has undergone major changes. Even in his youth, the future president wrote a work entitled "Natural Resources of Russia as a Means to Achieve Foreign Policy Goals." The skillful management of natural resources was put at the forefront of his economic and political activities.
In his activities as head of state, the President of the Russian Federation takes into account the mistakes made by his predecessors. In contrast, in the event of lower oil and gas prices, Putin created a stabilization fund, which currently exceeded half a trillion dollars. In parallel with this, using high hydrocarbon prices, Russia was able to pay off most of its external debts and all the debts of the former USSR. The absence of debts, the availability of the Stop Fund, high oil and gas prices - these are the characteristics of Putin’s foreign economic policy today. These indicators have strengthened the country's weight in the international arena.
He forced himself to respect …
The reforms and transformations carried out by Vladimir Vladimirovich can be called revolutionary to some extent. Thanks to them, the state’s foreign economic policy has reached a fundamentally new level. First of all, the state corporation Gazprom was turned by Putin into a real gas club for naughty people. With its help, the president seeks beneficial relations for the country with the former Soviet republics and not only.
Oddly enough, the richest countries — Germany, France, Italy — became the main allies of the new Russia in Europe. Putin has a very close personal business relationship with their leaders. In order to obtain free and independent gas transit to Europe, Russia is carrying out very expensive construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The Blue Stream has already been built, connecting Russia and Turkey along the Black Sea. And it is planned to build the South Stream gas pipeline - to Southern Europe, to the Balkans. All this is done to deprive the transit potential of Ukraine and Belarus. And given the needs of these countries for Russian gas, such a foreign economic policy allows achieving another important goal of President Putin - the restoration of the former USSR, albeit in a new form and under a new name, but with the same imperial ambitions of Moscow. The integration processes in the post-Soviet space are gradually returning to Russia the status of a global superpower.
In contrast to NATO, Russia is creating the CSTO military-political alliance - the Collective Security Treaty Organization. In parallel, the leaders of Russia and China form the SCO - the influential Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which contributes to an increase in the share of Russian products in the world market. The state’s foreign economic policy conducted in this way undeniably proves to world leaders that Russia has long ceased to be weak and defenseless, as in the era of the collapse of the USSR and total confusion. Now, the country’s opinion on various issues is being increasingly listened to, the growth of respect is increasing every year, especially since it, in the presence of the Stop Fund, approached the crisis of 2008 more prepared than the countries of the European Union and the USA.
A wise foreign economic policy allows Putin to return everything that was lost by his predecessors - Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Skillfully allocating budget funds allowed us to allocate a record amount - 20 trillion rubles - for the period until 2020 for a radical modernization and strengthening of the Russian army.
Not all presidential advisers are so far-sighted. Many criticized Putin for this step, starting with his associate with ex-finance minister A. Kudrin. But who, if not the former officer of the Soviet special services, should know that in the modern world they reckon not so much with the rich as with the strong. Therefore, the state’s foreign economic policy is implemented by Putin along a multi-vector, multi-purpose path. And this path should lead Russia to further integration of the post-Soviet space, increase the economic and, consequently, political capital of the country in Europe, draw up worthy US competition in the struggle for world leadership.
What the day ahead is preparing for us …
More recently, parliamentary elections were held in Russia. Most of the State Duma consists of members of United Russia, the party of Putin. It is clear that the deputies will support all the ideas and undertakings of their leader, especially since the Duma was elected for a term of 5 years, and the president himself for his first six-year term. And of course, that Russia's foreign economic policy will develop according to its plan. And the opposition, living mainly on Western grants, has no choice but to endless rallies on Bolotnaya Square, Prospect im. Sakharov and other places where the sovereign president of all Russia will allow her to do this.
