The world has entered the process of redrawing spheres of influence, and in the new conditions they will have to be defended by force. Michael Pompeo,
in his recent speech on the creation of a new world order, stated this absolutely straightforwardly: the United States is about to begin a forceful
change in the world order that has emerged following the Second World War.
Russia realized this a long time ago and without fanfare and harsh political statements, and demarches began to form its renewed nuclear missile
potential and create a self-sufficient independent economy, which is not afraid of any sanctions. But any forceful transformation process devours its
initiators with a funnel of self-expansion. The force of action gives rise to the force of opposition, and the world emerging as a result of the
efforts of the United States is unlikely to please the United States itself. It will inevitably consolidate enemies and alienate friends. This is what
happens.
Russia has found an asymmetric response to the unilateral rupture of the United States by the main treaties on which world stability has hitherto
held. Russia will begin to do the same in relation to the United States, and will use a similar argument. The weakest link in the system of bilateral
Russian-American relations is the agreement of March 30, 1867, on the assignment of Alaska for $ 7.2 million. The deal was so opaque and was
accompanied by such a huge number of scandals and frauds that any of them could serve as a legitimate reason for declaring the contract null and void.
Moreover, the money from the transaction did not reach Russia and the Russian budget was not received. With numerous conversions in Western banks,
this amount was significantly shrunk, and gold bought for the remainder in London was allegedly loaded on ship "Orkney" , which sank safely on July
16, 1868 when going to St. Petersburg.
The idea of breaking the Alaska treaty did not arise in Russia now. Back in 2015, the information space of Russia was blown up by the article
“Alaskanasha, and no nails!” (Alaska is ours, and no
nails!), In which all the frauds that accompanied the deal were described in detail and convincingly. The article received a wide public response and
generated a wave of discussions on this topic in Russian society. The topic was so popular that the leading Russian news agency RIA-Novosti published
an article in 2014
“The petition for Alaska’s accession to the Russian Federation gained more than 40
thousand votes,” which said that in the United States on the White House’s website there was a petition of Alaska’s accession to Russia
Got 40 000 votes of US citizens. Later the petition was removed from the site.
In 2017, the same agency published a detailed article
“The history of the sale of Alaska to Russia by
the United States in 1867,” which only fueled the interest of the Russians in this topic. And now, after President Trump announced the US
withdrawal from the treaty with Russia on medium and shorter range missiles, well-known Russian analyst, historian and politician Nikolai Starikov
published an article titled
“Exit Alaska Sale Agreement” on the website of the federal news agency RIA FAN. It must be said that Starikov is not a
mainstream politician. He is an intellectual, the founder of the patriotic party “The Great Fatherland Party”, not part of the Kremlin pool. His
closest friend and associate is a major entrepreneur in the field of information technology, artificial intelligence, software development, project
management, the general director of Ashmanov and Partners, the most famous top manager in the field of IT technologies, Igor Ashmanov. Ashmanov is a
recognized authority in the field of information technology and information warfare and operations.
Starikov proposes to use mirror arguments, the same that President Trump uses:
- the contract is outdated because it was signed in another geopolitical reality;
- The United States itself is to blame for breaking the contract, which not only constantly violates all the treaties at all, but also violates this
particular one (the American side did not fulfill all the terms of the agreement!);
- Russia's withdrawal from this treaty is not directed against the United States, but at expanding Russia's trading opportunities, which would make
it more convenient to compete in the trade sphere with China - Russia, as the successor of the USSR, is ready to return to the United States 7 million
200 thousand dollars and, after withdrawing from the cession agreement, return Alaska under its jurisdiction. Especially since there are all legal
grounds for this (the agreement states the assignment of territory, but does not say for how long, that is, there is no formula “for all time”
traditional for Russian diplomatic treatises);
- being consistent fighters for human rights and protecting the property rights of the heirs of the owners of a Russian-American company that mastered
and controlled our overseas territories, the Russian Federation is forced to recognize the agreement with the USA of 1867 as null and void and declare
withdrawal from it.
Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that the Alaska agreement is not a sale agreement, but a cession agreement, and its validity period is not
specified in the document.
Thus, strictly following the principles and arguments of the Trump administration, Russia begins a geopolitical game according to the new rules set by
the American side. Will Trump like it? We'll see.