In any business (I underscore it--business) dealings between people two major factors (and requirements) come into play, same, as a matter of fact, is true for dealings between nations, trust and fair trade. When conducting any business interaction I have to be completely sure that my counterpart is both an honest man, who doesn't plan to cheat me, and has something of equal (or near equal) value in exchange to the value I offer him (or her). The third factor which stands alone is doing due diligence when deciding who to deal with. It is simple, really, and doesn't require any special abilities. Well, evidently France's President Emmanuel Macron never heard of such basic requirements. While visiting Warsaw two days ago, Macron arrived to this conclusion:
What Macron fails to understand here is that Russians, initially, viewed Europe as an entity which satisfied those two major requirements for fair business. Boy, were Russians wrong! Only when Russians returned to necessary practice of doing due diligence did they recognize how wrong they were. I think EU taking a very active part in unleashing the bloody mess in Ukraine, while prior to it sponsoring destruction of Libya and helping to unleash hell in Syria, had something to do with that. Plus who can forget Europeans exhibiting levels of hatered towards Serbs or even Russian Troops fighting Jihad Internationale in Caucasus not seen since, well, Goebbels. Russians remember all that. Since then, in reality much earlier, Russians precisely want to, paraphrasing Macron, "distance themselves from a part of Europe Russians don't feel comfortable about." In fact, Russians are truly grateful for Europe deciding to distance itself from Russia and that is where the whole "business dealings" paradigm shifts. Europe is not a reliable partner, period. It will betray Russia because it cannot fail to do so because Russian and European cultural genetic codes differ dramatically, even when on the surface they seem to be the same.
For starters, Russians know extremely well what are the facts behind WW II, who and how started it. Russians know it extremely well because they finished that war as victors in it and had a good insight into causes and driving forces of that war. This insight comes with the territory for Victorious nations. That is why Russians most likely will not invite Poland to the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Victory this year. France, however, is invited and Macron already confirmed his presence in Moscow on May 9. But France, as represented by her President, is not trying to be nice to Russia. Absolutely not, France, Germany or, for that matter, Spain know that Russians are not Europeans per definition of Europeanessness as it is accepted in Europe proper. Russians are rowdy, their men love women and their women love men, Russians still exhibit signs of utter cultural backwardness by being patriotic, loving math and physics over gender studies, they laugh (or feel sorry) at Greta Thunberg and when in Europe, for some reason, can beat the shit out of third world immigrants instead of trying to culturally enrich themselves by allowing those immigrants to rape Russian women or rob themselves. In general, those backward, KGB-loving Russians have no place in Europe and, that is the funny part, Russians are perfectly fine with that. Russians also love guns, they love to own them, shoot them and most of those Russkies are drafted into the Army which turns their toxic masculinity to 11.
But for Macron, expressing what amounts to a trivial geopolitical common sense, is all about France:
1. Not willing to become American lunch;
2. France's always acute fear of Germans combined with phantom pains of European superpowerdom and desire to speak on behalf of all Europe.
Of course, France's nuclear arsenal counts heavily towards resolving France's fears of German resurgence, at least for now, but it counts for absolutely nothing when France will face what the United States has in store for EU. United States needs EU dissolved and will eat each European nation after that separately. Macron figured that out and so did some Europeans. So, now they try to woo Russia as some kind of counter-balance to Europe's defender and upholder of European democracy across the Atlantic. The problem with this arrangement is that Russia doesn't want to deal with this anymore. Make no mistake, Russia can:
But she shouldn't. Moreover, there is this teeny-weeny factor of Trump and his "deep state" advisors still willing to "talk to Putin". That smells of conflict of interests. This is really a funny situation few could have predicted in 2014, but it is what it is--in the end, even if one is a scumbag in business relations, this scumbag still could be of interest if he has something of value. The ONLY value of Europe for Russia is as market, period. Russia needs to sell her hydrocarbons, and increasingly high value added finished goods to Europe. This trend will continue. While oil and other minerals constitute a bulk of Russia exports, take a look at some really interesting items which Russia exported in 2018.
As you can see, finished goods and food are by no means unnoticeable in Russia's exports and their share will only continue to grow. I omit here internal Russian market which changes the economic outlook dramatically, when included into considerations, because Russia produces a bulk of finished goods for internal use. That means, of course, that EU is a competitor, not really a partner. Especially now, when Russia rolled out half-a-trillion dollars for National Projects which are Russia's projects, not EU's. Certainly, EU could have had a share, should it have been sovereign and friendlier to Russia political organization, but not anymore. You think Macron doesn't know it? Oh, yes, he does. He also knows (after all, Airbus HQs are in Toulouse), that not only Russians are moving away from Safran SAM-146 jet engines, but continue to manufacture SSJ-100s now planned with fully Russian-made engines. And, of course, guess what MC-21 and perspective CR-929 are for Airbus business? Right, direct and stiff competition. So much to take in for Europe. Plus, if someone failed to notice, some piece of really interesting news:
I guess this is not a good news for French nuclear power industry, which, inevitably, also will be sabotaged by "climate activists", while Rosatom already has almost 70% of international market to itself. So, when one begins to review one after another European purely economic perspectives--they do not look that bright. And then, of course, there is an issue of EU's military-industrial complex which was pretty much driven into the ground by US "defense" arrangements with Europe through NATO. And here is the catch for EU, Russia and the United States are bound to some sort of settlement inevitably, because Russia is a major external geopolitical factor in American departure from unipolarity. Not to mention the fact that both are the only military powers capable to annihilate human civilization (forget each-other) completely out of own resources. That is what matters here. EU in all that is NOT a factor and will continue to be such no matter how Vladimir Putin's calls for New Yalta Conference will be responded too.
In the end, what can Europe offer Russia but her market? Technologies? Ahh, tired myth of those Russkies capable to only produce crude weapons--many in Europe still believe in that. Some cannot still conceive that Russia produces world-class own diagnostic medical equipment, electronics, processors etc. They will have to learn to live with that. And while at it, some breaking news from free United Kingdom--UK decided to lift some sanctions from Russia since UK needs Russian pipes, aluminum and you name it. And the main question which arises in the midst of this rat race is: what about Skripals, what about LGBT, what about "democracy", and what about those "principles" which guided suicidal EU (and American) policies domestically and especially against Russia? I'll open a secret--there never were any principles and the only thing Europe loves is power--this power today is in Russia's corner. Because of that many will gravitate to this power, which is not only in massive military capability but, and you may have guessed it already, I will quote incomparable Correli Barnett, yet again:
EU was too late to the accelerating train of history, which left the station, leaving Europeans and their Brussels bureaucracy and "elites", those who can still think, to contemplate Old Europe's fate as an object good only for being used as a relatively senior card in a huge geopolitical game and no amount of appeals to those who hold all the trump (pun is intended) cards will change the outcome. Damn, Russia again will have to deal with Anglos as was the case in 1945(/sarc).
