Former Kremlin “grey cardinal” Vladislav Surkov abruptly returned to the fore of global media attention following his de facto retirement from public life these past few years after RT translated his latest article and republished it on the front page of their website. Originally titled “The Birth of the North”, Russia’s top publicly financed international media flagship decided to promote it on their platform under the title “Here’s why Russia will eventually ally with the US and EU”.
The vast majority of it is just Surkov waxing poetically about times past to make the point that the Collective West has historically operated under various delusions to the detriment of its real interests. It’s implied that the latest example thereof is their view that Russia is an enemy, which he believes will be dispelled. Upon that happening, “There will be the Great North – Russia, the United States, and Western Europe – forming a common socio-cultural space. A tripartite northern geopolitical cluster.”
This formerly influential official clarified that it likely won’t happen in anyone’s lifetime, but he insists that it’ll nevertheless inevitably unfold. Surkov doesn’t detail how this scenario will come about, however, instead choosing to predict its general contours. According to him, “The Great North is neither utopia nor dystopia; it will be neither an idyll nor a dystopia. It will be full of contradictions – yet obsessed with the unifying idea of collective leadership.”
He then adds that “The three major northern civilizations, Russian, Western European, and American, draw inspiration for their political development from the image of the Pax Romana. The word of the Elder Philotheus of Pskov still guides Russia. The European Union has proclaimed Charlemagne, the ‘Emperor of the Romans’, as its forefather. Washington’s most famous hill is named after the legendary Capitol.”
Surkov ended his article on a prophetic note: “The source code of these three metacultures is embedded in the Iliad and the Gospel. Their kinship is obvious. Our victory will change us as well as the so-called West. It will be a new step towards the integration of the Great North, where our country will act as a co-leader of the global triumvirate. The evil of this day will be replaced by creation. And that will be the merit not so much of the politicians of the future, but of Homer and St. Mark.”
With all due respect to him, both personally because of his important behind-the-scenes contributions to the formation of Russia’s modern political system but also regarding his right to express whatever views he wants, everything that he wrote is just a far-fetched fantasy. Furthermore, it’s directly at odds with the grand strategic goals that his country is officially working towards as enshrined in its latest Foreign Policy Concept that can be read in full here, which was approved by President Putin.
Of relevance to the present piece is Russia’s self-description as a unique “country-civilization” that’s prioritizing ties with the collection of non-Western countries popularly known as the Global South. China and India, not the US and the EU, are described as two of its closest partners. The document also mentions how Russia will expand ties with them and others, namely through multipolar organizations like BRICS, the SCO, and their RIC core and via the development trans-Eurasian connectivity corridors.
This analysis here from earlier in the year argues that the ongoing global systemic transition to multipolarity has led to the trifurcation of International Relations into the US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino–Russo Entente, and the informally Indian-led Global South. Amidst this complex process, the Russian-Indian interplay that was elaborated on here keeps bi-multipolarity trends in check, thus preemptively averting the potential bifurcation of the world system into a jointly led Sino-US order.
The average reader might not be too interested in the academic-strategic nuances of the aforementioned concepts, which is why it’s sufficient for them in this context to only be aware of the larger dynamics at play regarding the evolving world order. In simple terms, the West crossed so many of Russia’s red lines that any meaningful rapprochement between them aimed at restoring the status quo ante bellum prior to the onset of the latter’s special operation is impossible.
There’s no credible indication that either party has any intent to waste their time pursuing that pipe dream, with each instead accelerating their respective efforts to “decouple” from the other. To that end, the US has successfully reasserted its previously declining hegemony over Europe in parallel with Russia moving full speed ahead with several trans-Eurasian connectivity corridors to China and India. Considering these objectively existing facts, Surkov’s article is veritably a piece of political fantasy.
His prediction of Russia allying with the US and EU to create a so-called “Great North” is based solely on their shared civilizational heritage and particularly their Christian roots, but neither are as solid or eternal as he presents them as being. For instance, the West’s liberal-globalist elite are actively imposing secularism onto their society at the same time as artificially reshaping its traditional ethno-national demographics by creating and then importing “Weapons of Mass Migration” from the Global South.
Readers can learn more about these interconnected processes by reviewing this two-part article series from 2016 about “Civilizational Aggression: Non-Western Revival And Leftist Rebranding” here and here as well as these three more recent pieces about liberal-globalism here, here, and here. As for Russia, while it proudly remains a majority-Christian country-civilization, its grand mufti predicted in 2019 that the population will be one-third Muslim by the early 2030s.
This trend was analyzed here at the time and adds crucial context to what was subsequently described as Russia’s “Ummah Pivot” towards majority-Muslim countries that was undertaken in recent years, which readers can learn more about in this three-part series here, here, and here and in this piece here. The preceding ten hyperlinked analyses show that the West and Russia are rapidly proceeding along separate geo-economic, demographic, and strategic trajectories that’ll likely soon prove irreversible.
Accordingly, the shared civilizational and particularly Christian basis upon which Surkov expects that Russia will eventually ally with the US and EU is exposed as specious, thus discrediting his prediction. Observers might therefore wonder why RT chose to translate and republish his piece, especially since its gist contradicts Russia’s officially enshrined foreign policy concept. While their editorial decision can’t be known for sure, everyone would do well to remember that publicly financed doesn’t mean “state-run”.
Two recent examples proving this point can be seen from Sputnik and RT’s critical articles about the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which were published in spite of President Putin praising that project during his latest appearance at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF). Despite being publicly financed, they have no qualms about sharing opinions that don’t always align with their patron’s. This policy is probably meant to demonstrate editorial independence and generate discussions.
In any case, it would be a mistake for anyone to read too deeply into RT’s promotion of Surkov’s latest article such as by wildly interpreting it as supposedly reflecting a secret shift in Russian grand strategy. Nothing could be further from the truth since this unique country-civilization will continue along its present trajectories to further integrate itself into the Global South. Russia will never ally with the “Great North” against the majority of humanity, and it’s surprising that Surkov thinks the exact opposite.
