END OF THE WORLD NOT CANCELLED?

Scientists from the National Institute of Mexico are tired of tabloids besieging them and have announced that the Apocalypse, supposedly scheduled for the end of 2012, is cancelled due to the incorrect decoding of the Mayan calendar. The forecast is rather optimistic, which cannot be said about political expectations for next year. No one expects the "end of the world" in world politics either, but almost all of the problems troubling the minds of analysts will "safely" move over into the next year. We talked about some of them with the director of Russian and Asian programmes at the US World Security Institute, Nikolay Zlobin.

- To what extent can the recent events in Russia - the protests over the outcome of the parliamentary elections - affect the upcoming presidential elections in March 2012?

- These events will have a direct impact on the presidential election in Russia. The very procedure of the presidential elections will be far more transparent and honest. Unfortunately, the parliamentary elections generated a lot of suspicions that the voting was held with fraud. So far, no one has been able to confirm or deny these suspicions in court. But public expectations are extremely negative. In any case, the shadow of dishonesty has already spread to the presidential elections. Any election with the current composition of election commissions will be under a strong suspicion of bias.

Against the background of the events in Russian politics, we will have to reckon with the immense frustration of the electorate and the slogan "for free and fair elections". Now Vladimir Putin will have to build his electoral campaign not only as a social president. In the parliamentary elections, he and Dmitriy Medvedev promised enormous social benefits. Now Putin will have to change the model of the campaign and rely on transparency, honesty, the restoration of the balance of power and so on. In his election campaign, he will have to talk about the issues mentioned during the protests: restoring confidence in the government, a real fight against corruption, fair elections, the falling rating of United Russia, the need to de-bureaucratize party structures and so on. Putin's programme will be rewritten all over again.

I think that Putin will be the main candidate, and there will be no other significant candidate in the presidential election. Due to the New Year holidays, there is no time for this.

- Russia has not received NATO assurances that the missile defence system, which will be deployed in Eastern Europe, will not be directed against the Russian Federation. In this case, is there any chance for a "cold war" like the one that was between the West and the Soviet Union?

- It's impossible. Between NATO, or to be more precise, between the United States - since the European missile defence system is an American project, and Russia, there are no ideological, economic or social contradictions. There is a difference of opinion on how to ensure global security, as well as military-technical, military and operational differences. Russian missiles are aimed at the US and US missiles - at Russia. These two countries can destroy each other. The level of distrust is still high, and political problems cannot be resolved. But this level of confidence does not lead to the kind of conflict we saw during the "Cold War". There is no competition between two political systems. The chance of solving the problem of missile defence in Europe has already been lost. The US will deploy a missile defence system in Eastern Europe. As we know, Russia has had a missile system since the Soviet era. The US missile defence system is a more systemic and strategic project than a project concerning only its confrontation with Russia.

The Americans secretly cited the following argument in favour of deploying the Eastern European missile defence system: Today Russia is building its own security in a way that will protect it better with a missile defence system. Moreover, the Eurasian region is not stable, and there are a lot of nuclear weapons and other threats there. The missile defence system will provide security for the EU and the US, including from the former Soviet Union, where there may be various kinds of military and political improvisations. There is a reason for Moscow's concern here. But Russia has a lot of other security problems, and compared with them, the missile defence system is just a trifle.

- Russia has suggested that Azerbaijan and Armenia continue negotiations on the Karabakh conflict in a trilateral format. Do you not doubt the result of these negotiations like the talks within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, which have been going on for more than 16 years?

- It all depends on the purpose of these negotiations. If we assume that the purpose of these negotiations is to prevent the resumption of the war, then this is one thing. Another thing is when negotiations are conducted with a view to an immediate settlement of the Karabakh conflict. In this case, you have to offer some new approaches. For the time being, there are no new intelligent suggestions for resolving this conflict. For many years, the same options have been discussed, and obviously, they cannot serve as a basis for compromise in the conflict. So, the negotiations could be continued, but this cannot hide the fact that the negotiations are intellectually empty. There are no new ideas and therefore, no political breakthrough. The problem is not in the position of the conflicting parties. Washington, Moscow and Brussels are also unaware of ways to solve the conflict. This is a global problem, since there are similar conflicts in different parts of the world, and they have all entered a dead-end stage. The leaders of the world lack the will to recognize that it is impossible to resolve these conflicts with old methods within the framework of modern international relations, and new ones have yet to be invented. So let's conduct endless negotiations, maybe we will be able to invent something as they progress. In the meantime, negotiations will be a factor preventing the opposing parties from resuming the war.