The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has become perhaps the largest emergency in Russia and in the world in many decades. The scale of the incident is such that most analysts say that even after the end of the pandemic, it will lead to significant changes in the life of mankind.
Briefly, commentators reduce the essence of these changes to the formula: "The world will not be the same."
The term "new normalcy" was introduced, which previously meant the new state of the economy after the crisis was over. Typical signs of such a “new normalcy” are a pronounced slowdown in economic growth, a surge in unemployment, and an exacerbation of debt problems both at the level of individuals and economic entities and households. Now, the "new normal" also refers to the possible social, cultural and even anthropological consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, we would like to concentrate here on what the consequences of the pandemic will mean for stability in the world in general and the national security of the Russian Federation in particular. Already, many experts say that the pandemic will hit the global economy. A large-scale decline in the economies of both Russia and the United States is predicted.
Many analysts say that the coming post-coronavirus crisis will affect the world economy no less, if not more, than the famous "Great Depression" of the mid-20th century. World Bank estimates global economic downturn to be 5.2% in 2020
The experience of such world crises such as the "Great Depression" suggests that often economic problems led to an increase in domestic and foreign policy tensions. Moreover, often the desire to remove internal political tension forces some politicians to inspire international tension, conflicts and even wars.
If we look at the situation around the coronavirus pandemic, we will see one alarming detail: during the height of the epidemic, a public debate began between the United States and China on the topic of responsibility for the spread of the coronavirus.
To begin with, the coronavirus is increasingly called the "Chinese virus" in the American media. This naming is hardly politically neutral. It is quite obvious that this name has not only a geographical, but also a political meaning. And not just a political sense, but with an eye to the subsequent growth of interstate tension.
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For comparison, recall that the famous influenza that caused the 1918-1919 pandemic was called Spanish (or Spanish) because Spain was the first to admit the presence of an epidemic, unlike other countries in which military censorship for a long time prohibited any mention of the high growth of the disease … And not at all because the country from which the virus originated should be blamed for its spread. And it is in this sense that they are trying to invest in the concept of "Chinese virus"
Let's look at the series of events.
On April 19, 2020, at a White House briefing, US President Donald Trump said that China should be held accountable if it suddenly turns out that they were hiding data about the coronavirus. At the same time, the coordinator for countering coronavirus, Deborah Birk, added that the US authorities believe that the PRC was hiding data on the incidence of coronavirus and mortality from it from the world community and international organizations.
On May 20, 2020, Trump reiterated that it was the incompetence of the Chinese authorities that led to a huge number of deaths.
On May 24, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused some American politicians of spreading lies about China. Moreover, he demanded that a comprehensive investigation be conducted with the WHO on how and where this coronavirus came from. However, the matter is not limited only to rhetoric. The topic of "China's responsibility for the virus" has unexpectedly become the subject of not only "exchange of pleasantries" at the state level, but also a reason for lawsuits. They are trying to prove China's "coronavirus guilt" in court.
In early April this year, it became known about two such lawsuits. The first was filed in Texas District Court by a group of plaintiffs including Freedom Watch, Buzz Photos, and attorney Larry Kleiman. The amount of the claim is $ 20 trillion. The claim was simultaneously directed to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
A second lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Florida by the law firms Berman Law Group and Lucas-Compton. The cost of the claim is $ 6 trillion.
By the end of April, it became known that some US states, as well as Australia, intend to sue China for allegedly concealing information about the virus.
In fact, we can say that the topic of "responsibility for the coronavirus" (so far in the form of suppression of information) is becoming an instrument of foreign policy struggle. And that the United States and its allies are at the forefront of the use of such a new type of weapon.
It is quite obvious that such claims, if satisfied, are a very ambivalent thing. If China is forced to pay the lawsuit, it will deal a serious blow to its economy. If Beijing refuses to pay, it will become a pretext for imposing sanctions and even for some type of military confrontation.
The possibility of suing China as the culprit is a precedent for the emergence of a new type of struggle in hybrid wars, which can be very conditionally called "responsibility for emergencies." And, in principle, any emergency. Now a pandemic has been chosen as such an emergency. And this also causes some concern.
The genesis of the modern coronavirus cannot but become the subject of the most serious investigation. Now the spread of versions about its origin varies greatly - from natural causes to the possibility of its artificial origin. Moreover, the hypothesis of its artificial origin is not at all a topic for conspiracy theorists alone.
Thus, in the near future we may face a series of controlled emergencies associated with natural causes such as a pandemic, which will become the reasons for the sanctions policy, as well as various types of confrontation - from "cold" to "hot" - in the international arena.
For the Russian Federation, this can mean the risk of itself being in the situation of a victim of such "epidemiological pressure". In this regard, it is quite indicative that along the perimeter of our country there is a whole network of biological laboratories, whose activities, to put it mildly, are non-transparent and raise many questions and concerns. First of all, we are talking about the so-called Lugar biological laboratories in Georgia and Ukraine. In addition, there are such laboratories in Armenia. It is also important to note that Ukraine is literally "crammed" with such laboratories: they are located in Odessa, Vinnitsa, Lvov, Kiev, Kherson, as well as in the territories adjacent to the LPR and the Republic of Crimea. Moreover, there are three such laboratories in Kiev and Odessa, respectively.
The versions spread in the Ukrainian media about the alleged involvement of a certain Russian biological laboratory in Novosibirsk in the origin and spread of coronavirus can be considered an alarming signal. Recall that a former employee of the PGU of the KGB of the USSR, Yuri Shvets, who defected to the United States in 1990, circulated in the Ukrainian media a version that in September 2019, as a result of an accident in the Vector biological laboratory in Novosibirsk, a strain of coronavirus, which was allegedly developed there, was leaked. … Curiously, the next day the BBC news service reported that Vector is one of the world's largest depositories of viruses, including strains of smallpox, avian flu and various types of hepatitis. Back in May 2004, a scientist who worked in Vector's laboratory died afterhow he accidentally pricked his left arm with a syringe with the Ebola virus,”the source said. It is possible that Shvets' "revelations" are a kind of "warming up" of public opinion for further information "coronavirus attack" on Russia.
In this situation, the Russian Federation, represented by its state bodies, must be ready to respond to this new challenge. This requires the following set of measures.
First, the appropriate monitoring of threats emerging in the information field.
Secondly, active monitoring of the versions of the origin of the coronavirus themselves.
Third, it is necessary to develop an additional set of measures in the national security concept to ensure the security of Russia from attacks by biological and bacteriological weapons.
Today we have an unprecedented chance to pursue a sovereign and consistent foreign policy in the post-coronavirus world that meets the country's national security interests. It is extremely important to ensure the possibility of Russia's influence on the development of international relations, within the framework of which large-scale cooperation with the main international structures and all those countries that today form the main parameters of the future world is inevitable.
Ruslan Temirbulatov is a candidate of economic sciences, an expert in the field of international relations in the CIS countries. He headed the plenipotentiary representation of Tatarstan in Kazakhstan. Supervised the Abkhazian direction in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Social and Economic Cooperation with the CIS Member States, the Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia.