Russia’s
‘Vaccine Diplomacy’ Is The Basis Of Its New Global Outreach Campaign
By Andrew KORYBKO November 27, 2020
Russia is arguably beating the US, the
Gates Foundation, and every other competitor by far in in the so-called
“vaccine race”, especially as regards the growing number of partnerships that
it’s clinched across the world to produce and distribute the Sputnik V vaccine,
which is entirely due to it prioritizing “vaccine diplomacy” as the basis of
its new global outreach campaign.
The Alt-Media
Community’s Confusion
Vaccines are a very controversial topic
nowadays because of questions about their safety and concerns that mandating
inoculation infringes on people’s human rights. The issue is obviously all the
more acute because of COVID-19, which has resulted in practically everyone on
the planet developing an opinion about this topic. There’s been a noticeable trend
of vaccine skepticism in the Alt-Media Community (AMC), especially after many
independent writers unearthed startling facts about their composition, some of
the reported side effects of their use, and the ulterior motives that might be
behind their widespread popularization by the Gates Foundation and other
shadowy global actors. Curiously, however, there’s barely any discussion among
these same AMC folks about Russia’s Sputnik V except perhaps to praise it as
the world’s first such vaccine against this virus. The noticeable contradiction
between many people’s skepticism about everyone else’s vaccines and their
support for Russia’s suggests that they’re very confused about this topic,
perhaps among other things that can only be speculated upon. In any case, this
analysis isn’t about vaccines in and of themselves per se, but about how Russia
plans to instrumentalize their export as the basis of its new global outreach
campaign.
Disclaimer
Before proceeding, a few words need to
be said in order for the forthcoming analysis not to be dismissed outright by
all manner of critics. Firstly, COVID-19 is real and it’s very dangerous for
at-risk members of the population, but it’s unquestionably been politicized by
practically every force capable of doing so in order to advance whatever their
particular interests may be. The author elaborated more on this provocative
observation in his earlier analysis about how “The Connection Between World War C & Psychological Processes Is
Seriously Concerning”. That, however, shouldn’t be interpreted as
imposing a negative value judgement upon everything that everyone does
concerning COVID-19 and its related vaccine, but just to remind everyone that
self-interests mustn’t ever be forgotten. Secondly, correlation doesn’t mean
causation as they say, so Russia’s superficially similar strategy of exporting
vaccines across the world to advance its interests doesn’t mean that it’s “in
cahoots” with the Gates Foundation or anyone else for that matter. Actually,
Russia is arguably the US and the Gates Foundation’s top competitors in this
sphere. And thirdly, nobody should read into the author’s words for any hidden
meaning since he’s always explicit about whatever it is that he wants to say in
any article.
The Basics Of Russia’s
“Vaccine Diplomacy”
Having gotten the disclaimer out of the
way, it’s now time to discuss the basics of what the author describes as
Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy”. Just like its earlier “military diplomacy” aims
to leverage the export of military equipment for strategic ends aimed at
expanding Russian influence within the recipient state just like it’s sought to
do with Turkey vis-a-vis the S-400s, so too does its export of vaccines aim to
do the same. It’s thought by Russian strategists that the very close and
trusted partnership that develops between their country and others in this
sphere can easily lead to partnerships in other such as the economic,
political, and military ones as well. The reasoning behind this strategy is
simple enough and it’s that no country would reasonably cooperate with any
other on an issue as sensitive as vaccines unless they truly trusted them. The
rapid establishment of trust can then be used as the grounds upon which to
comprehensively expand their partnerships in all other directions as was
explained. In other words, Russia’s worldwide export of vaccines is a means to
an end, one which doesn’t deal solely with saving lives, but is also intended
to have far-reaching political ramifications especially if carried out
simultaneously across the world with four key countries among dozens of others.
Four Key Gateways For
Moscow’s Global Access
With the above-mentioned insight in
mind, it’s worth pointing out the four key gateways for Moscow’s global access.
Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” with South Korea, India, Morocco, and Brazil could in theory open up the possibility for it to
export the Sputnik V vaccines that it aims to produce in those countries
throughout the larger Asia-Pacific region covered by the newly created Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the South Asian Association of
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the North African state’s quadi-continental free
trade partners (the US, EU, and some African and Arab countries), and Mercosur,
respectively. Other countries might end up producing the vaccine as well, but
those four are Russia’s most important partners since they each regard Moscow
as a pivotal component of their corresponding “balancing” strategies, which
complements Russia’s own such strategy. To put it another way, those four
countries believe that they can increase their strategic significances by
exporting Russia’s vaccines throughout their larger regions, which is mutually
beneficial for Moscow as well and thus incentivizes both sides to further
expand their relations like was earlier explained per the basics of its
“vaccine diplomacy”.
Counterproductive
Pandemic Politicization
Russia’s aiming big with its “vaccine
diplomacy” after recently announcing that it plans to produce over one billion doses by the end of next year. This
speaks to the fact that its decision makers acutely understand their
competitive edge in this sphere and the strategic importance of such a
worldwide market. Their earlier “energy diplomacy” was limited due to pipeline
geopolitics, advances in LNG technology, and the US’ shale gas revolution,
while their “military diplomacy” was aggressively countered by the US’
“secondary sanctions” threats. Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy”, however, is much
more difficult for its competitors to “contain” since they themselves made the
pursuit of this medical development such a big deal over the past year and thus
can’t credibly pressure other countries not to purchase it from Moscow since
that implies (in accordance with their messaging over nearly the past nine
months, whether accurately or not) that they’d therefore “want everyone to die”
by depriving them of the best vaccine on the global market. Any efforts in that
direction would thus be counterproductive in terms of their prior
politicization of the pandemic, something that they’d likely not risk. For
these reasons, Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” has a very high chance of
succeeding as intended.
Concluding Thoughts
Regardless of whatever one’s personal
views are towards the pandemic, vaccines, and their related politicization, it
must be objectively recognized that Russia has a distinct edge over its
competitors when it comes to “vaccine diplomacy”. Denying the existence of
Moscow’s new global outreach campaign damages the credibility of all those who
do so within the Alt-Media Community, the same as if they remain silent on the
matter. There’s no shame in recognizing that Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” has
strategic motivations behind its publicly presented humanitarian ones. In fact,
it would be strange if the Kremlin wasn’t calculating how it could turn this
global crisis into a geopolitical advantage, the same as it would be equally
strange to pretend that no other country is thinking the same. That’s just the
way that the world works, for better or for worse, since International
Relations are in the midst of what the author describes as hyper-realism
wherein everything possible is being used in pursuit of self-interests. That,
however, doesn’t mean that Russia’s grand strategy is selfish since its
envisioned outcome is intended to facilitate the emerging Multipolar World Order, which could in effect help
restore some “balance” to the world if successful and thus improve other
states’ positions as well.
Source: OneWorld
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