MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. Western countries display a trend of a "catastrophic impoverishment of the political science," Russian Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev said, speaking before the 9th All-Russian Congress of political researchers Thursday, adding that foreign political research has significantly degraded over the last 20-30 years."
"There is another trend that I would like to emphasize in this auditorium in particular: a rather catastrophic impoverishment of the political research in our opponents - the official research, at least. We are all aware of the assessments being made publicly recently - for example, by [US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria] Nuland or [former US Ambassador to Moscow Michael] McFaul. All this being done in this mode of a juxtaposition of democracy and authoritarianism," Kosachev said.
He also mentioned the old assessments made by US historian and political researchers George Kennan, "who had little sympathy for our country, but warned against the expansion of NATO borders." According to Kosachev, this man "did not seek to accept the position of the Kremlin or Putin, and yet, he provided stellar assessments."
"This is the level of analysis that we really need now, 20-30 years after such precise assessments were made," the senator said.
He added that the Russian political research community retains "both the depth and the diversity."
"Maybe, we coincide in some basic assessments, but we definitely offer different visions of both the reasons behind the crisis phenomena of today, and of the ways to resolve these crises. I believe it is important that Russian experts do not have this kind of ideological prejudice, do not have a final and uncompromising judgment of other peoples, nations, values and political systems. We do not make verdicts in our political research and practice. And I believe that this is the core difference of what is happening in our country from what we see beyond our borders," the senator said.
This is why it is not characteristic for Russia to impose sanctions unilaterally.
"We do not initiate punishments against peoples; we even view the certain Russophobia of certain peoples as rather a temporary misconception, maybe even delusion, or maybe as an artificial game of delusion, because it is beneficial to certain countries or societies at a certain stage. The Baltics benefit from joining NATO; Ukraine benefits from building its own nation from the ground up by exploiting the idea of the Russian threat; Georgia benefits from uniting the country at any cost, forcing the separated republics into a reunion, and so on," Kosachev believes.