Look below the surface to explore political events

Walter Derzko
Two sayings come to mind when trying to access the current uncertainties surrounding the political situation in Ukraine, Russia and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East and North Africa.
The American academic Aaron Levenstein once wrote that statistics are rather like bikinis: “what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” The same logic, can be applied to politicians and political rhetoric. The second truism comes from American humorist Mark Twain: “It ain’t the things that you don’t know that will get you, it’s the things what you know for sure, that ain’t so.” Grammar aside, it hits the nail on the head.
Let's think back twenty years ago to the collapse of the Soviet Union. If you ask ten people on the street, you’ll likely get as many different answers as to why the Soviet empire collapsed. I’ll bet that most people are unaware the real reason why the USSR is no longer around today and why we never lived to celebrate its one hundredth birthday.
While many would cite corruption, the rise of democracy or the availability of open communications such as the fax machine or photocopiers, those weren’t the key variables or the main game-changing event that triggered the downfall. The main reason why the USSR is now just a foot note in history text books is simple - it went broke! Bankrupt! Throughout the late 1970’s and 1980’s, the American government, thanks largely to the doctrine of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, along with Saudi Arabia, kept oil prices artificially low to overtly bankrupt Russia, who was spending money like a drunken sailor at the time.
According to Yegor Gaidar, who was the acting prime minister of Russia, the minister of the economy, and first deputy prime minister between 1991 and 1994, this main cause is disclosed in his 2006 book: "The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to September 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices, and Saudi Arabia quickly regained its share in the world market. During the next six months, oil production in Saudi Arabia increased fourfold, while oil prices collapsed by approximately the same amount in real terms. As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per year, money without which the country simply could not survive.”

Even fewer people are aware of the fact that the KGB and the Communists actively funded Arab terrorists to attack oil and gas pipelines to reciprocate US efforts and raise the price of energy, which Gaidar admits to as well. Back in the 1970's and 80's, experts at the Cybernetic Institutes in Kyiv and Moscow who study system dynamics, predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1990 plus or minus one or two years-not a popular notion at the time. Key people did pay heed. Three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs started to move their wealth off-shore in 1988-89. These predictions were spot on. Similar systems dynamics modeling shows that Putinism in Russian and president Yanukowych regime in Ukraine will suffer a similar fate as did the former Soviet Union. Although Russia is cheering that oil prices have jumped past the $100 per barrel, and could go as high as the $150 or $200 mark, those levels are not sustainable. As we saw in 2008, we are likely to see a “spike and collapse” scenario for oil and commodity prices, which is bad news to both Yanukowych and Medvedev.
Even fewer people still realize that Ukrainians have the Communists to thank for Ukraine’s independence. Ukraine could have easily been part of some post USSR confederation, but the Communists voted to separate in 1991 along with most others Ukrainians. Why? They were terrified of repercussions from Yeltzin for 70 years of Communist sins. Separating from the USSR would buffer them with immunity from punishment and lustration, as the last twenty years have proven. I’ve heard this story from more than one politician, who served at the time.
Last week former Minister Danylyshyn revealed that there was a secret agreement between President Yushchenko and Yanukovych. In exchange for Yushchenko’s public support of the “vote for none of the above” option in the last election, Yushchenko and his party were promised immunity from prosecution, unlike Tymoshenko. Don’t be surprised if Yushchenko gets nominated to be the next prime minister after Azarov. That would really fragment the opposition and neutralize any criticism of Ukraine coming from the West. The other wild card candidate is little known Minister of Agriculture, Nikolai Prisayzhnuk, who is Yurij Ivanyushchenko’s junior business partner from JSC Ceradon days.
In analyzing today’s situation, we have to factor in the possibility that there are hidden background forces that are driving world events far more then we recognize.
What’s your world view now?

Walter Derzko is a Senior Fellow at the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab), and a lecturer in the MA program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) University in Toronto.