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GNCANovember 22 2022, 15:55 pm

The “Golden Billion”- Another Attempt by Putin to Claim Global Moral Leadership

US media is report­ing on the “Gold­en Bil­lion,” a the­o­ry said to be increas­ing­ly espoused by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladamir Putin. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Pub­lic Radio report, the Gold­en Bil­lion refers to a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry based on the notion that there are one bil­lion West­ern glob­al elites that seek to con­trol the world’s wealth and resources:

Novem­ber 21, 2022 Moscow — As the war in Ukraine approach­es the nine-month mark, West­ern gov­ern­ments have repeat­ed­ly accused Rus­sia of impe­ri­al­ist expan­sion­ism, nuclear black­mail, weaponiz­ing food, ener­gy and win­ter — and a host of oth­er hos­til­i­ties that put the wel­fare of mil­lions at risk. Yet there’s an increas­ing­ly com­mon coun­ternar­ra­tive in Moscow that argues it is the West instead that intends to sub­ject the mass­es to mis­ery. Wel­come to the “gold­en bil­lion.” An idea that first emerged in the twi­light years of the Sovi­et Union, the gold­en bil­lion is a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that posits a cabal of 1 bil­lion glob­al elites seeks to hoard the world’s wealth and resources, leav­ing the rest of the plan­et to suf­fer and starve. For years a fringe the­o­ry in Rus­sia, the idea has been increas­ing­ly espoused by Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and oth­er top Krem­lin offi­cials as an attack line against the West amid a break­down in rela­tions over the con­flict in Ukraine. “The mod­el of total dom­i­na­tion of the so-called gold­en bil­lion is unfair. Why should this gold­en bil­lion of the globe dom­i­nate over every­one and impose its own rules of behav­ior?” Putin asked in a speech last July. Putin went on to describe the alleged plot as “racist and neo­colo­nial in its essence” — a way for the West to divide the world into supe­ri­or and “sec­ond-rate” nations. The Krem­lin dusts off an old plot The­o­ries — and con­spir­a­cies — about eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and the cut-throat com­pe­ti­tion for glob­al wealth and resources are noth­ing new. But ana­lysts say the Krem­lin has increas­ing­ly exploit­ed the gold­en bil­lion the­o­ry to deflect the notion of Rus­sia as iso­lat­ed and alone amid what Moscow calls its “spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tion” in Ukraine. Instead of Rus­sia fac­ing inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion over its actions in Ukraine, the the­o­ry attempts to place Moscow at the cen­ter of a glob­al major­i­ty chaf­ing at West­ern lib­er­al val­ues and polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dom­i­nance. Nev­er mind that Rus­sia con­sid­ers itself a glob­al super­pow­er and is rou­tine­ly accused of using its own ener­gy resources as a for­eign pol­i­cy sledgehammer.

Read the rest here.

In Jan­u­ary 2022, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed on a some­what over­looked speech by Vladimir Putin, last  described by a Russ­ian aca­d­e­m­ic as the “first major and strong call for rein­vent­ing Russ­ian ide­ol­o­gy for Rus­sia and the world.” An Israeli NGO con­clud­ed that the speech could be viewed as an ide­o­log­i­cal man­i­festo that tried to put Rus­sia back in the cen­ter of the world’s polit­i­cal map. In Octo­ber, we report­ed anoth­er of Putin’s speech­es announc­ing the annex­a­tion of four Ukrain­ian republics. In that speech, Putin said:

West­ern coun­tries have been repeat­ing for cen­turies that they bring free­dom and democ­ra­cy to oth­er peo­ples. Every­thing is exact­ly the oppo­site: instead of democ­ra­cy – sup­pres­sion and exploita­tion; instead of free­dom – enslave­ment and violence.

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive (GNCA) alliance is described in a GIOR report as follows:

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent PUTIN has expressed an inter­est in Rus­sia becom­ing the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a new glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance, and Euro­pean far-right lead­ers have tak­en pro-Russ­ian posi­tions based on a sim­i­lar ide­ol­o­gy. Hun­gary is at the cen­ter of a devel­op­ing alliance between Euro­pean far-right nation­al­ists and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives that Rus­sia could poten­tial­ly exploit for use in infor­ma­tion war­fare. This alliance oper­ates under the rubric of “Nation­al Con­ser­vatism,” cen­tered on nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions and rep­re­sent­ing a poten­tial­ly rad­i­cal change for the US con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment away from long-held Rea­gan-era philosophies.

Read the full report here.