The book, as is typical for literature of this kind, exposes a global conspiracy against Russia and also contains a historical overview with many elementary factual errors, which made me doubt the author’s claimed historical education. But there was one chapter that caught my attention. The author considers Russians’ mentality through their attitude to land, power, the church, etc.—seven directions in all. He does so fairly objectively and sincerely. I analyzed Belarusians’ mentality using his scheme. The overlaps with Russians appeared only in half of one point. If we consider all points equally important, then Belarusians coincide with Russians in mentality by 7%. That is somehow too little for “one people.” Especially since 2020 clearly revealed the existence of our distinct independent nation. And what a nation!
The propaganda campaigns unleashed by the Kremlin also significantly influence its decisions. The peculiarity of propaganda is that sooner or later its authors begin to believe in it. That is, they repeated for so long that “Ukraine is a non-state—poke it and it will fall apart, and the clown will run away,” that they themselves believed it. But Ukraine did not fall apart, the “clown” turned out to be a worthy president, and now the Kremlin does not know how to get out of this war while saving face.
Moreover, when propaganda stereotypes become embedded in public consciousness, the authorities’ actions must conform to them, which deprives the authorities of room for political maneuver. The worst case is when the country’s top leader engages in propaganda. Independent analysis then becomes impossible: experts and advisers have to align their positions with the leader’s opinion and merely re-voice the official line. Collective decisions under such conditions are impossible; decisions become personal, which affects their quality. A top leader, deprived of expert support and driven by his own motives and interests, often makes decisions harmful to his country or even finds himself in absurd situations, as happened with the president of the Russian Federation when he publicly cited unrealistic data on Ukraine’s battlefield losses. I have no doubt he was merely repeating figures officially provided to him by Russian generals. There was no experienced adviser nearby to explain that since Soviet times generals have been dominated by the principle: “The main thing is to report correctly,” which leads to excessive overstatement of enemy losses. Thus, during the Soviet–German war, according to reports from Soviet forces, total Wehrmacht losses amounted to more than 80 million people, exceeding the total prewar population of Germany.
Thus, the Kremlin’s decision-making system is personal, without qualified expert support, and under strong influence of Putin’s desire to remain in power. Additional risks are created by the leader’s personal decision-making practices. Putin’s stated method of “loading a problem into the brain overnight and waking up in the morning with a ready solution” is indeed effective; I used it myself when working on dissertations. But it is suitable only for passive objects. Attempts to apply it in politics, where the objects of decisions are active and possess their own will, as a rule led to political mistakes and losses.
Therefore, the existing Kremlin decision-making system carries major risks of ill-considered, adventurous decisions. Summing up, one can argue that in such a system the decision to start a war—even with the use of nuclear weapons—is highly likely. Thus, the risk of Russia launching a war with the West is indeed high.
Let us consider where such a war could begin and what risks it carries for our country and the world.

III. THE BELARUSIAN “BALCONY”

That is what Russian generals call our country, because from our territory it is possible to strike three NATO countries and Ukraine. The capitals of these countries are at a dangerously short distance from the Belarusian border.