Planting its flag in the Arctic, violating Georgian airspace, flying Cold War missions with its long range bombers near US territory, cutting of energy supplies to neighbors, cyberwar against Estonia, assassinating dissidents with radioactive material, continually blocking the resolution of Kosovo’s final status. The list goes on and on.
Is Russia reasserting itself? Or is all this political “noise” a death rattle. With demographic, social, economic and many other problems, Russia looks to be in a bad position. Yet, one can always find enough problems if that’s what one is looking for. How do readers see Russia’s future? While historically a major power, will it again be overrun by the hordes? Will it rise again to challenge the west? What do you think?
About Chirol
Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol (1852 - 1929) was a journalist, prolific author, world historian, and British diplomat. He began his career as a foreign correspondent and later became editor of the London Times. After two decades as a journalist he joined Her Majesty's Foreign Ministry as a diplomat and was subsequently knighted for his distinguished service as a foreign affairs advisor. Additionally, he wrote a dozen books on foreign affairs including
The Far Eastern Question (1896),
Serbia and the Serbs (1914),
The End of the Ottoman Empire (1920) and
The Egyptian Problem (1921). He is generally credited with popularizing "Middle East" in reference to the Arabian Peninsula with his book
The Middle Eastern Question (1903).
"Chirol" is a US citizen and graduate student studying Defense and Strategic Studies and government contractor. As with the historical Chirol, he has traveled to over two dozen countries and lived abroad for many years. Chirol speaks English and German fluently with basic knowledge of manyl of others.
And then there was this:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44059000/jpg/_44059566_dayinpicsafp2416.jpg
Truly horrifying stuff.
Is there data out there showing ethnic composition (Muslim, Chinese, etc) of Russian provinces?
Dan, though I can’t recall where to send you exactly, there are multiple places one can look. In fact, I think the Russian government publishes that information (in Russian) on some website.
I can give you a summary though. Russians are the absolute majority in all but a couple administrative region, and that doesn’t look to be changing any time soon, low birthrates notwithstanding.
Would it be possible for Russia to become the 21st century equivalent of Mongolia? A historical power that has simply dissipated into a underdeveloped, backwater?
Regards,
TDL
Apparently Russian bombers also flew out to US carrier groups. US fighters flew up to meet them, and the pilots “exchanged grins” (today’s CS Monitor).
Demographics will force a collapse. That doesn’t mean there can’t be a nasty death spasm.
I used to think Japan and Russia were natural post-cold allies (russia being resource rich cash poor, and japan resource poor but cash rich), but the stupid island dispute kept them apart.
Who can be the natural partner of Russia now? A muslim population explosion (no pun intended) into the territory would not be an improvement as Muslim nations have a bad track record when they are resource rich.
China? It has it own demographic issues coming up. They may be slow-motion invading parts of Russia.
Russia used to have good relation with India. They could encourage India migration to free-trade/low-tax zone city-states that are mostly India (with perhaps Japanese funding) maybe with a a Russian version of a homestead act in the lightly populated area.
I think it suggests a return to some form of authoritarianism regarding Russia and as a result of waning influence in eastern Europe. Leads one to wonder why (or if) Russia has not (will not) take a slice of China’s ideological pie and apply an authoritarian/capitalistic ballet to their governance.
Why not let places like Russia decline and go away? We (U.S. interventionist foreign policy) seem to be obsessed with provoking Russia and the rest of the world with our attempts to convert them to “Americanism”. Perhaps 9/11 is an example of “blowback” from all of this. When you constantly prick rattlesnakes with pin, one should not be supprised when one ends up biting back. Perhaps the solution is to stop the pin-pricking.
Am I the only one who sees the senselessness of an interventionist foreign policy and the cost it entails?
@Kurt9:
“Am I the only one who sees the senselessness of an interventionist foreign policy and the cost it entails?”
No, you aren’t. But government is about force and incompatible with
reason.
Force always eats itself.
http://djomama.blogspot.com/2006/12/first-world-government-junk-bonds-on.html
A bit late, maybe, but in reply to Dan tdaxp’s query above (‘Is there data out there showing ethnic composition (Muslim, Chinese, etc) of Russian provinces?’) try looking on the website of the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics … if you can access it.