There’s been a lot of worry in recent years over Russia’s ‘resurgence’ onto the world scene. The thinking went that Russia was suddenly a major power again because they renewed some bomber flights and sold weapons to places like Venezuela and Iran. Of course, this was all very sensationalist and had very little bearing in reality. Russia has major, major problems and it is not a threat to the United States. In fact, Russia has never really recovered from the breakup of the Soviet Union (and long before the Soviet Union collapsed, its economic prowess was waning considerably).
It should therefore come as little surprise that the Russian economy is in a free fall. The vast majority of its influence now depends on global commodity prices—in this sense Russia is little more than a nuclear third world country. So when oil and gas prices are high, there is lots of consternation in the press about Russia’s ‘rise’, and when oil and gas prices plummet, you’ll see stories like this one that quotes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying the Russian economy will contract by 7.5 percent this year.
Russia benefits from the fact that it has a brilliantly cold global strategist as its Prime Minister, and that Europe is basically dependent on Russian gas and oil flows. But its basic problems are virtually unchanged from a century ago—economic growth is basically solely driven by the state and natural resources, and its political system remains as backwards as ever. Russia, at this point, is an entirely reactionary state—it has little capability to direct events outside its borders, and even places like Ukraine—the old Soviet heartland—are interested in EU and NATO membership (not that it will ever happen, but still).
Russia has serious demographic problems, not least because of a huge alcohol addiction problem. It would be helpful if the United States—as President Barack Obama has pledged to do—would approach Russia as the country it is (wounded, isolated, and encircled) rather than the one pundits proclaim it as (a global threat). Cooperation on issues like reducing nuclear arms arsenals will hopefully lead to spillover in future areas, and will ratchet down the absurd tension in parts of both countries’ presses.
