Russia is the largest country by the size of its land, but much of it is in the cold north where few live. It has about as many people as Japan, Java, Pakistan or Brazil. America has twice as many people as it does.
It is still one of the top powers of the world, but it is not as powerful as it once was.
In the late 1900s both Russia and America had enough atom bombs to blow each other up and much of the rest of the world too. For about 40 years the world stood on the edge of complete destruction in what was called the Cold War.
In those days Russia was ruled by communists. They remade society according to the ideas of Karl Marx. The government owned everything. There was no private property: you could not buy land or run your own business. The government ran everything.
The people were not free. It was a democracy on paper, but the communists won every election. The people were not allowed to form their own parties to stand against the communists in elections. They had no freedom of speech or religion. The television and the newspapers and even most of the writers repeated government lies.
When the communists took over Russia in 1918 they kept its empire – the neighbouring countries it ruled to the west and the south – and named the whole thing the Soviet Union, also known as the USSR (or, in Russian, CCCP). They made a new flag: it was red with a yellow hammer and sickle in the corner.
Their war machines had red stars just as America’s had white stars.
If America was the new Rome, Russia was the new Constantinople. Its roots go back to the Byzantine empire. People are mostly Eastern Orthodox.
The Soviet Union was strong on the outside, but falling apart on the inside. Communism did not work in the long run, at least not for such a big country. In the 1980s, Gorbachev tried to save communism through reform, but it was too little too late.
In 1988 they pulled their troops out of Afghanistan, which they were never able to bring under its rule.
In 1989 they lost their control over eastern Europe and the Berlin Wall fell.
In 1991 the communists themselves fell from power. The countries that were part of the Soviet empire broke free. People in the West could not believe their eyes. It had seemed like the Soviet Union was going to be their enemy for years and years.
In the 1800s the empire was ruled by the tsar. Most Russians worked the land and the country was poor. It was the communists who brought in industry.
In the 1700s Russians settled Siberia. Go east, young man. Peter the Great began to bring in Western ways.
Russians were once ruled by Mongols and Turks: the Golden Horde, Tartary and all that.
See also:
Something is happening to this amazing and (for me) somewhat mysterious country.
A new world is approaching or already here and (fast?) growing up. The new world is Asia and Russia a firm part of the rise of Asian power.
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(currently The West [E.U. and U.S. were imposing sanctions against The Bear)
Technologies for resource extraction like shale oil are being withheld. One can scarcely imagine that industrial policy isn’t a top concern for the Russian state. It surprises me that the news is so often riddled with stories of corporate spying and technology theft by China, one would think Russia would be doing the very same sorts of things, simply because their relationship with one of the leading technological nations –the U.S– is always tenuous.
China seems to steal and spy with impunity (I’ve no idea how paranoid or not the news reports are, I pay cursory attention to those types of reports but may start paying more attention now*). I wonder how significant technology transfer between Russia and China is. Technology transfers from China to Russia would ease the effects of future technology curtailment by the West against Russia. A slow trend, I suppose, but the race does not always go to the fastest.
*Why now?
A historic (it seems so, anyway) meeting took place between the BRICS (Brazil,Russia,India,China,South Africa) nations this month, in the last few days, actually. It’s really astonishing. They have agreed to set up a development banking fund for themselves (read: “fuck you World Bank and IMF”) and a bank of local (meaning contributions from each BRICS member) currencies to facilitate trade. Specifically to facilitate trade in their own currencies and not in the U.S. dollar. <—-That, right there, is a big, big deal, like I said astonishing. Imagine, just as the E.U. is coming to it’s end (it seems) a new economic center is coming into being (it seems).
Prior to the Iraq War (meaning prior to 2003) I had read that Saddam Hussein and a few other Middle East leaders were pushing/planning to get oil repriced in Euros. Washington does not like these sorts of projects to remodel aspects of the global financial system. You simply can’t take on projects like that as a weak military power and not expect Washington to kick your ass if they see that you’re serious about you’re little remodeling ideas. Well, we all know, Iraq ended up being invaded on a pretext of U.S. & British lies and the U.S. order remained intact, thank you very much! But now! Oh my! Washington can not just kick Asia’s ass or Russia’s ass or China’s ass. I could never take seriously the, before, the reports of long term U.S, decline but now for the first time, I think such prognostications have a concreteness to them of far more than just wishful thinking on the part of those who have long resented and fought against U.S. imperialism and hegemony.
Re: those banks I spoke of
I included no links in my post, I was concerned with losing my text. Those who are interested can easily search the recent news stories. I wonder if you’ll find them as fascinating and eye opening as I did.
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Naturally, the rise of a very dominant China is a concern for everyone, it’s partners included. Russia wants prosperity and dominance. China wants prosperity and dominance. How is that dynamic going to unfold?
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An excellent piece by the New York Times on the implicit conflicts between the public and private sectors in the E.U. and the U.S., with regard to the rolling out of sanctions against Russia, over the Ukraine conflict.
Le Monde Diplomatique eats up Russia/West conflict (particularly where the energy sector is concerned) and I’m almost certain that in next months issue, they’ll cover what is currently playing out.
For now though, NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/business/energy-environment/energy-companies-rethinking-russia-after-new-sanctions.html?_r=1
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A controlled experiment with two cases being run in parallel. Geopolitical pairings of conflict and U.S. responses in case A and case B do come along from time to time:
At this date Israel (a U.S. client state) had been attacking the Gaza Strip killing civilians in the scores. Responses from Washington were soft words to placate the international community.
At this date the conflict in the Ukraine is some weeks old, at this point. Response from the U.S.: tough talk and (tough?) sanctions to go with the talk. And efforts to diplomatically isolate Russia.
Yes, the U.S., defender of freedom and human rights the world over, always!
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama was President of the U.S. at the time.
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Also of interest would be to observe how both situations are covered in American media.
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ooh. Some months old, that is. (The Russian intervention in Ukraine.)
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Re: Pricing out of Petrodollars
Above I said : Prior to the Iraq War (meaning prior to 2003) I had read that Saddam Hussein and a few other Middle East leaders were pushing/planning to get oil repriced in Euros.
I was recalling from memory. Actually, Iraq did go through with the switch. It happened, though, after they were already under sanctions and Washington was planning for war anyway, in secret. Recall the Oil-for-food program, Saddam made the switch at that time. Iran had plans about repricing their oil too, and of course they are a hated enemy of Washington’s, surprise, surprise.
Since Saddam was so adamant about making the pricing switch, he must have thought that European diplomatic support would hold Washington back from invading. Remembering back I thought to myself, ‘Was he stupid?’ But then recalling more deeply, there was all that stupid frat boy talk from Bush about “Old Europe” and “New Europe” –bloody rubbish! There was
European and UN diplomatic effort to hold back a war bent Washington, which the US had to break. And break it they did when Colin Powell was sent to tell the great lie about WMD.
I believe Hugo Chavez had also considered repricing Venezuela’s oil away from the Dollar and into the Euro; he too was a hated enemy of Washington’s. The repricing of oil out of petrodollars has been a ‘thing’ for well over a decade now.
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1095057.html
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Kanwal Sibal former Indian Foreign Secretary in an interview with RT, simply excellent.
Topics:
• misguided efforts to weaken Russia
leading to increased power for China.
• continued Cold War mentality in the U.S. and the West
• U.S. global finance as a cause of global economic instability
• U.S. intransigence to acknowledge the New World Order that is forming.
• Russia’s risk of being swamped by China if isolated from The West.
• and more…
(http://youtu.be/pfB8Fbn-TEE)
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A dispatch from the continuing (for the moment) sanction stare down between Russia and the E.U. Here, Russia is a dagger, pointed at Europe by way of Greece. Total exports from Greece to the Bear are small in percentage terms but Greece is emerging (one hopes) from it’s deep, deep recession of roughly 5 years now. Greece’s recovery is obviously important to the Greeks but is also important to the Eurozone technocrats to maintain confidence and strength in the Euro. Economic strangulation or stress on the peripheral European sovereigns would be, it seems to me, an effective way of frightening European policy makers out of the sanction war against Russia. Someone is going to back down at some point, but who?
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_11/08/2014_542069
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Good luck charm/Tradition
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/sberbank-offers-free-cats-to-mortgage-buyers/506018.html
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How Powerful Is Russia?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vX-_hjx_go)
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