You can put this one into the category of the guy with a hammer seeing every problem as a nail. I have always wondered why Russia didn’t focus on becoming a globally integrated economic power - leaving the militaristic posturing and the warmongering far in the past. If Putin wants to “make Russia great again” he could be leveraging enormous economic potential rather than invading neighbouring countries.
The Russian people, as with most people, are living in the perceived glory of their past. Despite American and British propoganda to the contrary, Russia won the Second World War militarily and diplomatically. Stalin bested Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference when they agreed to his 'Blood for Land' proposal, handing the Russians 150 million people, from Ukraine, Belarussia and the Baltic states, to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and two-thirds of Germany—more land than Hitler ever dreamed of. The United States got the right to keep soldiers in Germany and Britain got nothing. This is the past the Russians lament and long recreate. Russia is a shadow of what it was in 1945 onward, and can never be as great again.
Putin is nothing without oil, and he is paradoxically accelerating the pace that the world is cutting their umbilical cord to it. I know it is not kosher to say such a thing, but nuclear, and hydrogen in the further future, will replace oil sooner than later. OPEC has been a reliable partner with the west, mainly because Canada and the United States can and do compete on equal footing, but their leverage is waning and eventually they must drop prices, undercutting more expensive Russian oil. Putin's Russia is headed for disaster and he knows it. The nuclear arsenal he has is as useless as all nuclear weapons, and an economically squeezed Russia cannot afford them.
Russia can have a stable economy and a bright future over the long term, but only if, as you so elequently explain, they first deal themselves out of the war game and concentrate their vast energy on relationships with NATO and the United Nations. They are not financially burdened with debt, but they have no credit either. They have vast resources, but they are like the local grocer that everyone hates. No one wants to buy what they are selling, and it will get worse every day that Putin rules. The days of the bully are going fast.
The Russian people, as with most people, are living in the perceived glory of their past. Despite American and British propoganda to the contrary, Russia won the Second World War militarily and diplomatically. Stalin bested Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference when they agreed to his 'Blood for Land' proposal, handing the Russians 150 million people, from Ukraine, Belarussia and the Baltic states, to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and two-thirds of Germany—more land than Hitler ever dreamed of. The United States got the right to keep soldiers in Germany and Britain got nothing. This is the past the Russians lament and long recreate. Russia is a shadow of what it was in 1945 onward, and can never be as great again.
Putin is nothing without oil, and he is paradoxically accelerating the pace that the world is cutting their umbilical cord to it. I know it is not kosher to say such a thing, but nuclear, and hydrogen in the further future, will replace oil sooner than later. OPEC has been a reliable partner with the west, mainly because Canada and the United States can and do compete on equal footing, but their leverage is waning and eventually they must drop prices, undercutting more expensive Russian oil. Putin's Russia is headed for disaster and he knows it. The nuclear arsenal he has is as useless as all nuclear weapons, and an economically squeezed Russia cannot afford them.
Russia can have a stable economy and a bright future over the long term, but only if, as you so elequently explain, they first deal themselves out of the war game and concentrate their vast energy on relationships with NATO and the United Nations. They are not financially burdened with debt, but they have no credit either. They have vast resources, but they are like the local grocer that everyone hates. No one wants to buy what they are selling, and it will get worse every day that Putin rules. The days of the bully are going fast.
When I saw Robert Service, I thought "The Cremation of Sam McGee." Google set me straight.
Nice library. I have something regarding China, though more history than current events.