The truth - and the problem - is that Russia is not nearly integrated enough into the West. They are a petro-military state who desperately need to be integrated before they become even more of a petro-military state. The West certainly does not need Russia more than Russia needs the West. That's ridiculous. They only need Russian oil. That's dangerous.
First, to Doug and Chris's comments, the importance of Putin - who is clearly the leader of Russia because he is the leader of the ruling cadre - is creating - with his cadre - a very familiar one-party state. It's pretty much the most common political structure in the world. But the danger of a one-party state, to use Redmond's terminology, is that the one-party state must, to survive, starve many developmental sub-structures of the society for resources - power and money - in order to keep them from being competitive.
But in a capitalist world, it becomes almost impossible to keep money - and therefore power - away from those sub-structures. All they need is money enough to afford some Kalashnikovs, RPGs and explosive compounds in order to make themselves REALLY hard to deal with - essentially ungovernable. By attempting to hold back the tide when only a small leak will sink them, the one-party state dooms itself to violent crisis and possible dissolution. Nobody wants that.
The One Party of the one-party state can deal with this problem by getting far enough ahead of the underlying developmental structures, but that means the party must have a viable, forward-looking direction to go in.
The BRIC-pole thesis seems to be that the BRIC countries will somehow naturally aim at a point beyond Western capitalism. I think there is no evidence to suggest this is likely. I think it a vain hope for the foreseeable future. Rather, what I see is that the present political-economic logic of the BRIC countries aims these regimes at socio-economic (IF NOT territorial) "irredenta" that are pre-capitalist social structures rather than trans-capitalist social structures.
Brazil would certainly be the least-dangerous country in that regard, India the next.
But in the case of Russia and China, we must add to the mix both territorial and economic "irredenta", tempting these states into moving in a very bad direction.
The catastrophic failure of Bush's America SHOULD be a lesson to these countries. Bush's revanchism may have already sown the seeds of America's downfall. I really believe that. To a friend who has voted Republican in the past I said this: "Go ahead. Vote for McCain. I dare you." The Republicans are a sure way to the end of American Empire. But that's not necessarily a good thing - not at all.
To those who might interpret my remarks as "Apres moi, le deluge" - No, I do not think the world cannot manage without America. But I would bid you to stop thinking like the "big, swinging dicks" of Wall Street and The City who have plunged the world into a potential deflationary crisis. They did not see a liquidity crisis coming because they did not imagine it could - or, more precisely, they didn't care. But for want of a better term: "liquidity" matters. Letting collapse huge social orders creates displacements that are very, very negative and block progress rather than engender it. Value is destroyed without a ready replacement for that value, humanity will go backwards. I do NOT see a ready replacement for that value.
Every rational critic of capitalism must also see the tremendous value of capitalism. Capitalism solves a great many social problems that pre-capitalist societies fail to solve. I have no doubt in human ingenuity or the inevitability of a more sensible human order. I'd just rather not go through the Dark Ages first. I don't think Vladimir Putin can, will or wants to plunge the world into darkness, but nobody ever does. They just act without understanding the broader implications.
Why take a step in that direction? Because of Bush? Bush is eternal? No. Because of some moral imperative? To create a huge crisis? How could such an imperative be "moral"?
Again, Bush is the lesson here. We have to stop thinking as he thinks. There is no moral imperative that should drive us into crisis. It's ridiculous.
Things will change - faster than we think and sooner than we'd like, in my view. There's no reason to add risk - not for Russia, not for anybody. Bush has put the world in quite enough peril, thanks.
You want to bring down American Empire? Just get a bunch of your friends to stand in a line outside a Washington Mutual branch like a bank run is starting. But you may get more than you bargained for.
On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Marvin Gandall
<marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> boddi satva writes:
>
>> Russia is playing a crazy, dangerous game here. Clearly Putin is
>> taking advantage of Bush while the taking is still good, but his quest
>> for "security" - (as if anyone wants to invade Russia) and belief in
>> petro-power is making the Russian people much less safe than they were
>> - even with NATO at their front doorstep.
>
> ==============================
> A more sober view of the situation:
>
> Cold Cash, Not Cold War
> How Russia's new economic ties to the West diminish the possibility of a
> violent confrontation with the U.S.
> By Daniel Gross
> Newsweek
> Aug 21, 2008
>
> Russia's occupation of Georgia and the U.S. signing of a missile-defense
> deal with Poland have grizzled cold warriors partying like it's 1979. Once
> again, hard-liners are ratcheting up rhetoric and threatening sanctions
> because the Russian bear has stomped on one of its freedom-loving neighbors.
> But don't go dusting off your copies of George Kennan's "X" Foreign Affairs
> article and NSC 68 just yet. It's going to be a lot harder to have a cold
> war between Russia and the West in 2008 than it was in 1948.
>
> During the cold war (this is for all the under-40 set) the world was to a
> large degree divided between the communist world – the Soviet Bloc and
> China – and the free world. And while there were exchanges and a limited
> amount of trade (in the 1970s, Pepsi began bartering Pepsi-Cola for
> Stolichnaya vodka, and the U.S. exported grain to the Soviet Union)
> commercial ties between the Eastern Bloc and the West were extremely
> limited.
>
> Today, nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia may not be
> a free-market paradise. But it has evolved into an important part of the
> global trading system, and has built deep, enduring, and significant
> economic ties to the West. As a result, the implications of increasing
> tensions are as much economic as they are geopolitical. And a renewed chill
> between Moscow and Washington will trouble the sleep of CEOs as much as it
> will agitate peaceniks. On the other hand, the close economic ties make it
> less likely that political tensions will erupt into actual warfare, since
> the executives in Moscow and New York (and London, and Frankfurt, and
> Milan…) will be lobbying for peace.
>
> The economic connection between Russia and the West begins with energy.
> Post-Soviet Russia has become a huge exporter of hydrocarbons, and Western
> European countries are some of its biggest customers. According to the
> Energy Information Administration, Germany is second only to the Ukraine as
> a destination for Russian natural gas exports. (Germany relies on Russia for
> about 36 percent of its natural gas). A robust network of pipelines connects
> Russia to Western Europe. After leaving office in late 2005, former West
> German prime minister Gerhard Schroeder went to work for one of those
> pipeline companies. Italy and France are Russia's fourth and fifth largest
> natural gas customers, respectively. Russia is also a significant exporter
> of oil. Commerce Department data show that in the first half of 2008, the
> United States imported 17.5 million barrels of oil worth nearly $2 billion
> from Russia. Russian oil is just part of a larger trade flow between the two
> frenemies. According to the Commerce Department (see Part B, Exhibit 14 of
> the full release available here), in the first half of 2008, U.S. exports to
> Russia were $4.66 billion and imports were $13.3 billion.
>
> The trade data doesn't come close to telling the whole story of U.S.-Russian
> financial relations. U.S. companies have been finding new markets in this
> rapidly growing economy with a population of about 142 million. When Ford
> Europe reported its July European sales on Tuesday, Russia was one of the
> few bright spots. In the core Western European markets, sales fell 6.6
> percent from 2007, but sales in Russia rose 26 percent to 19,100. In July,
> Ford sold more cars in Russia than it did in France, and almost as many as
> it did in Germany.
>
> Meanwhile, Russians have been investing heavily in the United States. This
> year alone, Russian steel giant Severstal has acquired the Sparrows Point
> plant in Maryland from Arcelor-Mittal, Esmark, Inc., and WCI Steel.
> Severstal's U.S. operations make it the fourth-largest steelmaker in the
> country. As I noted last year, Russian oil giant Lukoil, which acquired
> Getty in 2000, has transformed hundreds of Northeast outlets into Lukoil
> stations. And moneyed Russians have emerged as saviors of the high-end
> real-estate market, snapping up trophy ranches in Aspen, beachfront
> properties in Palm Beach, and townhouses and condos in New York.
>
> Oh, and since Russia's exports of oil and other commodities have allowed it
> to pile up huge foreign currency reserves, Russia has been a significant
> buyer of American government paper. Last month, the Russian finance minister
> said that the Russian central bank held some $100 billion in U.S. agency
> debt – i.e. bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On Wednesday, the
> New York Times reported that the bond markets were looking for assurance to
> Moscow, of all places. "The Russian finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, told
> reporters in Moscow on Tuesday that Russia was still buying debt issued by
> Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but on a smaller scale."
>
> So, two ironies. (1) Financially speaking, the United States needs Russia a
> lot more than Russia needs the United States. (2) It's likely the subprime
> mess will inflict greater economic damage on Russia than any coordinated
> Western sanctions could.
>
> http://www.newsweek.com/id/154551
>
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>