From Lionel Beehner, a journalist formerly with the Council on Foreign Relations, in the Huffington Post: Why do we suddenly care so much about Russia? Its economy is still smaller than Portugal’s, its nuclear stockpile is no match for our own (not to mention its Soviet-era early warning radars barely work), and its foreign ambitions, as George Kennan predicted generations ago, have been mostly contained. Plus, given its current demographic trends, some analysts predict Russia’s population could sink below 100 million by 2050, making it smaller than Mexico. Yet for some reason, Washington has worked itself into a lather worrying about Russia. It shouldn’t. Read the rest about why Russia is not a nuclear Wal-Mart, and why their growing relations with China and Iran may not be as worrying as some may think.
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3 Comments
This raises an interesting question about how Putin wants to be seen in the West. It’s rather facile to assume he wants to be seen as a powerhouse that must be treated with respect, as some conventional wisdom would have it. In fact, such a view would encourage confrontation with Russia at a time it wasn’t prepared to win it just as easily as it might intimidate some into giving Russia what it wants.So, Putin may well want to be seen as weak, which would cause the West to drop its guard and allow him to consolidate his power more effectively. Were that the case, then this writer might well in essence be doing the Kremlin’s bidding, serving its interests.It’s certainly true that Russia isn’t a potent force in international affairs; I would argue that this means the time is ripe to apply serious pressure to force changes to occur. If this writer is suggesting we wait to do so until Russia actually becomes a juggernaut, that’s obviously crazy. And he doesn’t appear to be calling for aggressive action in his article, now does he?
Although I like this journalist’s work usually, and in a moment in which there is practically no interesting news in Russia to discuss during the holiday, I still strongly disagree with his argument.Magazine covers and a little fanfare is not the same as real political attention. The State Department probably spends five or ten minutes a week talking about Russia, while all their energies are invested in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. I absolutely do not think that the United States is paying too much attention to Russia. Quite the opposite actually.
Robert,I much appreciate your blog, it’s a rare sane voice in the wilderness of hype.However, it would behoove you well to check the veracity of articles before you link to them.Russia’s GDP (estim. for 2007) is six times larger than Portugal’s in nominal terms; and even 9.6 times larger in PPP termsBestManni