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One Cold War Was Enough: Russia Needs Our Help, Not Our Condemnation

garb811 said:
I'm actually more interested in your take on the Moscow Times article about Sergei Shpilkin's analysis of the results released by the Central Election's Committee but if you have the time and inclination for both...

The OSCE hardly mounted a full fledged monitoring mission, sending only 22 Parliamentarians, the only "Western" observers there and they were some of the most vocal in criticising the process. One quote from their spokesman was pretty interesting, "...regional and local officials had compelled many public sector workers to vote for Medvedev or risk losing their jobs." (Russia election not free or fair, say observers) The OSCE/ODIHR boycotted not only the Presidential election but also the Duma elections as well.  Personally, I haven't seen any all that much outside of Russian news agencies quoting any observers saying very much positive, so if you have some links to that, I'd be interested in seeing them.

Yep, there have been issues in the past with US elections but, at the end of the day, the free and unfettered press (as much as I hate defending the MSM) brought them to light for public scrutiny and debate and changes were implemented to rectify the problems.  Can the same be said about Russia?

Looking back at the recent voting history in the US, they can hardly call any other country "undemocratic" ;)
 
Russia is an unstable state that needs to be treated carefully.

They are in a steep demographic decline, have decaying industry, environment, public health and infrastructure and are surrounded by perceived enemies, ranging from the Islamic populations of the "Near Abroad", expanding and confident "New Europe" encroaching from the west and China lapping at Siberia in the east. Their historical status as a Great Power has been broken and the tools to recreate that status are non existent.

Even Russia's control of vast resources isn't helping, she sells off her resources but the monies raised are funneled off by kleptocrats and not reinvested in repairing any of the self inflicted damage of communism.

The combination of hurt pride and internal decay is what makes Russia so dangerous. When the wall fell and the USSR was dissolved, we in the west were perhaps a bit too euphoric over our victory to assess "what happens next". As well, since our victory was bloodless, there was no ability to occupy Russia and create new civil structures to replace the old. Some of the old structures soldiered on, like the various organized crime gangs and the KGB (Under new management, or at least a new name) given they were the most cohesive and self contained groups at the time of the dissolution, and they are now the centers of power in the "New" Russia.

The best way to deal with Russia is to examine her motivations (i.e. what is best for Russia? or at least their ruling elites) and act according to our national interests. If this ends up as a new "cold war", so be it. The long term issue for the west may be planning for and containing the effects of Russia's implosion, rather than looking for a return of a bipolar or multipolar world.
 
Russia is an unstable state
- How so?

Your victory? Did you ever stop to think that communism was destroyed by Russians themselves? I don't remember hearing anything about Gorbachev and Yeltsin being “from the west”. How exactly did the west “win” the cold war, which culminated in the destruction of communism, which was actually done by Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s… well… coup? They were Russians and they were the ones to overthrow communism, and thank god they did.

Lets examine Russia’s interests and see whether they lead to a cold war. Russia is indeed surrounded by perceived enemies ranging from the Islamic Fundamentalists that Canada is so keen on fighting today, so I fail to see how the situation in Russia is different from the Canadian. In fact, there is a lot of room for cooperation between Russia and Canada in Afghanistan and other sources of Islamic fundamentalism. I challenge you to truly look at common interests for Russia and Canada and look past the conflict that the US is trying to “push”. Russia already won the war in Chechnya, which is more than can be said in the case of Iraq, and perhaps even Afghanistan. Although the situation in Afghanistan is a lot better than in Iraq, it is defiantly not better than the current situation in Chechnya, which is rebuilt both in terms of society, as well as social and industrial infrastructure. Russia has allowed transit of non-lethal items through its territory for NATO, and all it sees in return is new missile bases. Furthermore, there is a lot of room for common interests for Russia and Canada in the field of the development of natural resources, since the natural resources of the countries are vastly similar. Fishing and agriculture, as well as lumber and oil offer a lot of room for cooperation.

I’d argue internal decay with economic figures. Last year economic growth was 8.1% and from hence forth the projected figures are a “minimum” of 6.5% growth. Given this pattern, and current US economic growth the GDPs of the two countries will be equal 30-50 years from now. You can easily confirm this by looking up current US GDP and GDP growth, setting up a system of exponential equations and solving it. Russian debt is insignificant, the ruble remains stable, inflation has been moderate, and investment began to increase again.  This growth is comparable to China, India, and Brazil. In 2007 the World Bank declared that the Russian economy had achieved "unprecedented macroeconomic stability" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7096426.stm). Russia is currently running dual surpluses, which is more than can be said in the case of the US economy, which is ridden in debt and record high budget deficits, and teetering on default. Don’t take my word for it, see thoughts of Warren Buffet, the most successful investor in the history of the US. Russia has also assumed most Soviet debt, which I argue should have been divided among ALL soviet republics according each republics share of Soviet GDP. Russia also has a stabilization fund to balance a potential oil/gas price shock, so citing Russian dependence on oil prices is not a significant argument to argue for its “instability”. Russia was also one of the few industrial countries that did not feel the banking crisis. There is also an establishment of an “investment fund”, intended for investment into “risky” ventures. Have you even read the discussion above?

Look here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Russian_economy_since_fall_of_Soveit_Union.PNG

KGB? Its called the FSB, the Federal Security Service.... you know... like the FBI, CIA, and CSIS... I guess in your mind Russia does not have the right to have security services, because it is somehow "inferior" to the west? Or maybe it is easier to deal with a weak country... without an FSB it would be easier to "occupy" Russia, right? How is the Russian security service different from those "western" ones mentioned above? Trust me, the FSB does not hold any more power in Russia than the CIA does in the USA. "Occupy Russia and replace its structures"????? You mean like…. ehm… colonize it?? British Petroleum will unquestionably be able to destroy the Russian environment with impunity then, right? I can only cite such sentiment as an argument that Russia should be worried about its western ‘partners’.
 
oligarch said:
“Russia is an unstable state”
- How so?

Your “victory”? Did you ever stop to think that communism was destroyed by Russians themselves? I don’t remember hearing anything about Gorbachev and Yeltsin being “from the west”. How exactly did the west “win” the cold war, which culminated in the destruction of communism, which was actually done by Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s… well… coup? They were Russians and they were the ones to overthrow communism, and thank god they did.

OK Kid!  You are a legend in your own mind.  What you have posted above has made you loose all credibility to me.  You obviously are not a true student on this subject as this is complete rubbish.  If you have come here to have us write your history paper for you, you are a slackard.  You are posting crap, and people are setting you straight.

Communism was defeated by Capitalism.   The Soviet Union and its Satellites went broke.  They could not compete with the West.  They could not afford to continue the Arms Race.  They couldn't continue to pay their wages.  They couldn't afford to upgrade their manufacturing sectors.  They maintained very lax control on environmental, scientific and many other issues. 

Communism in the Warsaw Pact produced a large number of "Failed States".

All your rhetoric is nothing more than some pompous arse trying to impress with long words and sentences that hold no water/air.  Your argument is not even weak, because it is non-existant.
 
Communism went broke.... and the west did... what? Continue to exist while communism was destroyed by Russians from within. Everything you mention seems to me to be more of an internal feat rather than what the west did. What did the west do, besides arming the taliban, to "defeat communism"?

Have a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCFREwQ846o&feature=related

Where is the west?

If not going broke while another person/country does is considered a "victory", then I have "defeated" many high school bullies in my time :) Hell, we have "defeated" most of Africa then, too! But why would we want to "defeat" africa? This argument is absurd, I don't know why it is so widespread here and beaten into our heads in middle school. I guess if you repeat something many times, it becomes true. Besides, if you use the "continued to exist" argument, then there is nothing the Russians could have done to destroy communism without you proclaiming victory. Furthermore, if communism had been successful, then there would be no reason for Russians to overthrow their government, right? Quite a convenient "victory" argument, is it not?

"Failed States"? Like what? Russia? Estonia? Latvia? Poland? Ukraine? Kazakhstan? The only "failed state" I can think of so far is Georgia, which desperately begging to be let into NATO in order to stay in one piece.

Besides, why don't you address the body of the message, rather than a side criticism of the word "victory". We are not talking about the USSR here, but about "The Russian Federation". I don't at all support the USSR (besides its role in WWII, Finish invasion aside), and I think Lenin should be removed from Red Square once and for all.

George, you keep saying that my argument is non-existent. Where is your argument? At least I back up my point of view with economic figures, treaty status, international law, etc., where is your argument? I guess my words are too big, so you fail to see the meaning behind them. I don't know why I'm causing such a stir, since what I am trying to promote is integration and peace. Instead, all I hear in return is that Russia should be "occupied" and that its structures should be "replaced". Who's starting the new cold war now? At least Russians aren't saying that they want to occupy other countries. In the history of the Russian Federation, Russia has not invaded a single country. How exactly is it starting a cold war? I'll try to use smaller words in the future.

George Wallace, I see your "existent" argument consists of calling me a “pompous arse”… nice one! Let me try to be even more of a pompous arse and see how well you understand big words. What you just did is called a “argumentum ad hominem”, or a personal attack. This a logical fallacy which occurs while one is attempting to disprove X, not by addressing validity of X but by attacking the person who asserted X. By definition, arguments with logical fallacies are invalid. Congrats buddy! Your argument is not only weak, it's non-existent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem : some bed-time reading
 
George Wallace said:
All your rhetoric is nothing more than some pompous arse trying to impress with long words and sentences that hold no water/air.  Your argument is not even weak, because it is non-existant.

Rather than resorting to personal attacks and calling Oligarch a "pompous arse," why not provide your own argument supported by evidence? Oligarch supplied plenty of statistics and evidence to support his argument; thus, it is only fair that you do the same rather than attacking him.
 
Ah. He seems like a good ol' Russian nationalist.

I suggest just ignoring him and he'll go away.
 
"Our Victory". The USSR was essentially bankrupted by attempting to keep up with the Reagan era arms race. The internal stresses destroyed the Soviet economy, and prevented the USSR from maintaining its hold on Poland, then East Germany, then a domino effect on the various eastern European nations that had been occupied, Afghanistan and finally the constituent parts of the USSR itself. The fact that this triggered an internal revolt that caused the ultimate collapse is icing on the cake, the alternative was facing off with an aggressive and unstable USSR armed with nuclear weapons where their leadership was in a position of having nothing left to lose. Since the USSR had enslaved the land and people for 70 years prior, you might want to ask "how" the circumstances leading to the collapse came about in the 1980's as opposed to, say, the 1930's?

Russia's economic growth may be a sign of hope (and I hope it is), but it seems very similar to Alberta's growth, based on the extraction of primary resources. Given the collapsed environment, infrastructure and most importantly, collapsing demographics, and couple it with massive diversion of resources to the military (the same mistake as last time), and the prospects for exponential growth lasting for decades is a bit questionable, to say the least.

Russia, like China, believes that fundamentalist Islam is a threat, but like China, seems intent on keeping this threat alive and out front and center to bedevil the West to keep pressure on us and off them. Watching Russia selling nuclear fuel to Iran or make bellicose claims on the Arctic does not suggest that they have common interests with Canada or are interested in pursuing these said interests.

If you had read my post more carefully, you would understand that the most aggressive and anti-western parts of the old Soviet Union were able to survive the transition. Since our victory was not a military one, we had no means of directly intervening and ensuring these organs were eliminated and more stable institutions erected in their stead. This would also have made the transition period of the 1990s somewhat smoother, although rebuilding a State is a huge undertaking, fraught with difficulties. Look how long it took to rebuild Germany and Japan after WWII, or South Korea after the Korean War.

 
stegner said:
George Wallace-If you look at the deficit and debt of the United States its pretty close to going broke too.    Don't believe me?   Check with the former Comptroller General of the United States:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3DVFA_enCA235CA238&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=comptroller+general+60+minutes&spell=1

Sure.  Apples and Oranges really.  The Government of the US does not have any affect on the collapse of Democracy as you are alluding in your comments above.  There are enough entrepreneurs and 'Big Business' to keep the US from collapsing as the "Russian Federation" (Happy Oli?) did.  All the people of the US can look forward to is exactly what they and Canadians did after all previous wars - higher Taxes.

The US Government does not control the wages of the people of the US (unless they are in direct employ of the Government.). 

Your argument doesn't hold water.
 
The Government of the US does not have any affect on the collapse of Democracy as you are alluding in your comments above.

I am not alluding to what you seem to think I am alluding too.  I am merely point at that the U.S is spending itself into bankruptcy.  Sure big business is doing awesome. Like GM, Ford and any of the other big five auto manufacturers.  If you look at the Fortune 500 Top 10 you will see Wal-Mart, which trades heavily with a communist country China is ranked as No.1. 
 
stegner said:
I am not alluding to what you seem to think I am alluding too.   I am merely point at that the U.S is spending itself into bankruptcy.  Sure big business is doing awesome. Like GM, Ford and any of the other big five auto manufacturers.  If you look at the Fortune 500 Top 10 you will see Wal-Mart, which trades heavily with a communist country China is ranked as No.1. 

So?  I take it you agree; apples and oranges.  The appearance of the US Government to be bankrupt, no way affects the actual stability of the nation.
 
George Wallace said:
Sure.  Apples and Oranges really.  The Government of the US does not have any affect on the collapse of Democracy as you are alluding in your comments above.  There are enough entrepreneurs and 'Big Business' to keep the US from collapsing as the "Russian Federation" (Happy Oli?) did.  All the people of the US can look forward to is exactly what they and Canadians did after all previous wars - higher Taxes.

The US Government does not control the wages of the people of the US (unless they are in direct employ of the Government.). 

Your argument doesn't hold water.

They might not collapse 'physically', but economy is going to go down the shitter. It is not just the national debt, but also trade deficit that counts. Think if China dumps whatever they have in US currency... big ouchy.
 
IF Russia steps up on the rule of law issues, I agree that they should receive our support. 

Problem 1:  There are series of oligarchs who literally sit back and watch foreign investor put billions in investment, and then swoop in to then confiscate the assets with the help of the government.  Hopefully Medvedez will signal the end to this behaviour with a recognition that protected foreign investment is going to be required in order to do the requisite diversification of their economy.

Problem 2:  They really don't need our support financially, and so or moralistic rantings are somewhat questionable.  Russia is generating almost $300 billion per annum in foreign currency reserves on oil alone with probably close to the same amount in natural gas.  The key now is reinvesting in other industries as both their oil and natural gas have come close to peaking, and will likely start to decline as early as 2011. 

I should add that if you look at some of the media that they have shut down, much of it was anti-government paparazzi, and although in principle I do agree with freedom of the press, when it is used for propaganda by the opposition parties (as happens in all democracies), it can be somewhat counterproductive as politics becomes little more than a series of lying pricks fighting for soundbites on the evening news.

[Side Note:  Estimate is the Middle East is generating $1 trillion USD per annum at $125 oil at current rates of production].

Bottom Line:  The Russians (as well as the Middle East and Brazil) are really sitting in the cat bird seat, and because of that, external support isn't going to accomplish much.  Candidly, as an export driven market depending upon manufactured goods, China is much more vulnerable to external pressure than Russia is....


Matthew.  :salute:
 
Cdn Blackshirt said:
Bottom Line:  The Russians (as well as the Middle East and Brazil) are really sitting in the cat bird seat, and because of that, external support isn't going to accomplish much.  Candidly, as an export driven market depending upon manufactured goods, China is much more vulnerable to external pressure than Russia is....

I suspect that in the long run, the Americans are the ones in the driver's seat. North American society has stronger cultural, demographic, economic and natural resource foundations than the Middle East, Russia, China, Africa or the EU. To my knowledge, only India is in a similar position. The current economic situation is favorable for Russia, as a resource exporter, but their internal problems will require a vast outpouring of effort, which does not seem to be happening. As Russia is facing a demographic crash, they will start running out of people in a generation to fix problems, much less man the borders and maintain the current infrastructure and economy.

Russia is also heavily tied to the EU as their primary export market for oil and natural gas (the prime exports and source of foreign exchange), but the EU is also undergoing a demographic crash, and their elaborate systems of welfare and entitlements (not to mention the brittle bureaucratic mechanism they created to actually run the EU) will soon consume 25% or more of the economy. Russia might discover their primary market and source of investment has dried up. The Middle East has tied its oil fortunes towards China (Americans buy their oil from Canada and Venezuela), and might discover their preferred customers suffer from the same demographic decline, as well as huge disruptions as China's natural ecology suffers more and more damage. South America has most of the advantages of population and resources, but suffers from unstable political systems, which hinder their growth. Africa seems to be a write off unless the various dysfunctional social, political and economic structures are erased and replaced with Free Speech, Property Rights and the Rule of Law.

America still has the American Creed as a foundational basis for their society, access to cheap and readily available natural resources (i.e. us), a booming demographic profile (lots of Americans will be around to move into Canada as our nation empties out mid century) and a broad based economy which has more flexibility and depth than most of its competitors (think back to how the Japanese were supposed to overtake America back in the 1980's, just before Japan imploded...). It won't be easy, but they have the tools at hand and (at least in the red states) the will to go forward.
 
I am really not sure that NA has stronger cultural or natural resources demographic than Russia.
 
Thucydides said:
I suspect that in the long run, the Americans are the ones in the driver's seat. North American society has stronger cultural, demographic, economic and natural resource foundations than the Middle East, Russia, China, Africa or the EU. To my knowledge, only India is in a similar position. The current economic situation is favorable for Russia, as a resource exporter, but their internal problems will require a vast outpouring of effort, which does not seem to be happening. As Russia is facing a demographic crash, they will start running out of people in a generation to fix problems, much less man the borders and maintain the current infrastructure and economy.

Russia is also heavily tied to the EU as their primary export market for oil and natural gas (the prime exports and source of foreign exchange), but the EU is also undergoing a demographic crash, and their elaborate systems of welfare and entitlements (not to mention the brittle bureaucratic mechanism they created to actually run the EU) will soon consume 25% or more of the economy. Russia might discover their primary market and source of investment has dried up. The Middle East has tied its oil fortunes towards China (Americans buy their oil from Canada and Venezuela), and might discover their preferred customers suffer from the same demographic decline, as well as huge disruptions as China's natural ecology suffers more and more damage. South America has most of the advantages of population and resources, but suffers from unstable political systems, which hinder their growth. Africa seems to be a write off unless the various dysfunctional social, political and economic structures are erased and replaced with Free Speech, Property Rights and the Rule of Law.

America still has the American Creed as a foundational basis for their society, access to cheap and readily available natural resources (i.e. us), a booming demographic profile (lots of Americans will be around to move into Canada as our nation empties out mid century) and a broad based economy which has more flexibility and depth than most of its competitors (think back to how the Japanese were supposed to overtake America back in the 1980's, just before Japan imploded...). It won't be easy, but they have the tools at hand and (at least in the red states) the will to go forward.

The United States is on the verge of collapse.  I wouldn't hold $USD on a bet.


Matthew.  :salute:
 
Overall, I would more or less agree with Mathew (Cdn Blackshirt). In regards to media, yes, the media was wrestled out of the control of the oligarchs, but the media being in the hands of the oligarchs is not something as I see being beneficial for the country. Further, I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with some channels being state-owned, as long as there are channels that are not, especially if state-owned channels allow for free discourse. This is the case in Russia, IMHO.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with the point that nothing is being done about Russia's population problems. Social programs overall call for an increase in birth rates, but I'm sure that untill we see a growing middle class this will happen slowly. Another point of view I have from personal observation is that in order to increase birth rates dramatically that country will first undergo a building boom, as the old soviet style buildings, for the most part, don't allow room for large families. These things are happening, and the demographic trend reversal will follow. There are 'national projects', including one for demographics, and 'marginal depopulation' is decreasing. (Essentially, the country is still depopulating but at decreasing rates)

In terms of Russia's cultural and economic foundations, I'm sure they are not much worse than india. In fact, I'd challenge some to learn about the BRIC thesis put forth by Goldman Sachs (investment bank). I'll just quote wikipedia because I'm too lazy to type it out myself:

Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. The thesis was proposed by Jim O'Neill, global economist at Goldman Sachs. These countries encompass over twenty-five percent of the world's land coverage, forty percent of the world's population and hold a combined GDP (PPP) of 15.435 trillion dollars. On almost every scale, they would be the largest entity on the global stage.

However, it is important to note that it is not the intent of Goldman Sachs to argue that these four countries are a political alliance (such as the European Union) or any formal trading association, like ASEAN. Nevertheless, they have taken steps to increase their political cooperation, mainly as a way of influencing the United States position on major trade accords, or, through the implicit threat of political cooperation, as a way of extracting political concessions from the United States, such as the proposed nuclear cooperation with India.

The BRIC thesis[7] (defended in the paper Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050) recognizes that Brazil, Russia, India and China[8] have changed their political systems to embrace global capitalism. Goldman Sachs predicts China and India, respectively, to be the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services while Brazil and Russia would become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. Cooperation is thus hypothesized to be a logical next step among the BRICs because Brazil and Russia together form the logical commodity suppliers to India and China. Thus, the BRICs have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc to the exclusion of the modern-day G8 status. Brazil is dominant in soy and iron ore while Russia has enormous supplies of oil and natural gas. Goldman Sachs' thesis thus documents how commodities, work, technology, and companies have diffused outward from the United States across the world.

Following the end of the Cold War or even before, the governments comprising BRIC all initiated economic or political reforms to allow their countries to enter the world economy. In order to compete, these countries have simultaneously stressed education, foreign investment, domestic consumption, and domestic entrepreneurship. According to the study, India has the potential to grow the fastest among the four BRIC countries over the next 30 to 50 years. A major reason for this is that the decline in working age population will happen later for India and Brazil than for Russia and China.

.....

Various sources (see external links below) refer to a purported "original" BRIC agreement that predates the Goldman Sachs thesis. Some of these sources claim that President Vladimir Putin of Russia was the driving force behind this original cooperative coalition of developing BRIC countries. However, thus far, no text has been made public of any formal agreement to which all four BRIC states are signatories. This does not mean, however, that they have not reached a multitude of bilateral or even trilateral agreements. Evidence of agreements of this type are abundant and are available on the foreign ministry websites of each of the four countries. Trilateral agreements and frameworks made among the BRICs include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (member states include Russia and China, associate members include India) and the IBSA Trilateral Forum, which unites Brazil, India, and South Africa in annual dialogues. Also important to note is the G-20 coalition of developing states which includes all the BRICs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC


Further, it is argued that Russian GDP will outpace that of Germany, Italy, UK, and most EU countries. My point of view is that the report is a little bit over-optimistic about US prospects, but who knows! Another point I'd like to make is that Russia has already grown faster than what was predicted by the BRIC paper in 2003 untill now, in part due to rising commodity prices, which I argue have at least something to do with the falling dollar. An interesting point of view is that the falling US dollar will help to decrease their dual defecits in the long run, although that may be very painful for such an import dependent nation as the US for us regular folks. Essentially, this means that we'll have to cut down on our spending and no longer live above our means. I'm not sure about how the Canadian economy will be affected. I think we will undoubtedly feel the US pinch, but we'll have the natural resrouces to recover, so it really depends on magnitude and speed of the USD decline. I feel a run of inflation and dollar depreciation coming on in the US soon due to the Fed's moves to drop rates so quickly, and if countries begin to dump the US dollar things may even get worse. Another painful thing would be countries refusing to denominate oil in USD, and such trends and sentiments are emerging, and Iran has already done it. However, USD devaluation has to happen IMHO! If it doesn't, the US will eventually simply be forced into default by its own overspending.

Here I will also quote another writer on the wikipedia edit page. Keep in mind that I didn't write this, but please consider it:

Calling Russia a "quasi-democracy" (while Brazil and India are "real" democracies), and China a "communist state" is strongly POV. What is the established standard by which one measures the quantity of democracy? If Russia is a "quasi-democracy", why is Brazil, with millions of people living in the slums in deplorable conditions, completely shut out of the country's political system, considered a democracy? Why is India considered a democracy despite still having a caste system, no independent judiciary, corruption, bureaucracy, and a 60% literacy rate (with which "free" elections are a joke)? China is no more "communist" than the U.S., since Communism implies an economic system with an equal distribution of wealth. China is not exactly that. You could say perhaps it's a one-party state, which is only marginally [worse] than the U.S. two-party state. By the way, I haven't seen references to the U.S. as a "quasi-democracy" anywhere in Wikipedia, despite having no direct voting system.
 
One last point I'd like to make is about the fact that many western pundits typically try to write off the Russian economy as an "oil driven" economy; meanwhile, diversification is occuring rapidly and growth in many other sectors in rampant. The IT market is one of the most dynamic sectors of the Russian economy. Russian software exports have risen from just $120 million in 2000 to $1.5 billion in 2006. Since the year 2000 the IT market has demonstrated growth rates of 30-40 percent a year, growing by 54% in 2006 alone. Further, the Putin government has announced a massive $7 billion investment program in nanotechnology. Russia's telecommunications industry is growing in size and maturity, and over half of overall GDP is generated by services. So saying that Russia's economy is so dependent on oil prices and that president Putin is drunk with power and the petrodollar is trying to revive the cold war only because Russia suddenly started to make money due to rising oil prices is just plain misinformation. GDP growth started during in 1999, way before commodities appreciated as rapidly as in the last 3 years.
 
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