26 November 2006

Russia: a future less powerful?

I'd not really thought about it much before, but this is a provocative little reflection, containing this interesting possible prognostic:
On current trends, Russia is going away. Perhaps literally. The ongoing problem Europe faces is how to manage the transition. A decaying (nuclear) military infrastructure will be a feature. Migration will be a feature. Most people don’t want to live in criminal cultures, especially if the winters are more Canadian than Sicilian. Are we going to end up with a collection of Azerbaijans at the edge of Europe? (Azerbaijan is a country so corrupt and weak that the government lost its war to retain control of Nagorno-Karabakh and had to watch as Armenia helped itself to a few other bits of Azeri territory in the process). And I think what we saw in London last week was another (unpleasant) feature of the transition. Things are coming loose, but it could be much worse.

And I guess China and Iran are going to be interested in some of this too.
perfect.co.uk / Russia: probably smaller than you thought: Filed in: , , , ,

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