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No doubt Russia will upgrade its military, IF the oil money keeps rolling in at $100+ per barrel levels.

A few times, I’ve encountered an only partially tongue-in-cheek statement about: How Sheik Yamani Won the Cold War. Most credit Ronald Reagan with being the primary winner of the Cold War by creating arms programs the Soviets couldn’t financially compete with.

But as Saudi Oil Minister, for whatever reason, Sheik Yamani never allowed OPEC to manipulate supply to drive up the price of crude during the 1980s. Every time they tried, he opened the spigots in Saudi and stopped any big price spikes, and the price stayed down all during the eighties and beyond. In those days, the Saudis had an excess production capacity of 3 millions barrels per day or more, and could control the supply fluctuations just about singlehandedly.

So, whether or not it was intended, the Saudis denied the Soviets billions of additional dollars in oil revenue during the 1980s, the period leading up to their downfall. Otherwise, they might have had the money to compete with the US. That probably played some part, but who knows how great a part.

But, now, there is no doubt that the sky high price of crude is strengthening Russia and many other nations that don’t mean us well. And Russia will have much revenue to use for military modernization and other expansionists (again) goals.

The importance of the US becoming more energy independent, and producing enough domestically to keep international prices within reason, is even more apparent after the past few days. Yep, to deny some nations billions in accidental revenue, some of which will be put to trouble making purposes, is another reason to get serious about domestic energy production.

It is important for the average Russian to get the message that this escapade has been an international disaster for Russia, and a huge embarrassment to their nation, from which they will take years to recover.

Undoubtedly the owned Russian media is going to beat the patriotism drum over this, and try to portray it both as a huge success and an example of how many enemies Russia has, and how they are ganging up against Russia.

This twists the truth, in that even invading a little country like Georgia, Russia had a lot of casualties and has had its military exposed as undisciplined and unprofessional. Even with a planned sneak attack, its execution has been haphazard, their military accompanied by irregulars intent on pillage and rapine. While wearing Russian uniforms. Humiliating.

Far more seriously, this has exposed Russia not as a strong, responsible nation, but as an abusive and arrogant one—a bully and a shrimp.

The Russian media is correct that other nations are now banding up against Russia, but only because this bad behavior reminds them of the brutal stupidity of the Soviets. Before, Russia had good credit and credibility, but this action has shown them to still be nekulturniy—people who are stupid and crude.

As the Russian saying goes: “What did I do?, sh*t in the soup?”

Yes, they did. An embarrassment to their nation and their people.