I read it all
This presents the negative case for Putin’s Russia
Not that I sympathize one bit with the invasion of Georgia
But Russia is doing quite well.
They have a huge foreign currency reserve
They are piling up money on selling oil/gas
They are doing much better than under communism
Bingo! Mark Steyn is looking more and more like a prophet, as demography is beginning to do its dirty math on societies with low birth rates. Russia is both sick and childless, and it is dying. In order to defend its mineral-rich homeland from Muslim and Chinese hordes multiplying on its borders, Russia knows it must expand. South Ossetia and Abkazia are just the first new pieces in the new Russian empire. The Bear must expand his territory and population, or he will die.
“With the exception of Robert Mugabe, no other leader has so completely fouled his own nest as Mr. Putin, or squandered so much international good will.”
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That’s at the heart of the matter, Putin and his cronies are doing nothing to help with Russia’s real problems, they just want to loot the place.
After the recent thuggish ripping off of foreign investors, (BNP, Sakhalin II) Russia’s re-nationalized oil and gas industries are going to rot—Venezuela and Iran style—for want of any further suckers to invest money and technology.