Après Putin, Le Déluge? In the long term, Russia’s prospects look dim.

At first blush, Ilan Berman’s timing could hardly be worse. His new book, Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America, is being published just as Russian president Vladimir Putin has eaten American president Barack Obama’s lunch and saved Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s bacon — figuratively speaking, of course.

Putin also has been empowering Iran’s rulers, selling them the means to make nuclear weapons and denouncing economic sanctions as “a violation of international law.” Adding insult to injury, Putin has been making the case, in the New York Times and elsewhere, that never again should the U.S. military be deployed without the U.N. Security Council’s authorization. That has won him plaudits from progressive internationalists who appear not to comprehend that what he means is that never again should the U.S. military be deployed without his personal authorization — since Russia wields veto power at the U.N.

But while Putin’s star may be rising, his country — use of the possessive pronoun is especially appropriate in this context — may be heading toward a black hole. Russia today, Berman writes, is afflicted by economic stagnation, widespread corruption, a death-spiraling birthrate, “the collapse of the Russian family and an escalating AIDS epidemic.” Rampant alcoholism and drug use round out the symptoms of what Berman sees as irreversible decay.

Those who expected Russia to transition from socialism to democratic capitalism were mistaken. Putin has built instead an “autocratic state” that has exploited the country’s raw materials making “a tiny minority of Russians wildly rich, while the vast majority of Russians are left to grapple with an environment that is deeply toxic to entrepreneurship, innovation and honest business.”

In Putin’s Russia, Berman writes, organized criminal groups “operate under a new code — one in which they are mindful of, and in return receive exceedingly soft treatment from, the Kremlin.” For these and other reasons, “capital flight from the Russian Federation has surged as multinational corporations and investors have abandoned the country’s uncompromising economic atmosphere.”

Money is not all that is leaving: There also is an exodus that “rivals in size and scope the mass out-migration that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution,” and which undoubtedly includes many of Russia’s best minds.

As “Russia’s Slavic population is constricting,” Berman adds, her Muslim population is expanding. “And by the middle of this century,” he reports, “officials in Moscow predict that the Russia Federation might become majority Muslim.”

Within this population is an “expanding Muslim underclass.” And even those who are better off tend to see themselves as Muslims in Russia — not Russian Muslims. A growing minority embrace bellicose interpretations of Islam. There are proponents of a moderate “Euro-Islam” as well, but they are increasingly under attack — and not just figuratively speaking. Last year, the spiritual leader of the moderate Sufi community of Dagestan was assassinated, as was a prominent moderate Islamic cleric in Tartarstan. (Both Dagestan and Tartarstan are Muslim-majority “republics” within the Russian Federation. Dagestan is where alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six mysterious months in 2012.)

In recent days, Putin has been strutting on the world stage, playing the statesman and diplomat, urging the U.S. to rely on negotiations and soft power when dealing with Syria and Iran. When dealing with his own adversaries and enemies, however, his approach has been rather different. “The Russian military’s engagement in the Caucasus over the past two decades,” Berman writes, “can best be described as a scorched-earth policy that has left more than a hundred thousand citizens dead.”

Berman speculates that, in the years ahead, Putin may be tempted to pursue “an even more aggressive policy” toward the now-independent Slavic republics (Ukraine and Belarus), the Baltic nations (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), and Eastern Europe. But piecing together a post-Soviet Russian empire, in Berman’s view, remains a remote possibility. “Russia’s future is not one of global dominance, as the current occupants of the Kremlin . . . seem to believe,” he writes.

More likely scenarios, he adds, include a losing battle to stem Russia’s Islamization, civil war, conflict with China, and deepening decadence. As for meaningful reform leading to revitalization, Berman thinks there’s not a snowball’s chance — figuratively speaking again.

Back in 1970, a time when the Soviet Union was still seen as a superpower, the dissident author Andrei Amalrik wrote a book titled Will the Soviet Union Survive Till 1984? He selected that date as an homage to George Orwell’s classic novel but, in the end, he was off by only seven years. (Show me the political scientist, journalist, or intelligence analyst who was closer to the mark.)

What caused the decline and fall of the Soviet Union? I would like to think that nations built on soul-crushing ideologies are doomed from the start. But that may represent wishful thinking. Do we really know that history is on the side of freedom? Do we really know that history takes sides?

And if post-Soviet Russia is now imploding, as Berman argues, is Putin aware of that? Could his displays of manly vigor — fighting, hunting, fishing, tagging polar bears — be meant to inspire Russia’s revitalization? Or are these activities just lipstick and a fancy hairdo on a decrepit old hag — figuratively speaking, of course?

— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security.

Wonder how much they pay this guy? Russia has the best outlook for economic growth of any nation in Europe. It is very rich in resources oil, natural gas, timber, agricultural production as well as a literate tech savvy population. Freed from communism and the worst aspects of socialist central planning the economy is growing rapidly. As the standard of living improves, the birthrate is even increasing. True their political institutions are still evolving but the worst abuses of the communist dictatorship are in the past. Eventually the German-Russian trade axis will resume. Between 1870 and 1914 it was one of the world’s most dynamic. Ultimately it will evolve as the counterbalance to China.

May claims that Russia cannot possibly survive the cultural decay, corruption in government, and Islamization of the population, and points to the symptoms of decay.

Interestingly, if ya substitute "America" for "Russia" in May's diatribe, it reads just as accurately, so likewise, America’s prospects look dim.

Likewise, May doesn't mention that Russia starts from disadvantage, recovering from Soviet Communism, having 15% Muslim population, Islamic conquest and Balkinization, while America coasts on the savings of economic freedom.

Still, while preaching that "Democratic Capitalism" can defeat Communist tyranny (a falsehood of epic joke proportions), May fails to mention that America is doing everything wrong in the same battle, while lamenting that Russia is doing some things right and is moving in the right direction.

Russia may not survive, but it won't be for lack of trying.

May is just engaging in wishful thinking to make himself feel better while doing nothing to prevent the Islamofascists from flushing the toilet he is standing in.

...while Putin’s star may be rising, his country — use of the possessive pronoun is especially appropriate in this context — may be heading toward a black hole. Russia today, Berman writes, is afflicted by economic stagnation, widespread corruption, a death-spiraling birthrate, “the collapse of the Russian family and an escalating AIDS epidemic.” Rampant alcoholism and drug use round out the symptoms of what Berman sees as irreversible decay.

Ping for later

RE: On the up-side, Russia’s public debt has decreased from around 100% of GDP in 1999 to around 10% today.

DRILL, DRILL, DRILL, that’w what they did, and that’s what we are afraid to do...

This guy is the head of a non-profit? Has he not read the Russia’s birthrate is now higher than in the U.S.? And you can’t attribute that all to Muslims either. Further, Russia has no debt to speak of. That’s what is going to bring down Japan and much of Europe, as it has already crashed the Greek economy.

>>>Putin has built instead an “autocratic state” that has exploited the country’s raw materials making “a tiny minority of Russians wildly rich, while the vast majority of Russians are left to grapple with an environment that is deeply toxic to entrepreneurship, innovation and honest business.”<<<

The reality is everyone in Russia benefits from “Putinism”.
Their average household income PPP per capita is now almost on par with West Virginia or Mississippi and still growing while both of these states are getting worse along with the rest of US since Obamao took office.
It is notable that before Putin “with an environment deeply friendly to entrepreneurship and honest business” Russia was looking worse than Detroit and average income was about $20 a week.
One could buy a tank factory for $120,000 and his friends could call him nuts stressing that a new Benz is a better investment.
The entire Russian national budget in mid1990s was lower than the State of New York spent to run public schools.
Today they are back to top five global economies.

Russia’s baby uptick is mostly because of fertile Muslims. A new generation composed mostly of Dzhokars and Fatimas is not in Russia’s long-term interest, to put it mildly. And Russia’s economy is horribly undiversified. It survives as an exporter of raw materials, notably petroleum and precious metals. It’s the Congo, only with snow, nukes and a funny alphabet. Such economies always benefit an oligarchy, but the common-folk still scrabble for a living. Sad part is, too many conservatives have a man-crush on Putin. They’re crusing towards a heartbreak.

If you give 10 people in a room a total of $1000, then the per capita income of each person is $100, even if you’ve given $991 to one person and $1 each to the rest. That’s a microcosm of income distribution in Russia today.

>>>If you give 10 people in a room a total of $1000, then the per capita income of each person is $100, even if you’ve given $991 to one person and $1 each to the rest. That’s a microcosm of income distribution in Russia today.<<<

Where did you get it? I really want to know because that you said is much more true for a good old US under any known estimates.
Even US government itself lists 10% R/P rate at 15% and it is an unprecedentedly high level of inequality of income distribution for any developed nation. To bring things into perspective it is in a class of Philippines, Nicaragua, Iran, Venezuela and Nigeria. BTW, World Bank and UN disagrees with US government and lists US as roughly 16% or 45 points in international Gini index.
For Russia R/P is only about 12-13% and Gini is 40 points. It is in a class of Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand.

P.S. if you aren’t informed 10%R/P rating it is how CIA counts the rate 10% richest to a 10% richest for a one given nation.
Gini is a quantified representation using a Lorenz curve.
The higher both indexes the higher inequality in a given society.

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