Spoke with some of my Mexican friends this weekend. The 1st and 3rd graders are now required to take foreign languages in which languages?
A) English
B) Russian
C) Chinese
If you chose A), you are wrong.
There is lots and lots of historical revisionism on going regarding the magnanimous and worldly powerfulness of Russia throughout the middle Americas.
Her navy is rusted and can barely control her ports, let alone project power.
Her airforce, while large is also rusting and decaying -- with the recent decision of India to move to other weapons suppliers, the MIS and Sukhoi factories may shut or move to India. And the Russians can't afford the new airplane development
Their army, while large, is filled with conscripts, not professionals and badly trained conscripts that too
They also have a huge border to defend and since the native Russians are getting increasingly xenophobic against Kazakhs, Georgians and other Caucasians, they have to protect against those southern borders too
Plus the Russian army is in Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Abkhazia and Transdniester
The Russian economy is a petro-economy, not much depth, even if they are put in the BRIC club they do not compare to China or India or even Brazil in all-around developing zones and industries
I strongly propose to my friends a re-creation of the idea of międzymorze -- an alliance of nations in Eastern and Central Europe: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Western Ukraine (Eastern is nearly completely Russian), Romania+Moldavia, Hungary, Slovakia,Bulgaria, serbia as a bulwark against both the East and the West --> it's not a practical idea now, I agree, but it's an exciting one.