The world is beginning to experience a void in leadership. The US is curling into a ball, and is rapidly becoming nothing more than an annoyance to the rest of the world. A nation of consumers, without honor, vision or leadership.
This will either be the Russian or the Chinese century. Putin would like it to be the Russian century. You see, unlike Obama, Putin genuinely loves his country.
Russian century? Hilarious.
Russia, and especially its military, is absolutely overrun with corruption. All of their new procurement programs have problems that make those of the F-35 look like a joke (you just don't hear about it.)
Their economy is entirely based on exporting oil and gas, but they have high production costs and a decaying transport infrastructure, and they are probably going to be destroyed by the growth of shale oil and gas around the world.
And then you've got millions of people drinking themselves to death. I realize FR has gotten all squishy in admiration of Russia's recent anti-gay policies but the country is still a train wreck.