the petrodollar has become the jesus nut of American capitalism. Putin knows this and he been positioning himself to undo that nut for years-the gazprom deal with China, the precious metal stockpiles, the leverage over Europe. He has recently introduced legislation that eliminates the dollar from trade between the commonwealth of independent states. China is complicit and has already started dumping dollar denominated assets as has Russia. His endgame is clear to me. He’s going after the petrodollar and us with it and there are a lot of other nations that will happily join him in this.
That is not Putin’s endgame. Look at IMF prediction for their 2015 GDP.
United States 18,124,731
Mexico 1,231,982
Russia 1,175,996
Russia does not have much economic muscle with their GDP smaller than Mexico’s. What they do have is propaganda muscle to spread fear and uncertainty through their vast propaganda network. Russia does not have much successes other than their effective fear mongering. It is a country where doctors earn $100 a week.