Some quick thoughts on Russia
I have written a lot about Russia in Slovenian, for my blog and for Russia Beyond The Headlines and some others as well. I consider Russia to be a great power. Not a super power, like the US or like China will be in a decade or so, a great power. It has huge resources, huge territory, because of the sanctions it is becoming a agricultural power house. It is very advanced in military technology, space exploration. It is modernizing it’s armed forces and exercising them regulary. There are some other fields, in which it is very much advanced. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a population anyway near large enough, to compete with countries like China, India, US. Economic growth is slow, there are problems with corruption, many parts of the country are just poor.
I believe Russia will remain a great power in the future, capable of protecting its interests in the near abroad. It will neither become the first of the powers, nor will it disintegrate. Much like today. To be better capable to stand in the world, alliances will be crucial and as it seems, Russia will build one with China.
One should not exaggerate Russian power, nor underestimate it. It is, at it is. There is no way, Russians could really influence, say, American elections, but they can act in their near abroad. They can defend their interests in east Ukraine, even mount an expedition to Syria, but all in all, they can’t really intervene in say, Venezuela. Even in Syria they would have a hard time fighting Americans, if they would really want to dislodge them.
Russia is functioning as a scapegoat for democrats in the US, after Hillary was defeated. All in all it is not very dangerous, if it stays at impotent threats and media propaganda and trolls on the internet just having their fun. Sanctions will not hurt that much, either. Russians have allready adapted to the last round of sanctions. More dangerous would be, if someone would provoke a real war with Russia on their doorsteps, in Ukraine. Such a war can not be won, as Russians would simply be sending reinforcements to the rebels, like, forever. Any expansion of war would undoubtedly bring usage of tactical nuclear weapons on larger NATO forces, once Russians would start to lose because of their numerical inferiority. War is therefore, something only a fool can contemplate.
Some are trying to portray Russia as some kind of nationalistic example. It is not. It is a multicultural empire. 6,5% are muslims. We could say, it is a conservative country, but that doesn’t mean that the communist era is forgoten. Statues of Lenin are everywhere. And there is no way, Russians could ever forget their role in the second world war, which was fought under the red flag. In Russia, red stars, statues of Lenin and orthodox churches exist side by side.
All this is important, because for US internal politics, Trump supporters and alt right (not the same thing, obviously) are portrayed as somehow enamoured with Russia. First, Trump wants better relations with Russia, which is normal, but that does not mean he would put US interests behind Russian. No US president ever would, nor could. On the other hand, yes, there are some who see the world as a battlefield between forces of conservativism, national states on one hand, and liberalism and globalism on the other in which Russia in just on the forefront of that battle. Putin is seen as a strong leader opposing a globalist agenda. One could see a connection there, but I would argue, that is also pretty normal. It is the same in Russia, where liberal forces would want to allign themselves with western powers.
Not everything revolves around the US, of course. Russia has problems with some of its neighbours, being a great power with a history of dominating places like Poland or Georgia. There are some deep historical animosities, fueling rusophobic rhetoric.
Last thing, on the nazism stuff, no, Putin is not a nazi, nor does the Russian state support nazism. It is all a bit funny to me, as there are really not that many real nazis in the US, who could see Russia as their ally. There are radical nationalists in Ukraine, though, but nobody in the west wants to acknowledge their existence. It is true, Russian media gives air time to US dissidents, but I doubt, there are real nazis among them.
Just some of my thoughts on Russia….