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Russia and America
DarkCrawler
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Since Obama has started his three-day trip to Russia, thought it would be cool to have a thread to discuss American/Russian relations. Here is some of the stuff from the trip:
Putin urges Obama to scrap shield
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8133343.stm
US urges Russian break from past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8131449.stm
While I'm not saying that this is a total revolution in U.S./Russian relations, I think it's a promising step forwards, I could not have imagined anything like this happening on the previous president's term. Any viewpoints on this?
US and Russia agree nuclear cuts
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty.
The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.
Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past".
Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.
The two countries also will set up a joint commission to co-operate over energy, and fighting terrorism and drug-trafficking. Military co-operation, suspended since last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia, will be resumed.
However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8136918.stm
Putin urges Obama to scrap shield
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8133343.stm
US urges Russian break from past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8131449.stm
While I'm not saying that this is a total revolution in U.S./Russian relations, I think it's a promising step forwards, I could not have imagined anything like this happening on the previous president's term. Any viewpoints on this?
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Now that's deep analysis.
They're meeting today, aren't they?
And this is a really cracking start to the trip - they got quite a lot established on the first day, but it could be argued that's low hanging fruit. What people are looking for is not so much the nuclear arms reduction and concrete deals on NATO and the missile shield (sigh), but more a change in attitudes between the two Governments. Obama and Medvedev seem to be getting on alright, but the meeting between him and Putin will be the true test of Obama's charisma.
I mean, certainly we're not BFF but this is good stuff. I am happy our president was able to negotiate this.
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They're still disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. The article is written with many quotes and info, but written as if to say, "Gee Obama way to not know this." Obama probably does know who said what, and whatever public information Russia has put forth.
As much as I hate to admit it, though, they do have a point. The USA is dipping, but we're still the preeminent superpower. Russia is on the decline, so arms reduction is something that they would be forced into with or without an agreement.
Not that I think arms reduction treaties are a bad idea, just that it's pretty obviously in everyone else's (and specifically Russia's) best interest to talk us down from the world-destroying precipice.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
For what it's worth, the Russian Federation has a GDP per capita three times of that of the PRC (and roughly six times that of Pakistan). It's certainly not incapable of being belligerent - if it came to a purely conventional war over Europe, I daresay Russia is capable of taking on Britain, France, and Germany combined. The point is rather that it has no real reason to be in the current environment, and it is in the US interest that this remains so.
Russia is a pretty thoroughly caged tiger at this point. Any military expansion will be on the order of reclaiming broken off satellite states, and that would draw enough unwanted international attention as to be very unattractive a prospect for anyone who isn't as nakedly Sovietski nationalistic as Putin.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
May I suggest extra curriculum reading on Eurasian geopolitics?
Russia's potential military/economic output in a time of crisis surpasses that of any other European nation by several orders of magnitude.
Massive military production or not, they're behind most first world nations in terms of what they can reliably outfit their men in the field with. They're catching up, and they've got the potential to be a true military superpower again if the angle that direction, but their military infrastructure, the really basic stuff, needs to be brought up to par.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
If you are familiar with Russian military history...their military power has never really relied on their technological prowess.
Not to mention Gazprom. Russia remains an incredibly potent geopolitical force and Moscow will take measures to protect their spheres of influence. To write it off as a dying power is a terrible mistake.
Technologically, they are in the middle of a major upgrade (1.4 or so billion rubles a year in the budget) to modernize their equipment. With the current budgeting shortfalls, though, that kind of spending threatens to create Cold War era debt spirals.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Strength here is about being able to pursue your own national priorities without impedance. Like being able to claim ambiguously-defined territory, occupying it over objections, and then being in a position to leave Western European nations with no real military or economic options to enforce said objections.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Russia has been riding out the GEC fairly successfully. And before the shockwaves of that hit, the economy of the Russian Federation was doing the best it had ever done. Comparing it to Pakistan shows a basic lack of understanding for the power and influence of Moscow.
Precariously balanced? I don't see it. They're struggling with the GEC like most every other state is, but the Russian Federation is not anywhere, anywhere near the verge of falling apart. Very far from it.
Right now, the Russians have the military might to push on places like Chechnya because no one in the international community is strongly linked to them. Most of Eastern Europe has made out better in the thaw than those poor people, and the links with western military powers are growing every day.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Right now, Russian military spending is pushing way out in front of economic growth, and they've specifically stated that it isn't going to pull back any time soon. They're following the model of military spending that crippled the Soviet government. Granted, the state doesn't have to pay for everything anymore, but actively making war is on the Kremlin's dime, and running those coffers dry and then digging holes under them isn't a great way to ensure continued military power.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Still, it's population is small compared to it's geographic size. If we look at future superpowers, U.S. has twice the population of Russia, European Union three and half times, China and India seven times. (Do we count Brazil as an emerging superpower? Because it has more population too).
edit: anyway, the most important number in the long run to consider is GDP per capita, because that's how you pay for all those shiny explodey stuff. Then consider their geographical and demographic situation.
But it does have a badass soccer team.
Any power they still have is due to Gazprom. If anything were to change with the energy situation in Europe making natural gas worthless, Russia would lose it's only bargaining chip and it's main export.
Well, that applies to nearly every populous and diverse state out there.
It'll be interesting to see how that all turns out. I don't anticipate a new Holy Russian Empire, but these things are hard to predict.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
True. Actually I see a lot of Western Europe in the same situation. The large influx of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East are already causing strain in France with large, countrywide riots. But I see Western Europe's governments as being better able to control their populations as opposed to Russia whose growing Muslim populations will demand more power or more autonomy. I see Russia responding in the same way China is currently with the Uyghurs: military crackdowns and hundreds dead. While this works well in the short term, it creates snowballing resentment towards the government as the cycle repeats itself.
I don't see Russia cracking down on people the way china does at all.
Putin isn't as secure in his power as the Council was at their height, but he's got a lot of control.
And like Iran, there are swaths of the population that would be perfectly happy under a dictatorship. The transition to a capitalist democracy was pretty painful for a lot of people.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
On paper Russia is more democratic than the PRC. But I suspect that in practice the PRC leadership is more responsive to shifts in public opinion than Russia.
Neither are great on civil rights.
It was...intriguing, to be polite.
I wonder if demographic changes over the intervening decades will cause a settlement of the Chechynan conflict simply due to changing societal norms and beliefs.
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There's also a strong correlation between the mob's decline and the rise of nationalist groups. Not only is one pushing out the other, but the nationalists are (by most accounts) getting implicit government support to do so. The Russian state is cracking down on crime and solidifying it's own power at the same time.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.