Russia Overtaking The U.S.

[Carrera]

Ages ago, Vladimir Putin warned not to dismiss Russia as a capitalist superpower in the face of the new, expanding economic powerhouse China. Europe, for one, has been very quick to place Russia as second to China, given China's huge economic industrialisation.
Now, things could be changing. Russia has just responded to Bush's expansion into the Czech Republic by building new, super tech missiles that carry multiple warheads. More strikingly, Russia successfully destroyed two incoming missiles in Kamchatka with its latest defence shield technology - still being developed. This is becoming like the old days when Russian missile tests and space rocket expeditions were flawless.
Not only that but while the dollar is falling, the rouble is rising and Moscow is positively booming in oil rich money and a new dynamic oil based economy.
Russia, I guess, is sending Bush a strong message which is if the U.S. seeks an arm race, Putin's Russia will outdo them in technology and match missile with missile.
Can Putin be blamed, though? Bush has clearly sought to target his country and now Russia claims it has evidence the missile shield in Czech Republic was, after all, an effort to box Russia in. Here's the latest on the Kamchatka missile tests:
"Russia's hawkish first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, said the country had tested both a new multiple-warhead intercontinental missile, the RS-24, and an improved version of its short-range Iskander missile.

He said the missiles were capable of destroying enemy systems and added: "As of today Russia has new missiles that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems. In terms of defence and security, Russia can look calmly to the country's future."

The missile tests follow months of anger in Moscow over the Bush administration's determination to install parts of a controversial missile defence shield in eastern Europe.

President Vladimir Putin has been incensed by the Pentagon's plans to site missile interceptors and radar shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. The row has contributed to the worst relations between Russia and the west for 20 years.

But as well as confrontational rhetoric from Mr Putin, Russia has also been preparing a secret military response, analysts said yesterday. They said the new RS-24 missile was capable of:

carrying multiple independent warheads, making it almost impossible to shoot down

travelling inter-continentally to hit targets thousands of miles away

using sophisticated navigation systems which allow the warheads to lock on to different targets
Yesterday's launch took place at the Plesetsk cosmodrome in north-west Russia. The missile successfully hit its target 3,400 miles away in far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, on Russia's Pacific coast, the Russian strategic missile forces said.

The statement said the missile would replace two ageing ICBM systems - the RS-18 and RS-20, known in the west as the SS-19 Stiletto and SS-18 Satan, respectively. Separately, an upgraded and more accurate version of the Iskander-M cruise missile, was fired from southern Astrakhan."

 

[Cycler6n]

think this sounds like another cold war?

 

[limerickman]

Putin was voted the most influential man in 2007 by Time Magazine.

For good or ill, he has managed to restore what Russians value most - prestige.

Russia and its people have always considered themselves to be a world power and I think that it is fair to say that between 1991-2000, Russia lost a lot of prestige and influence in international affairs.
Putin has restored Russian self confidence - if nothing else.

 

[Carrera]

Strategically, modern Russia is well behind the situation of the USSR. Russia has lost Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Estonia e.t.c. As M.C. Gorbachev pointed out recently, America has tried to exploit Russia's imperial collapse and effectively try to become an Empire similar to the British Empire or Roman. It wants to see Russia broken up as it was under Yeltsin.
However, as you say, Putin has changed things around to a degree. Although Russia lost vast amounts of territory and allies, its missile technology is almost on a par with the U.S. in terms of destructive capacity. It may also edge ahead in the field of quality of bomber aircraft and missile defence.
One key strategy he may possibly use to even things up is to move into South America and pressure Bush on his borders. Maybe he will give Bush a dose of his own medicine and he did refer to Cuba in a speech recently. Not that Putin would put missiles onto Cuba but he may well base a few strategic bombers in the region as a signal.
Some people have said they think this second Cold War may be worse than the last one. There is real frost in Moscow at the moment.

Putin was voted the most influential man in 2007 by Time Magazine.

For good or ill, he has managed to restore what Russians value most - prestige.

Russia and its people have always considered themselves to be a world power and I think that it is fair to say that between 1991-2000, Russia lost a lot of prestige and influence in international affairs.
Putin has restored Russian self confidence - if nothing else.

 

[italiano]

(warning: sorry for my poor linguistic expressions I did not manage to clean up

. )

I am a Russia watcher for many years. Yepp, a Tuscan with keen interest in Russia. I even tried to study their beutiful and difficult language…

There are many complex things taking place in today’s Russia. I think it would be noncorrect to take too seriously Putin’s rhetoric about military confrontation with America or to draw serious parallels between America’s REAL economic power and still fragile recovery of Russian one-sided, oil-dominated economy.
Russian GDP is only 12% of America!

When evaluating Russia, one needs to keep in mind that it was but one huge yet dominant fragment of the former Soviet Union. As that unnatural colossus collapsed, so got ripped apart the essential economic arteries that fed each others economies. Pre-1991 Russian economic level was only reached in 2007. It means Russia was thrown back 16 years while the rest of the world added 50-70% of economic growth and prosperity. Russia is NOT USSR. Thinking otherwise is the first core USA/West has problem about Russia. Russia wants to build its own brand of capitalism and yet it wants very badly integrated into a world economy. Here lies the second contradiction or a problem Russia has with the West. Yes, Russians are a proud people who value national prestige. But I don’t think it’s the main driver of Putin’s foreign policy. It is one of the secondary drivers, along with shear nationalism, Putin exploits to whip up the traditionally slowly awaking Russian bear.

The primary driver for Putin foreign policy is cold, calculating commercialism. The main goal of Russian military moves (in near future) is projecting strength to protect their commercial interests. The main commercial interests of Russia right now are 1. Securing stable economy growth, 2. Domestic economy diversification from oil only, 3. expansion into and securing of world energy (oil and gas) market share. 4. Establishing Russia-dominated economic zones in former Soviet republics (similar to EU) 5. Presenting themselves as an alternative economic model to 3d world.

There is not much to fear from Russia yet. There is much to be learned about what will be worth fearing in the future.

Like with so many things about Russia the West keeps misunderstanding.

In stead of humiliating paternalism and lectures on freedom we need to figure out that they are not like us adults yet. They are akeen maturing teenager who is, like us, essentially european by his culture, appearance and thinking.

It's up to sensible adults to comprehend growth problems.

 

[Carrera]

The language is not as complex as Hungarian and especially Estonian or Basque. In fact, Russian doesn't have any perfect tenses at all as we have in English such as "I have cycled" or "I will have cycled" e.t.c.
Anyway, yes, I agree with your post more or less entirely. I can only give you a few basic concepts to chew on and see if you agree or not:
First of all, Russia has been invaded before by France and Germany (****** and Napolean) so Russia is definitely suspicious of Europe and will inevitably be suspicious of the E.U. for all sorts of reasons.
Russia's military situation is a bit mixed. There's a real negative side here since Russia has lost Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and now we see its big sister neighbour the Ukraine split between the E.U. and Russia. Even worse, there is Georgia that may join NATO. Yes, Russia has as many ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads as NATO but it's thus far lost its strategic bases in Europe. It lost a lot.
Neither can Russia trust the U.S. and it certainly doesn't trust the U.S. for that matter. Russians know the U.S. is only placing an anti-missile defence in Czech Republic but this is clearly just testing the waters and one thing will probably lead to another. The fact is NATO is on its borders. For Putin, this will be a national defence issue and it seems highly likely there will be a nationalistic backlash in Russia and Russia stepping back from Europe and the West.
Still, I do suspect Russia can hit back diplomatically and strategically. It could ally itself with other countries such as Turkey and China. It could get nasty and work on splitting Europe by oil might out of fear of an over-inflated E.U. (understandable after former wars with France and Germany). In fact, Russia does already seem to be taking this path by upping oil prices to the more anti-Russian countries and lowering gas prices to those that favour ties with Russia. There have been tensions in Czech Republic amongst ordinary Czechs who don't wish to see a Cold War develop and would rather have a more positive relationship with Russia, especially due to the Moscow economic boom.
I just heard since Estonia removed the war memorial to WW2 soldiers in Tallinn, it's economic ties with Russia were badly damaged and its economy suffered some significant damage, at least according to Russian propaganda.
Maybe Russia's big problem at the moment is Europe but there could also be a nasty kick in the teeth for the U.S. if the E.U. situation backfires and the E.U. later on splits with the U.S. and forms its own European military. So far, the U.S. is having much its own way because the E.U. is allied with NATO but this may well change.
I figure Putin has realised he needs a big military to keep both the U.S.A. and E.U. out of his borders. The missiles and warheads are just ways to pound the chest and show the world Russia is no pushover. As for overtaking the U.S. that won't happen unless the E.U. splits from NATO and America loses influence over Europe the way Russia did under Gorbachev.

(warning: sorry for my poor linguistic expressions I did not manage to clean up

. )

I am a Russia watcher for many years. Yepp, a Tuscan with keen interest in Russia. I even tried to study their beutiful and difficult language…

There are many complex things taking place in today’s Russia. I think it would be noncorrect to take too seriously Putin’s rhetoric about military confrontation with America or to draw serious parallels between America’s REAL economic power and still fragile recovery of Russian one-sided, oil-dominated economy.
Russian GDP is only 12% of America!

When evaluating Russia, one needs to keep in mind that it was but one huge yet dominant fragment of the former Soviet Union. As that unnatural colossus collapsed, so got ripped apart the essential economic arteries that fed each others economies. Pre-1991 Russian economic level was only reached in 2007. It means Russia was thrown back 16 years while the rest of the world added 50-70% of economic growth and prosperity. Russia is NOT USSR. Thinking otherwise is the first core USA/West has problem about Russia. Russia wants to build its own brand of capitalism and yet it wants very badly integrated into a world economy. Here lies the second contradiction or a problem Russia has with the West. Yes, Russians are a proud people who value national prestige. But I don’t think it’s the main driver of Putin’s foreign policy. It is one of the secondary drivers, along with shear nationalism, Putin exploits to whip up the traditionally slowly awaking Russian bear.

The primary driver for Putin foreign policy is cold, calculating commercialism. The main goal of Russian military moves (in near future) is projecting strength to protect their commercial interests. The main commercial interests of Russia right now are 1. Securing stable economy growth, 2. Domestic economy diversification from oil only, 3. expansion into and securing of world energy (oil and gas) market share. 4. Establishing Russia-dominated economic zones in former Soviet republics (similar to EU) 5. Presenting themselves as an alternative economic model to 3d world.

There is not much to fear from Russia yet. There is much to be learned about what will be worth fearing in the future.

Like with so many things about Russia the West keeps misunderstanding.

In stead of humiliating paternalism and lectures on freedom we need to figure out that they are not like us adults yet. They are akeen maturing teenager who is, like us, essentially european by his culture, appearance and thinking.

It's up to sensible adults to comprehend growth problems.

 

[bkaapcke]

Of course Russia is overtaking the U.S.. So is Europe. The simple reason; they aren't spending all their money on wars. We are, therefore, we will lose the economic race. Duh. bk

 

[Carrera]

Relations between Russia and the U.K. have hit rock bottom, worse than any diplomatic stand-off between Russia and America. I hear the British Council are being ordered to close up offices in St Petersburg and this has caused some unpleasantness all round.
It seems to be a mix of *** for tat. The U.K. claims the Russian Government had a hand in the murder of Litvinenko in London and Russia is claiming the U.K. is sheltering criminals who fled Russia or who committed tax and business fraud. Then Russia claims there was a plot to spy on Putin and find some information that could bring him down.
In many ways there has been a real return to Cold War tension and now British Council staff are claiming they're being pressured by Russian security services to close up office.

Of course Russia is overtaking the U.S.. So is Europe. The simple reason; they aren't spending all their money on wars. We are, therefore, we will lose the economic race. Duh. bk