- (december 2016)
Russia and the USA have more in common than they would like to admit.
- Russia is one big white Christian blue-collar country, and Trump would be the perfect president for it. Maybe Trump will score the incredible feat of becoming Russia's next president after being appointed president of the USA by Putin.
- Russia's view of the USA is that the USA is about to implode the same way the Soviet Union imploded in 1989 and for the same reasons: it is teetering on the brink of economic collapse, its military power is overextended over five continents, its social fabric is devastated by widespread discontent and corruption, etc.
- Russia has always been an expansionistic power: Russians remember fondly all the czars and presidents who expanded Russia, regardless of how well they did with internal affairs (economy, democracy, human rights, equality, etc). Far from repudiating that history, Putin totally embraces it. His reputation was built on keeping Chechnya within the Russian federation against Chechnya's will (at the price of tens of thousands of casualties) and has been solidified by his annexation of parts of Georgia and Ukraine. He needs more expansion.
- The USA has encircled Russia with military bases. The only thing that would appease Russia is if the USA abandons its allies in the Baltic, in Eastern Europe, in Central Asia and maybe even in Asia. In each of these places Russia would immediately try to exercise power with the goal of annexing all border regions, like it has always done in its history. Russia is not a country built on wealth or ideology, but on steady expansion. Stop the expansion, and Russia will implode. By stopping Russia's expansion in the 1990s, the USA became Russia's biggest existential threat since the demise of the Ottoman and Austrian empires. The expansionism of the USA has economic causes: the military-industrial establishment that controls lobbies in Washington. The expansionism in Russia has existential reasons.
- Russia and Western Europe have been moving in opposite directions. The Soviet Union wanted to change traditional values (the great nation is defined in terms of the values that it is inventing for the first time in the world), but now Russia (and Eastern Europe in general) wants to preserve traditional values: the nation is defined in terms of the values that it has defended throughout its history. Meanwhile, Western Europe was doing the opposite, with the main powers asserting their historical values (which included fighting each other all the time). Now it is Western Europe that wants to change the traditional values (in fact, it has abolished nationalities).
- Russia is both a friend (against ISIS) and an enemy (mostly around its borders - its allies in the Middle East are unreliable).
- Russia has four main problems: dysfunctional institutions, state inefficiency, demographic decline, and lack of innovation. Plus the Western sanctions over Ukraine and low oil prices. The only thing that can save Russia is if oil prices bounce back again. They will if someone starts a new crisis in the Middle East.
- If Trump repeals the nuclear deal with Iran and reinstates sanctions, the price of oil will skyrocket again. This will mainly benefit Russia, whose economy has tanked after the Iran deal because its oil exports have collapsed.
- Russia has a huge budget deficit, mainly because of colossal defense spending. Just like the USA.
- Russia's information is dominated by media that spread fake news. Information in the USA is increasingly dominated by the likes of Fox News that spread fake news.
- Russia is run by a gangster. So is Trump's USA.
- Russia and the USA have more in common than they would like to admit.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2016 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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