I had to laugh at the recent comments by U.S. Senator John McCain, who observed that “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country”. Well, this comment is true to a degree; the economy of Russia is nearly totally dependent on oil and gas exports. And now, Vladimir Putin is in the process of bankrupting the country. His recent sneaky annexation of the Crimea region of the Ukraine and the occupation of a portion of the country of Georgia reveals his personal geopolitical ambitions, but his big problem is that he is a lousy poker player. The USA holds the stronger hand in the game he is playing, and has in fact, stacked the deck.
Russia cannot fight and win a conventional war with us. The country lacks the infrastructure it enjoyed in the Stalinist era as provided by the Soviet satellite countries; has little experience with the battlefield technologies of modern warfare, and has repeatedly demonstrated ‘Me Too’ weapons systems developments going back to the end of World War II. It is wishful thinking for Putin to consider America as weakened by a decade of warfare; on the contrary, we are a sharpened sword, honed in bloody battle, and have little patience for dictators, terrorists, and puppet masters.
The great danger to the USA is that Russia would burn through its resources feeding the battlefield logistics pipeline in a hurry, and believe it must use nuclear weapons—the weapon that is not a weapon at all but a suicide pill. I am hopeful that cooler heads will prevail in Russia. The citizens there have had a taste of democracy and the free enterprise system, and regardless of how corrupt they are in application at present, they would be sorely missed. While a minority of the population pines for the old days of Joseph Stalin, what they really long for is the stability and predictability of the old government and its system of handouts.
Hopefully, the newly created class of wealthy business owners in Russia will take charge of the government rather than vice-versa. They had better do it soon. Maybe seeing 50 billion dollars of good will created by the Sochi Olympics vaporizing before their eyes will propel them into action. They should also consider that Putin got his political education during his time with the KGB in East Germany.
I also think the European Union shares some blame here; both Georgia and the Ukraine lobbied to join the E.U. repeatedly and were snubbed, for whatever reason. This created the opportunities that Putin has exploited in hopes of restoring some sort of Slavic union of countries to counter the West and its growing integration of commerce and political systems.
