Is Russia fucked?

[nonvir_1984]

China has a lot of social problems. Thanks to the one child policy they've destroyed their population and have created a massive incel problem. They have have a housing bubble and their government is very corrupt.

Also the future is actually African. Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and many other African countries are on the up and up. They've made decent societies and they have very high birthrates. Africa will dominate the 21st century.

It seems to me the 22nd Cent will be the African century. They do not have the infrastructure or technology, yet. But for the next 80 years it will be Chinese - increasingly tangling with India, though that won't get too bad. IMHO.

 

[Ягода]

>Muh tech progress
Climbing the tech tree is useful, but it's not the be all end all. What a country needs to become a regional or global player is economic power. Look at Saudi Arabia. They were nobodies until they struck oil.

That's not climbing tech tree at all. Gold and dimonds were discovered in Afrika like 200 years ago and they still live in huts and eat shit, but it's a good segway into value-add economy as percent of GDP.

1. Is you country a hole in a ground to supply raw materials?
2. Can you country take some raw materials and turn them into a valuable product like silicone chips using advanced factories and skilled labor?
3. Can you make money out of thin air by having your Nike shoes/iPhones made somewhere else, then selling them at huge profit margin elsewhere?

SA at least started with something like close to their 90% of GDP coming from raw oil and reducing it to something like 30-40% now. Russia actually raised that percentage from the soviet union times to over 70% now. When oil is 100$/barrel, you live large (Putin's golden years), when it tanks to 40$ you need to cut pensions and reduce budgets.

Russian Surgut and Dubai. Large oil deposits were discovered here at the same year. Now decades later ...

They then capitalized on that oil and made themselves rich. They used that money to become a regional power and build up their own infrastructure. Now they are second most scientifically advanced country in their region. Also having a growing population helps a country be more productive and gain more wealth.

a whole lot of oil population growth in Dubai is due to slave labor imported from India and other countries. They are not staying there.

>Muh handouts
While it is true that some African nations that are just shitholes need handouts (Zimbabwe, DRC, probbably South Africa in the future) there are others that are growing economically and won't require handouts in the near future.

good lord, this broken record has been on since 40-50 years ago, no, shit, way way longer ...

Feeeeeeeeeed dah wooooooooorld .... nope, they still can't feed themselves. I think it's a safe bet that under Chinese watchful eye there won't be any computer chip manufacturers rising up. Wakanda will have to wait.

 

[UQ 770]

Also the future is actually African. Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and many other African countries are on the up and up. They've made decent societies and they have very high birthrates. Africa will dominate the 21st century.

My money's on Uganda.

 

[DK 699]

That's not climbing tech tree at all. Gold and dimonds were discovered in Afrika like 200 years ago and they still live in huts and eat shit, but it's a good segway into value-add economy as percent of GDP.

1. Is you country a hole in a ground to supply raw materials?
2. Can you country take some raw materials and turn them into a valuable product like silicone chips using advanced factories and skilled labor?
3. Can you make money out of thin air by having your Nike shoes/iPhones made somewhere else, then selling them at huge profit margin elsewhere?

SA at least started with something like close to their 90% of GDP coming from raw oil and reducing it to something like 30-40% now. Russia actually raised that percentage from the soviet union times to over 70% now. When oil is 100$/barrel, you live large (Putin's golden years), when it tanks to 40$ you need to cut pensions and reduce budgets.

Russian Surgut and Dubai. Large oil deposits were discovered here at the same year. Now decades later ...

a whole lot of oil population growth in Dubai is due to slave labor imported from India and other countries. They are not staying there.




good lord, this broken record has been on since 40-50 years ago, no, shit, way way longer ...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IUs24Fah3nU
Feeeeeeeeeed dah wooooooooorld .... nope, they still can't feed themselves. I think it's a safe bet that under Chinese watchful eye there won't be any computer chip manufacturers rising up. Wakanda will have to wait.

Quick note: I was talking about Saudi Arabia, not Dubai/UAE, but that doesn't really change anything.

Well I tried to find some statistics that would indicate growth in the industrial sectors of the Nigerian and Kenyan economies, but I couldn't find them. Much of Nigeria's GDP is based on agriculture and oil (most of which is crude). I guess Wakanda is going to have to wait.

 

[JosephStalin]

I start off by saying that the Russian people are a great people. Look back at history, and you see the Russian people going through things we in the USA should be damned glad not to have gone through - many wars on their own soil, famines, collectivization, the purges, the GULAG, you name it. If there's a gripe, it's with Putin.

Putin is a smart man. He knows Russia has some serious and deep problems. First, the economy is an extractive economy. Only Russian-made manufactured goods that have had any worldwide market are weapons and ammunition. Would YOU buy a Russian-made TV or a Russian-made car? Nope. Second, just like China, Russia is not evenly developed. Get 25 miles outside a big city and you go back 50 years, perhaps more. Third, demographics is not on Russia's side. Russia has 130-140 million people. USA has about 335 million, China maybe 1.4 million. And not everyone living in Russia is a Russian. There's a substantial Muslim minority, which has caused a great deal of trouble in the past. In addition, the population overall isn't that healthy. Alcohol takes a tremendous toll on the Russian people.

Alcohol consumption in Russia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thousands die in Russia every year due to alcohol poisoning. You have to drink a LOT of alcohol to suffer from alcohol poisoning.

In the USA, six people per day die of alcohol poisoning, or 2,190 people.

Alcohol Poisoning Deaths

On average, 6 people died every day from alcohol poisoning in the US from 2010 to 2012. Alcohol poisoning is caused by drinking large quantities of alcohol in a short period of time.

www.cdc.gov

Add smoking, obesity, and a less-than-stellar health care system, and life spans in Russia take another hit.

Bottom lines - the ONLY thing that allows Russia to claim the title of a great power is the nuclear arsenal, and everyone knows that. Putin sure does. Xi sure does. President Trump sure does. Russia has no ideology to speak of, much less one worth exporting.

Anyone who wants to go to war with Russia is an idiot. No reason to, absent a nuclear strike by the Russians, which I really don't see happening. I am reminded of a line, paraphrased, from Ernie Pyle's book, Brave Men. An American soldier in Italy said, "If they tell me to go fight the Russians, I'm just going to put my gun down and go home. Not going to fight people who have been through as much as they have."

Russians aren't Russian-speaking Americans. Their outlook on life is rather different, based on their history. But the average Russian wants what the average American wants, to live their life in peace, raise their family, and be happy.

Guess you could say there will always be a Russia, just like there will always be an England.

 

[MrTickles]

Bottom lines - the ONLY thing that allows Russia to claim the title of a great power is the nuclear arsenal, and everyone knows that.

So why isn't north Korea in the middle east, cock blocking Us foreign policy eg Syrian regime change attempt? Because it can't reach it conventionally.

Russia is a great power by virtue of its sheer geographical extent and its large conventional arsenal. It has a free supply line run from the arctic to the Baltic and to the pacific. Nobody can inhibit that access without actually invading Russia itself. Simply put, Russian 'regional' interests span the globe. Russia borders America AND China AND the EU all at once. There is power in territory beyond buried resources. Territory is a resource.

Imagine if Russia was an ocean, and its armies fleets. It would have (and has) access to Eurasia and the arctic conventionally. Floating power plants are an open indicator that Russia is better positioned than anybody to dominate the Arctic in the 21st century.

Nukes aren't even a factor. Russia can take nation-changing military actions across a region that spans 80% of humanity, without nukes even being mentioned.

 

[Bum Driller]

That is true, but they aren't importing large amounts of foreign unskilled labor, only Floridian feeders that are good at coding.

To my understanding, Russia has much more ethnically diverse population than any other "white-majority" country in the world, perhaps excluding USA. They don't need to import foreign unskilled labor, as their labor population is so oppressed and underpaid compared to the west that they don't exactly need to replace them with illegal immigrants.

 

[Guardian G.I.]

That is true, but they aren't importing large amounts of foreign unskilled labor, only Floridian feeders that are good at coding.

Russia actually has some of the most lenient immigration policies in the world. The only reason they aren't importing large amounts of unskilled labor is because people don't want to move there.

To my understanding, Russia has much more ethnically diverse population than any other "white-majority" country in the world, perhaps excluding USA. They don't need to import foreign unskilled labor, as their labor population is so oppressed and underpaid compared to the west that they don't exactly need to replace them with illegal immigrants.

Russia is draining enormous amounts of unskilled labor from poor Central Asian republics like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In fact, Russia's immigration rates are the third highest in the world after US and Germany, according to UN data.

Back in the day, the Russian government even used to suppress nationalist anti-immigrant Russian organizations like DPNI (banned in 2011).

 

[Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake]

Russia is certainly down, but not out. I think that will not change for a good long while. Due to the propensity for autocracy, they will always have the weakness that their entire country's future depends on the political competencies of one man and his supporting cliques. They will, however, thus be forever doomed by such a tyrant's incompetencies. Putin may not show the west his incompetencies (because why the fuck would he?) but they are all too apparent to the Russian people, as shown in this thread.

 

[JosephStalin]

So why isn't north Korea in the middle east, cock blocking Us foreign policy eg Syrian regime change attempt? Because it can't reach it conventionally.

Russia is a great power by virtue of its sheer geographical extent and its large conventional arsenal. It has a free supply line run from the arctic to the Baltic and to the pacific. Nobody can inhibit that access without actually invading Russia itself. Simply put, Russian 'regional' interests span the globe. Russia borders America AND China AND the EU all at once. There is power in territory beyond buried resources. Territory is a resource.

Imagine if Russia was an ocean, and its armies fleets. It would have (and has) access to Eurasia and the arctic conventionally. Floating power plants are an open indicator that Russia is better positioned than anybody to dominate the Arctic in the 21st century.

Nukes aren't even a factor. Russia can take nation-changing military actions across a region that spans 80% of humanity, without nukes even being mentioned.

Not really. There are only two main railroad lines between Moscow and Vladivostok, and they run rather close to the Chinese border. Would be easy for the numerically-superior Chinese to capture, damage, or destroy parts of these rail lines.

Trans-Siberian Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When you look at the map, there's a huge part of Siberia that has no train service, and the roads in that area aren't always the best. Only Far East all-weather port is Vladivostok. Means it's relatively easy to block/track the Russian Pacific Fleet. There are airports, of course, but not that many capable of handling larger planes outside of Russian Air Force bases.

Territory can be an asset. But if you will have a major problem projecting force into much of that territory, least in the Russian Far East, that territory can be an overall liability. It should also be noted that a good deal of the Russian Far East isn't developed at all, due to the harsh winters. The Russians also need to maintain forces for other contingencies. But don't see any large-scale invasion of Russia. At most, the Chinese take parts of the railway lines. We have no intention of invading Russia; why?

North Korea isn't in the Middle East because they (a) have no interests there and (b) the Kim regime has all it can do to take care of themselves in NK.

 

[Bum Driller]

We have no intention of invading Russia; why?

Basically, every other major power on the planet does have motive to invade Russia: Huge reserves of untapped natural resources. However, Russian nukes and the General Winter are the reason no sane person, and no madman either would try it. Even without the nukes, the extremely harsh conditions there have thus far thwarted all attempts at trying to invade it, and will probably guarantee it further down the road. And because of those resources, it's quite sure that Russia will persist. It may splinter at some point to smaller states, but I'm not making guesses at what could trigger such an event.

 

[LionoRaptor]

Yeah Russia has invaded Ukraine about a year ago. It's military did not do as well as they thought.

 

[AgendaPoster]

New cozy yet not comfy conflict in oookraine chimpout thread dropped boyz, with only 4 years of delay

 

[Sweetpeaa]

The whole country is run by the mob. Russia is what people like Michael Moore pretend the United States is. Moore claims Americans are practically peasants enslaved to capitalist oligarchs but he doesn't realize that's not even close to being the U.S (yet..) but Russia is literally THAT country.

If you're poor in Russia you fucking die. Children in that country starve to death. Russia is not even a capitalist country, most of its citizens don't get to participate in capitalism and they don't make wages. The majority of Russians earn peanuts.

The government, oligarchs, mafia and certain wealthy families are the only ones with cash. Those people in YouTube videos with iPhones walking around Moscow who were interviews about Ukraine and what they thought of it two years ago are the children of oligarchs. You should see how the rest of country lives. They don't have iPhones, they don't have cars, they don't have electricity.. they have nothing.

 

[Dyn]

Russia is not even a capitalist country, most of its citizens don't get to participate in capitalism and they don't make wages. The majority of Russians earn peanuts.

Sounds like capitalism working as intended.

 

[Doctor Love]

They don't have iPhones, they don't have cars, they don't have electricity.. they have nothing.

Except balls. They certainly have balls.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

The whole country is run by the mob. Russia is what people like Michael Moore pretend the United States is. Moore claims Americans are practically peasants enslaved to capitalist oligarchs but he doesn't realize that's not even close to being the U.S (yet..) but Russia is literally THAT country.

If you're poor in Russia you fucking die. Children in that country starve to death. Russia is not even a capitalist country, most of its citizens don't get to participate in capitalism and they don't make wages. The majority of Russians earn peanuts.

The government, oligarchs, mafia and certain wealthy families are the only ones with cash. Those people in YouTube videos with iPhones walking around Moscow who were interviews about Ukraine and what they thought of it two years ago are the children of oligarchs. You should see how the rest of country lives. They don't have iPhones, they don't have cars, they don't have electricity.. they have nothing.

Once you get out of the cities things turn third world very fast

 

[Slap47]

The whole country is run by the mob. Russia is what people like Michael Moore pretend the United States is. Moore claims Americans are practically peasants enslaved to capitalist oligarchs but he doesn't realize that's not even close to being the U.S (yet..) but Russia is literally THAT country.

If you're poor in Russia you fucking die. Children in that country starve to death. Russia is not even a capitalist country, most of its citizens don't get to participate in capitalism and they don't make wages. The majority of Russians earn peanuts.

The government, oligarchs, mafia and certain wealthy families are the only ones with cash. Those people in YouTube videos with iPhones walking around Moscow who were interviews about Ukraine and what they thought of it two years ago are the children of oligarchs. You should see how the rest of country lives. They don't have iPhones, they don't have cars, they don't have electricity.. they have nothing.

I work for one day and make more than a Russian does in a month. It is a bizarre thing to ponder.

 

[Anasûrimbor Kellhus]

they're still doing better than under yeltsin so until it gets to that level who can say. I don't believe in either the glorious russian golden age but I don't believe putler's gov is collapsing any day now. Russia has a lot of problems but so does every major world power right now, it is just the nature of the problems are different. I think russia's problems are less dire than america's at the moment, a lot of it relating to manufacturing.