OT? A New Cold War

[RN7]

I'd say Putin is doing his best to expand Russian political influence over the former Soviet republics, and as the article states how independent are the former Soviet states from Russia in reality? There are at least 15 million ethnic Russians still living in these countries and their economies are still closely linked and dependent on Russia. Particularly through Russian energy exports to them, and Russia's guarantee of their security through its strategic nuclear forces and its air defence capabilities. However there is also a lot of resistance to Russian interference in their affairs for example the Ukraine, the Baltic States and Georgia, and Russia has its own troublesome ethnic minorities such as the Chechens.

However beyond the old Soviet borders Russia will have a lot of trouble regaining the political influence that the Soviet Union once had. In Europe most of the old Warsaw Pact nations are now part of NATO as are the Baltic States, and Germany is united. All of Europe's neutral countries are Western democracies, and the only ally that Russia has in Europe is Serbia although there may be some lingering pro-Russian sentiment among the Eastern Slav's and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe. Also Russia is not much of an economic power. In 1985 the Soviet economy was about 55% the size of the US economy. In 2013 the Russian economy was still smaller than the Soviet economy was in 1985 and is about 13% the size of the current US economy. In Europe the Russian economy is the same size as the Italian economy, and smaller than the economies of Germany, France and Britain. Russia still has the world's third largest defence budget, but China spends twice as much and America spends seven time as much, yet Russia is still trying to keep up with America and China in numbers.

Russia's economy is also dependent on energy and arms exports. China, India and others buy a lot of arms and technology from Russia, but they do so because they can't afford Western arms or because the West won't sell them arms (China). Many countries are also still dependent on Russian oil and gas, notably the former Soviet Republics, China and Europe, and Putin has used Russian energy resources as a tool to bully them. But oil exports are dependent on the price of a barrel of oil, and that can and has been manipulated in the past.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...iet-Union.html
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact...t-saudis-pump/

Today America doesn't need Middle Eastern oil anymore because of its shale resources. Imagine the economic harm that it could do to Russia now