Some of the most important reporting on Russia in the past two decades has come from demographer Murray Feshbach, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a research professor emeritus at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and author of books such as Ecocide in the USSR: Health and Nature under Siege. History will record the Russian people’s ignorance of his warnings about Russia’s population crisis as one of the lowest ebbs in their inglorious history. He’s a true giant in the Russia-watching world, and his recent column in the Washington Post entitled “Behind the Bluster, Russia is Collapsing” is simply required reading. That the people of Russia can choose to be governed by a proud KGB spy, a relic of the failed past that has brought them to the brink of utter annihilation, is one of the great tragedies in humany history.
The bear is back. That’s what all too many Russia-watchers have been saying since Russian troops steamrolled Georgia in August, warning that the country’s strongman, Vladimir Putin, was clawing his way back toward superpower status. The new Russia’s resurgence has been fueled — quite literally — by windfall profits from gas and oil, a big jump in defense spending and the cocky attitude on such display during the mauling of Georgia, its U.S.-backed neighbor to the south. Many now believe that the powerful Russian bear of the Cold War years is coming out of hibernation.
Not so fast. Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some simply devastating problems at home that block any march to power. Sure, Russia’s army could take tiny Georgia. But Putin’s military is still in tatters, armed with rusting weaponry and staffed with indifferent recruits. Meanwhile, a declining population is robbing the military of a new generation of soldiers. Russia’s economy is almost totally dependent on the price of oil. And, worst of all, it’s facing a public health crisis that verges on the catastrophic.
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