Is Russia a great power?
The Notepad of Michael the Great
But is Russia really a great power? It is certainly a great nuclear power, with its over six thousand warheads (an arsenal superior to the American one). According to the Sipri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), in 2020, with 61.7 billion dollars, it occupied the fourth place worldwide for overall military expenditure (after the US, China and India). Arms exports are a central element of Russian foreign policy. From the data also collected by SIPRI, in the period 2016-2020 Russia was the second world exporter of arms with 20 percent of the total, after the United States (37 percent) and followed by France (8.2), Germany (5.5) and China (5.2). By observing the main buyers, one can understand the importance of the relationships that are built. The first customer of the Russian military industry is India (23 per cent of the total), followed by China (18 per cent), and by Algeria and Egypt which compete for the third position. However, as of 2018 China, Egypt and Algeria have started to significantly reduce Russian arms imports.
On the economic and demographic level, however, the situation is very different. As a detailed report by Alberto Brambilla ( Corriere della Sera, 14 March 2022) recalls, Russia is the largest country on the planet: it has an area of 17.1 million square km, equal to one sixth of the land surface. It is about eleven thousand kilometers long and has eleven time zones, compared to five in China and four in the United States. Despite this huge territory, it has a population of only 146 million inhabitants (the ninth after Nigeria and before Mexico). It therefore occupies the 181st place out of 194 countries by population density, with 8.4 inhabitants per square kilometer; and borders on the most populous in the world, China, for over 4,200 km (very complicated to monitor). In fact, thanks to the attraction exercised by the riches and uninhabited Siberian agricultural lands, the last few years have seen an important migratory flow of small Chinese farmers and traders to these lands (with the substantial approval of Putin).
In 2021, the Russian GDP was 1,439 billion euros (in the same year, the Italian one amounted to over 1,781 billion). Russia therefore occupies twelfth place in the world rankings of the IMF. The per capita GDP, on the other hand, is equal to 27,900 dollars, and is in 72nd place in the same ranking (the Italian per capita GDP is 38,200 dollars). Nonetheless, Russia ranks first in gas reserves, sixth in oil reserves, and has substantial reserves of nickel, platinum, gold, iron ore and many other underground resources. But, as is well known, a large part of the wealth produced is requisitioned by the economic-financial oligarchies, by local and national administrators appointed by the party in power and, above all, by the military-industrial apparatus.
In short, Russia is a medium-sized economic power, moreover strictly dependent on the future of fossil fuels and on the speed of the ecological transition planned by the West. Thinking of Italy, today we are paying the price of unforeseen choices and senseless fights against regasifiers , waste-to-energy plants, Tap, nuclear power, costs discharged on the bill of tax breaks for the benefit of renewable energy. We have thus lulled ourselves into a guilty sloth thanks to the sharp drop in gas and oil prices that began in 2014, and now we are forced to suffer the “blackmail” of the Moscow autocrat. Yet, already from the time of the invasion of Chechnya and Georgia, and then with the annexation of Crimea, the imperial vocation of the expansionism of Boris Yeltsin's protégé was evident. The West and Europe have turned their heads. Here he has even found understanding in some political forces. Unfortunately, the aggression against Ukraine has awakened some, but not all of them yet.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/la-russia-e-una-grande-potenza/ on Sat, 04 Jun 2022 05:26:40 +0000.