(Written May 6, 2008)
The end of the Cold War. Germans dancing on the Berlin wall. The United States breathes a sigh of relief; The great Communist empire has fallen, now we’ve only Cuba left to deal with. How hard can it be, after all, to starve a small island nation into submission? The hippie movement – already creaking under the strain of children, jobs, real life – finally bends its knee to the inevitable; flashy technology is more addictive than hard drugs. Baby needs shoes. Bill Gates gives this talk to the Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo – discussing, among other things, floppy drives, and the upcoming move from 8 to 16-bit computers.
And Russia? Russia flings away its satellite states, willingly lets go her hold on the Middle East – especially Afghanistan, Russia’s Vietnam during the warmer days of the Cold War. Russia turns inward for almost 20 years, accepting a lack of dominance, a lesser place in world affairs, letting a hand – or two – go by in the great-stakes game that is International Affairs.
Fast-forward to the mid 2000’s – Russia, resurgent. In a February 28, 2008 article titled “Smoke and Mirrors,” The Economist styles Russia’s economy ‘booming,’ citing a 7% growth rate, and stating,
…Even Mr Putin’s critics are impressed by Russia’s transformation in the past few years. A country that almost went bust ten years ago now boasts a $1.3 trillion economy, foreign-currency reserves of nearly $480 billion and a $144 billion stabilisation fund for surplus oil and gas revenue. Annual growth of real incomes has been in double digits. GDP per head has risen from less than $2,000 in 1998 to $9,000 today at current rates of exchange…
Russia even ranks fourth in the world in the creation of new millionaires, and while it certainly has its share of problems – falling fertility counts, infrastructure issues, and high inflation rates among them – it’s safe to say Russia is making a strong reappearance on the world stage.
In 15 years, in other words, Russia’s transformed itself from an international pariah into an up-and-coming powerhouse. The transformation has not been easy, and could not have been made without a deliberate stepping-down, an acknowledgment that even Russia – with her power, might, and vast natural resources – couldn’t continue as she was. A Cold War analyst- Soviet Side – was quoted saying Russian politicians realized they could build bombs or they could build Russia – but that they couldn’t do both at once.
And so Russia turned inward. Millions of people suffered. Political upheaval. Social upheaval. Unrest, riots, deaths. And today, she’s stronger than before.
I think we’re rapidly approaching a similar decision point in the United States. Do we build guns, or capital? Do we build other nations, or our own?
We’re a state – not a nation. (state implies political borders; nation, emotional ones). As citizens, we’re fundamentally divided on far too many issues. The top 10% lives very well, but things are getting harder for the bottom 40. The American Dream is poised to turn into a nightmare, along with the crash of Social Security, an eventual revaluation of the Chinese Yuan, and a rise in socialized medicine. School systems are faulty at best, a breeding ground for disillusionment, at worst. None of this is to say we’re out – just that we’re down; we can’t continue to ignore problems at home, and expect those issues to be solved, as they have in the past, by our position at the receiving end of the so-called ‘brain drain’ – it’s no longer working in our favor. Indian engineers are choosing to stay in India, as conditions rise for them there.
And so: We get to choose our own fate. Here’s a thought: What if we lean heavily on China, India, Brazil, France, England, etc, to form a serious coalition on banning – and preventing the gain of – nuclear weaponry? What if we accept that we’ve made nothing but poor choices in the Middle East, and throw as much money as possible, now, at the fuel problem, pull out of the Middle East as soon as it’s economically – not image-wise – feasable. What if we turn inwards for a while, and build our infrastructure, our economy, our sense of national identity? What if – for the first time since the early 1940’s – we focus on #1? If the only thing we insist on, on the world stage, is nuclear weapons?
So we lose standing in the world economy. So we lose trade networks. So we lose influence – but much of that we’ve lost, already. We can get it all back, but not if the center is weak.
