The Russian Federation has been one of the world’s greatest Super Powers and it has been for well over a century. However, is Russia still considered the once great powerful nation that it once was? Although, prior to 2009, Russia was using weapons that were decades old, the superpower continued to maintain one of the largest militaries in the world. Russia’s economy suffered a dramatic hit due to a recession that it is slowly emerging from. The unwavering support of its allies has gradually dwindled due to recent actions Russia’s key leaders have taken; even so, there have been some key improvements over the last few years that prove Russia may be moving towards a brighter future. These few factors weigh into the debate and each …show more content…
Therefore, until the equipment and weapon arsenal have reached a complete state of improvement, the Russian military will continue to fall behind the rest of the World Super Powers. The state of the Russian economy does not make the situation any better. Oil makes up two-thirds of the total exports from Russia, despite multiple discussions to diversify resource reliance (David, 2017). The global financial crisis of 2009, coupled with “falling oil prices, international sanctions, and structural limitations pushed Russia into a deep recession in 2015, with the GDP falling by close to 4%.” (CIA World Factbook, 2017). The contracting economy continues into 2016, with the GDP falling another 0.6%, expecting to fall by another 5% in 2017 if oil continues below $40 per barrel. Without an immediate negotiation to either lift trade sanctions or find an alternative resource dependence, the economic decline will continue. Trade sanctions emplaced after the Crimea incident in 2014 were implemented by the European Union (EU) and the United States to target the Russian financial, energy, and defense sectors (Lee, 2016). The continued devaluation of the Russian ruble multiplied the effect of strain on the fledgling nation. Currency values fell approximately 50% since the middle of 2014; in turn, making it more expensive for Russia to import from other countries. The future of Russia’s economy is uncertain. Unless their leadership
After WW1, There was a power struggle for the leader of Russia. High level government workers Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky fought for the throne after the untimely death of Vladimir Lenin.
As stated earlier, Russia’s economy is largely based on oil. Further, throughout Russia’s existence, its political institutions have strongly remained stable do to their performance legitimacy. Therefore, the rise of oil and therefore competitive authoritarianism are not mutually exclusive. Since Putin’s election, economic growth has averaged 6.7%, however, much of this growth is directly due to rising oil prices since 1998 that have topped over 100 dollars a barrel. Rising oil prices has allowed Russia to eradicate foreign debt, establish massive reserves of hard currency, and create budget surpluses. This has in turn allowed Putin to accumulate massive amounts of wealth as well as improving his performance legitimacy. Arguably, this is a false performance legitimacy. To many in Russia, this is the best the economy has ever been, and it has allowed for Putin to easily consolidate power. Yet, with oil on the decline, Russia has effectively created an economy that can not last into the near future, and only time will tell how far they will end up
One country is comparable to the United States of America in terms of world power and prominence. Russia makes their name known beginning in World War 2 (WW2), later in the Korean War, Cold War, and today’s proxy war in the Syria. Russia’s culture, environment, politics, military, and economy do not just make Russia a regional powerhouse, but slowly becoming a region of influential power to surrounding countries with the end state of a global superpower. All the factors that make Russia the powerhouse that it is slowly becoming, highlights the impressive trend that supersedes the previous Soviet Union and past leaders.
Another reason that their economy won’t fall is they still have a budget surplus which it’s GDP isn’t very high. And one of the most important reasons is that Russia’s unemployment rate is at one of it’s lowest in Soviet history. So, based on those facts it’s safe to say that the Russian economy isn’t going to crash anytime soon.
The economic downfall was also due to many sanctions placed on Russia post the annexation of Crimea. New opportunities will arise for Russia as they move from a natural resource country to a greener country, Russia has a plan to stimulate growth with green energy which will create jobs. They also have a $10 billon fund for research which they are hoping will stimulate future economic growth.
Russia re-emerging as a global power, due to its natural gas and is the second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. Due to Chinese and Indian economies have led huge demand for energy and increased global energy prices. Russia now sees itself as an energy superpower. So we can see that Russia is trying to emerge as a superpower with the increasing need for energy. This can have an affect in changing superpower, for example the USA depends largely on Russia for its energy and if Russia stops supplying it to the US they will have problems, which many lead them into not being a superpower anymore.
Even today, the Balkans remain an invaluable geopolitical crossroads where Russia competes with the West for influence. Currently, many Balkan nations that were either historically non-aligned or allies with Russia are seeking greater relations with the West. Montenegro has recently acceded into NATO, and Serbia and Macedonia have signed several agreements that are considered preconditions for closer cooperation and eventual membership. NATO expansion in general is a sensitive topic for Russia, and is only worsened when it concerns the Balkan nations. Russia has repeatedly stated that it will not go to war with NATO, and no military-political organization has been created to counter the influence of NATO
To this day Russia remains to be one of the bigger threats to our military with about 1.5 million personnel in their armed forces combined. This number includes ground forces, navel force, air force and ada forces. They remain one of the stronger forces due to their allotments to their ministry of defense with over 19 billion yearly in maintenance and salary of their forces. The country covers more than 17 million square kilometers with 10 percent of that being swamp lands and 45 percent being Forrest. Still with unemployment rates right around 8 percent Russia remains self-sufficient from a fuel and energy standpoint with their production of coal, natural gas, oil fuels. Coal makes up more than 18 percent of their main electric needs for their country. Transportation in the country continue to be a ever growing thing with over 900 thousand kilometers of roadways, eighty thousand kilometers of railways and over twenty five hundred airports in the country. With many religions as expected with such a big country the predominate on considers themselves as Russian orthodox which makes up about 75 percent, 19 percent consider themselves to be Muslim and 7 percent fall under other.
In the short story of proposals for a new code of law talks about how Catherine the II came to power in Russia. She came to power following a coup when her husband Peter III, was assassinated. “After death of her husband” (201). With the support of the army and the nobles, Catherine took power made her husband sign a document of abdication. Leaving no one to dispute her coming to power. Under her rule, Russia was modernized and she also became the longest ruling female leader of Russia. With the country growing and becoming stronger than ever, Russia was recognized as one of the powerful nations of Europe. During her reign, Russia was able to accomplish many achievements and she added about 200,000 square miles of land into the country. Not only did she added more land to the country, but she also modernized the monarchy and tried to improve the lives of her citizens. Inspired by
Russian technology was decades behind the west, Russia was the last of the ‘great powers’ to industrialise thus found it difficult to compete with more experienced adversaries, conditions within Russian factories were poor and workers had no voice as a result of the ban upon Unions. Despite Russia’s huge mineral and resource deposits they still lagged behind western nations in
Through the USSR rule, a great number of imperial autocracy aspects of its forms of governance, social and economic reforms were reproduced such as central control and nationalism policies, for example, Russification. However, there is a debate if Stalinism was a continuation of Tsarist autocracy due to differences between two regimes as the Bolshevik government categorically refused to be defined as an empire; contrastingly, its leaders saw imperialism as the policy adopted in capitalist states which have been viewed as competitors and enemies which bring a contradictory argument. This essay will argue that although in theory, the differences between Imperialism and Communism were colossal, a leading argument about Russia, famously defended
At the end of the Cold War, Russia was faced with many problems, a decaying military, a failing economy and a population who was learning how to change from a communist country to a democratic country. The Cold War Period had greatly affected Russia and one of the first things to be noticed by the people were when prices on goods were no longer fixed. The idea of a free market system was new and not everyone was ready to except this new Russia. The country essentially had to rebuild itself. Former satellite countries were declaring independence as quick as they could. As people throughout the world watched, they were unsure if Russia would ever be able to shake their socialist/communist history. Currently Russia is one of the leading
Among economists, we all speculate what will happen to an economy in the future. Who will be the next United States? Right now, the United States has the largest economy in the world and one the highest gross domestic products per person. People are speculating that countries like China and India will one day have an economy that makes America’s look small. By looking at China’s growth in gross domestic product, that very well could be a reality someday. Could Russia one day have an economy that rivals that of the United States? Russia, like the rest of the world, is in a time where their economy is stagnating. After several years of growth that looked promising, the Russians saw their economy drop almost 25% during the Great Recession. Even though the Russians rebounded quickly, with a GDP increase of 65% from 2009 to 2013, they’re back down roughly 7%1. So while I believe the Russian can have a good, growing economy, it doesn’t look like they’ll ever have an economy that rivals in size or in gross domestic product per person.
In addition, Russia “has been evaluated to be the second-most powerful military in the world” (O’Connor) between its Air Force, Army, and Navy.
Reforms and ethnic problems helped the Soviet Union collapse in 1991. What was the next move to help Russia be a major power in the world? Boris Yeltsin led Russia through most of the decade promoting something known as democracy and better living conditions than the Soviet Union. There were some failures along with success, however once Yeltsin was too old for the job he found a successor. Hence, Yeltsin passed the presidency on to Putin; the promotion of democracy was severely limited by an authoritarian leader wanting more power.