The Cold War was a decades-long global struggle between the USSR and the Western Alliance. The Battle of the Bulge was one of the last major battles in World War 2. Germany had expanded beyond its own borders but then was pushed back to its borders. The Battle of the Bulge was Germany making a large last push to try to break back out of its borders.
The collapse of the Soviet Union caused its breakup. Russia has gotten back control of Georgia, Chechnya, Crimea and Belarus. Russia has also been involved in Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and Iran.
They have now expended massive economic and military resources to what might end up being the eastern half of Ukraine.
The Battle of the Bulge lasted 6 weeks. The Ukraine conflict could last a lot longer but it is a pointless dead-end.
What was non-NATO in Europe will go NATO. Sweden and Finland go NATO.
Western Ukraine if it can stay free could eventually go NATO. The next guy after Putin will probably not stay with this plan and have Russia stay a Pariah-state. There is no overarching ideology and religious doctrine like in Iran. There is no system and network of people supporting this like in Iran.
Russia’s economy was rebuilding after the USSR collapsed. The nominal GDP has now gone from $1.7 trillion to $1 trillion and will head down to $750 billion.
Russia could eventually flip. Within 15-20 years, Putin dies (natural or unnatural). There is no successor who will carry on this plan. The other Oligarch Russians want vacations in London and Dubai. Russia will eventually become like Poland and just go western and stay western.
Over the next ten years, there will be a massive shift out of oil for transportation globally. This is technology-driven. Oil and gas demand goes to 70 million barrels per day of demand and will keep dropping. There will be new substitutes at lower and lower switching costs. Prices will head to the $20-40 per barrel range.
The technology shift to the future is happening. Russia missed the last technology and economic waves and now Putin has guaranteed that Russia will not participate in any technology transition until he or his successor flips. Saudi Arabia is desperately trying to build a post-Oil and Gas technological economy. This is the obvious long-term move to keep relevance. Putin has screwed that up completely.
Russia becomes a fused North Korea-Iran. Many more nuclear weapons than North Korea.
Unlike North Korea which has had several short generations of the Kim family leading North Korea. Putin has no groomed successors. He is ruthless enough to keep things going while he is alive. Although Putin should look at the medical treatment that Stalin had in his final days.
Putin gets to join the other leaders of the USSR who led Russia to a crappy economy and through an era of ultimately pointless belligerence. Putin ends up like a more ruthless version of Brezhnev.
Brezhnev strengthened the Soviet Union’s dominion over Central and Eastern Europe. The massive arms buildup and widespread military interventionism expanded the Soviet Union’s influence abroad. However, the military buildup was not sustainable in the long run. Putin had to restore and rebuild the military. Russia now has about 400,000-500,000 troops and has the heavy gear for them to use and planes to support them. Poland and Germany (especially with NATO-US backing) can stop Russia’s war capabilities.
There was societal decline known as the Brezhnev Stagnation. The period was characterized by an increasing technological gap between the Soviet Union and the United States. Russia is going to fall back more in Technological capability.
Russia has not been able to start and finish any ship or submarine over 5000 tons for the last 20 years. There were a couple finished that were started in the Soviet era. Russia does not sell or do anything with products other than commodities (oil, gas, nitrogen fertilizers, metals and minerals and second rate weapons.)
Modern technology is highly computer chip dependent. China has to import most of its important chips from the West. Russia gets inferior chips from China. Computer chips and world finance are more powerful than Oil and Gas.
SOURCES- Brian Wang’s analysis, a few Wikipedia facts
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Care to post an update on this?
Seems you were only right on Sweden and Finland joining NATO… and even that might not happen.
Excellent point, some animals are more equal than others.
Communism as dogma provably never existed, you got class warfare or ratter an genocide and more important looting against any not in your class bracket.
No reason to talk about Germany here as all know WW 2.
Fascism is way more interesting as its not so much an ideology as an style of government, I say current China is fascist, its an single party state who want to strengthen the state and the high level party members (aristocracy)
Its not perfect but better than the other two.
Bad weather was th German's only hope, good weather means close allied air support and resupply.
Agree, the Union of Soviet socialist republics was socialist, national socialists are socialists.
Socialism = tyranny it's as simple as that.
The problem I have with believing Russia will change, post Putin, is that the people have become accustomed a certain government style. It seems they would likely fall back into old patterns.
It is hard to predict, but looks likely to me. It looked like Venezuela was going to fall, and it hasn't. So, very hard to predict. I know I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now.
Russia will not flip since it is an Orthodox country. Poland is Catholic and always belonged to Western civilization. Read Huntington.
I think you're exaggerating the difference between 'right' and 'left' corrupt oligarchic autocracies. The differences are mostly stylistic, power freaks set on oppression always converge on the same basic behaviors, the role demands it.
The ideology that served as a pretext for the USSR's oppression was a left-wing ideology, so the USSR adopted left-wing stylistic touches, such as open state ownership of capitol rather than nominally (but only nominally!) leaving it in private hands.
When the USSR fell it discredited that ideology, (Except, ironically, in the West's universities!) and so the oligarchs adopted the outward forms of capitalism, and get called 'right wing' by people who don't pay attention to the underlying reality.
Both then and now, the USSR/Russia, (The USSR was just a Russian empire.) intelligence services promoted both left AND right-wing extremism abroad, because their motivation wasn't ideological, it was just disrupting societal cohesion in international foes.
So, in 2016, Russia promoted both Trump favoring groups, AND organized protests against Trump. In Europe, Russia funds both right wing groups AND the Greens. The objective isn't advancing any particular ideology, just raising the general "temperature" of politics, and rendering governing as difficult as possible.
Putins doing what he thinks is best for him and his country. Russia was raped and exploited by the west after the breakup of the USSR.
NATO trying to expand onto Russias doorstep was doomed to cause trouble.
The west is reaping what it sowed.
Feel so sorry for the people of Ukraine are stuck in the middle of it.
There was certainly an alignment between western liberals and the Soviet Union. The NYT covered for the CCCP for all the atrocities and the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Now, Western Liberals are too far left for Russia.
Enemies must be denigrated, it's the rules of wartime propaganda, but if you compare Putin's track record to Biden's, or any post-WWII leader for that matter, Putin is at least competent. Underestimating him compared to that lot pushing color revolutions for decades, the ones setting the policy line towards Russia now, would be a mistake — they're arrogant, evil mediocrities, Putin turned Russia around despite their best efforts to exploit and immiserate it. He's already demonstrated his superiority to them, and they gnash their teeth with spite. Which is not at all to say he's not ruthless, quite the contrary.
When the Soviet Union existed, it was a corrupt oligarchic autocracy with a Left/Communist ideology. When it ended, it broke into mostly smaller corrupt oligarchic autocracies but with Right/Fascist ideologies.
In both cases these essentially predatory criminal states had a significant influence on political instability in the world. Under Soviet influence the support was for Left Wing disruptive groups. Under Russia it’s no coincidence that there is a global wave of Right Wing extremist NeoFascist movements.
Let's not forget that the last president of republic almost became a autocratic leader. Trump idiots were almost successful on the coup Jan 6th. Putin wishes almost came true with the puppet Trump.
I predict Putin may possibly be gone sooner rather than later. Not too many people are happy about the un-comfort they're now experiencing. Whether it's a Russian billionaire looking to protect his bank account or a military 'patriot' acting if not a general uprising, something will go down.
The bulge wasn't a terrible plan, but it failed because of unexpectedly stubborn resistance, bad weather and ultimately the supplies dried up to stop any momentum.
What we see here isn't very different…
Aw mate. I was all set to like your post up until the competent leader bit. Downhill after that.
I predicted here in 2014 that the only solution would be a partition of Ukraine into its Russian and Ukrainian-majority areas and an exchange of populations. I still think that is true and will be the outcome.
Brian obviously reads a lot of news and analysis, but the spin being put on Ukraine in the media is extreme and leads him astray. The lower Ruble is great for Russia, they have economic capabilities of autonomy and austerity, their leaders are highly competent and have strong support in Russia, and they're winning decisively in the fastest area/man/day conquest probably ever with minimal civilian casualties, and the sanctions could well lead to the end of dollar hegemony. That last is particularly concerning, given all the other stress on it from QE-zillion and exploding Federal debt, and China's initiatives.
The US State Department has completely screwed things up with the post- Soviet states in general and Ukraine in particular in ways that would take a shelf of books to describe. The media parrots the SD party line, but few intelligent people believe the party line at all anymore, least of all in the SD itself.
The World is dividing between the mentally healthy, who are all libertarian, and the neurotic power addicted mental cases, at the two extremes. Putin on the Blitz is a good, but not the only, example. The Science observation that all mentally healthy people are libertarian is only 50 years old. It is forever. Science never loses.
China and Putin's Russia have problems with liberal democracies which they see as a threat to their autocratic systems. Even with a new leader if Russia stays autocratic then the West will be seen as a threat. I will be surprised if the next Russian leader embraces democracy.
China is watching carefully, the Western democracies need to keep up the economic pressure on Russia otherwise they will look weak to China and invite dangers from that quarter further in the future.
It may be that the world is dividing into an axis of democracies vs autocracies. Or maybe that is too simplistic, as India is demonstrating with its self-interest. But then who will India turn to if they get into a serious conflict with China?