The amount of minable materials in the vast area of Siberia could have set russia up as an economic powerhouse. That's why China is helping them run themselves into the meat grinder in Ukraine. The inevitable collapse will allow them to scoop up the area.
Almost every single country with an extraction-based economy is either a dictatorship or a failed state. The single exception is Norway, which discovered oil after it was already an advanced democracy. A country with natural resources does not need to invest in its human capital, or worry about democracy.
Russia's natural resources are its curse.
In America the corporate dictatorship was started when oil was discovered and the billionaire class created.
The Netherlands is also wealthy because of their natural gas.
So it is definitely possible to not be a dictatorship, and a good Putin would make it so.
The Netherlands is absolutely not wealthy because of its natural gas. The Netherlands is a manufacturing center, a farming powerhouse (it's literally the world's number 2 food exporter). It was Europe's original trading empire. Today it contains the closest thing Europe has to Silicon Valley, with world-class universities and the super-high-tech ASML. It's been a wealthy country for centuries because it has invested in its people. The natural gas is an anecdote.
It’s been a wealthy country for centuries because it has invested in its people.
OK, but mostly it's the imperialism.
Sweden and Finland, to take just two nearby examples, are roughly as wealthy as the Netherlands. Neither had an empire. Portugal, the world's first superpower, with colonies on three continents, is far poorer than any of those three countries.
Russia is currently trying to re-establish its empire, and impoverishing itself in the process.
Imperialism is a red herring.
in addition to mineral deposits they also have natural gas and historically a good amount of people in the developed cities well trained in math, programming, and technical sciences.
They could have been an economic powerhouse in 21st century if they weren’t beholden to Putin and oligarchy.
I've been saying for years, China still wants Yongmingcheng (vladivostok) back. Why fight every country in the pacific aside from North Korea when there's more arable land and tremendous mineral wealth to the north, and the north will not be able to defend itself.
I'd love to see how well Russia does against a peer combatant.
He would have stepped down in 2008 per constitutional limits.
When was the last safe transition of power in Russia?
His election in 2000.
The Moscow apartment bombings were carried out in 1999. Putin used them, along with the invasion of Dagestan, to launch the Second Chechen War.
Alexander Litvinenko blamed Putin and the FSB for the bombings. For that he was infamously assassinated with radioactive polonium.
If Putin were a “good guy” then none of that would’ve happened either, so he might not have won the 2000 election.
He was the heir apparent to Yeltsin, which might have given him enough power to win the election by himself.
I agree Putin didn't start off as a good guy, but I focused more on his continued presence in power and there was a peaceful transition of power between the two Presidents.
Heir apparent is one way to put it. I would argue that he used the Moscow Apartment Bombings as a false flag to install himself, just as Hitler did with the Reichstag Fire.
Both leaders (Putin and Hitler) already had a lot of power prior to the false flags but those attacks cemented their rule as dictators.
That one was hardly legal, not sure about "safe".
He'd accidentally fall out of a window long before he'd have the chance.
Absolutely this. Their commitment to corruption would not tolerate a "good guy" whatever tf that actually means.
Watching For All Mankind makes me feel bad for present-day Russians because even those Soviet Russians have it better.
Watching For All Mankind makes me feel bad for present-day Russians because even those Soviet Russians have it better.
I just started watching the series and I'm in season 2. I'm loving it so far, and couldn't agree more.
Cracked down on corruption and entered russia into the eu
Joining the EU? Would that have even been possible?
I mean, I think it would've been awesome to be able travel to Russia without a VISA and just start working there...
Could be done, it's a country in Europe. It reaches into Asia, but then again France reaches into South America and nobody complains.
EU isn't only about open borders. It's open market and lots more.
Try to establish a proper western-style liberal democratic system and culture in Russia. They have a constitution that is nominally liberal democratic, but they are so used to authoritarian rule that they can't really manage to keep it that way.
Scary is that in a few years the USA could have that exact description
Retired after 2 terms in office
Use the vast resources to invest in the country such as building green energy, public transportation, plant agriculture, housing, manufacturing and education to try to outcompete the other European nations in metrics such as the democracy index, human happiness index, corruption index.
Allow the regions to leave any time they want and if that does happen take it as a lesson for his leadership.
The smartest thing any leader could do at this point is educate the next generation.
He could have opened a lot of colleges and invited scholars from all over the world to come and learn for free.
Push the US, Europe and China to invest in asteroid mining and space colonization.
Russia has the highest rate of college attainment in the world, free college is one of the few legacies of the USSR that didn't get privatized and destroyed during liberalization.
Now about those space colonies...
The Soviet space program only got mostly privatized and destroyed. It's not easy to run a space program when your entire industrial base just had the copper stripped out of the walls.
It's actually a major accomplishment that they were able to contribute modules to the ISS in the 2000s.
Have a look at Gorbachev. A big loss, that.
I don't like the question because Putin being a good guy is unthinkable to me. Good guys aren't in Russian politics, or at least not for long. But let's say Russia had a halfway decent leadership where smart guys don't fall out of windows. With their vast landmass, resources and workforce, they could easily be the third largest economy in the world again instead of not even making it into the top ten on their way to fall behind Mexico.
Resigned.
Abdicate years ago instead of bending the laws that prevented him from ruling indefinitely
He would have united the globe, and then been isekai'd to another world where his only goal is to ride every creature in said world.
He could've sold all the nuclear warheads in exchange for goods which could be used as a foundation to get the ball rolling for the economic situation.
If he was a good guy he probably wouldn't have come to power in the first place.
Please don't post about US Politics.
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