AFTER UKRAINE RUSSIA HAS AN INCREDIBLY ROSY FUTURE IN PROSPECT
My recent commentary regarding Ukraine having an excellent future in front of it may have surprised a number of readers. Perhaps the present commentary may elicit a similar response. Let’s see.
Russia currently looks like it is being ostracised by all and sundry and though this is in fact not the case and only primarily by the USA, UK and Europe this is enough to hit Russia hard you might think.
In fact, according to the report from the head of the Russian Central Bank and other details regarding Russia’s response to the deluge of sanctions, financial and cultural cancellations there is some evidence to indicate Russia may in fact emerge stronger than ever when all is done and dusted.
There have now been several predictions that Russia’s gross domestic product will stabilise and begin to rise once again in 2023 and by 2024 continue on a rising trend. Alongside these predictions we have others connected to Russia finding new suppliers and manufacturers of the products no longer available from the West. Some of the service and manufacturing industries that are being withdrawn by western companies will inevitably be replaced in-house by Russian entrepreneurs. Any shortfall in the meantime as well as lost expertise is likely to be supplied with alacrity by China. The West may well end up the net loser on this core.
Apart from losing all income from connections with and doing business in Russia for the foreseeable future, western companies, corporations and conglomerates may find that there is no way back into the Russian market, ever. No situation, no matter how fraught, lasts forever. Sooner or later the need perpetually to grow and find new markets will start western companies looking east once again. As Bob Dylan once sang, “Money doesn’t talk, it screams.”
Russia will emerge from the strong action it was eventually essentially forced to take in Ukraine in a position of greater influence where it counts, among its allies and those who continue to do business with it, including of course its main ally, China but also including India. Considering even merely these two nations you will understand that losing the USA and Europe is not the be all and end all of Russia’s economic world.
Having finally cleaned Ukraine of its extremists, hotheads, ultra-violent nationalist forces and, in time the deeply ingrained culture of corrupt oligarchs ruling the roost, Russia will emerge stronger, more vital and more influential than ever. While the USA, UK and EU-dominated Europe will be reduced in terms of reputation, weakened in influence and seen as a humiliated and defeated alliance that overstepped the mark (by a long way) and failed to notice that the ‘unipolar moment’ was well and truly over. NATO will undoubtedly be weakened also and seen as a force that has come to the end of its successful run in pressuring Russia, which eventually snapped and gave it a very bloody nose.
All in all I envisage an incredibly rosy future for Russia in close combination with the continued rise of China. This team has the stamina to run and run while others to the west continue to run out of puff.
