Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (9505)	9/26/2003 6:05:08 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793748

Seems to me Russia is suffering from the same kind of insecurity France is suffering from. They're both not confident enough in themselves to follow the U.S. even when they know it's the best course to take. So they stammer around with an unclear foreign policy, who's only goal is "let's show some independence".

To: LindyBill who wrote (9505)	9/26/2003 7:42:16 AM
From: Ish	Respond to of 793748

Mr. Putin has a problem with Islamic militancy in his own country, so I think now that the war has happened and the contracts he was trying to protect are now void, he wants to join the anti terrorist action.

To: LindyBill who wrote (9505)	9/27/2003 4:22:27 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793748

I guess Putin is the kind of bastard you need to run that place right now. I think Putin was the right medicine. Before he came to power, I believed Russia needed a "strong hand" to pull the country from the brink. Russia was melting down under Yeltsin, and the Oligarchs were wiring the prime cuts of the corpse to Switzerland. That stopped when Putin took office. Czar Putin is good for us, IMO - better than having Russia turn into Somalia on the Volga. Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (9505)	9/27/2003 8:43:13 AM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793748

I was researching some material on Putin and came upon this article. Definitely an interesting trend that is being unreported in the media... A Shrinking Russia theatlantic.com The population of Russia is getting smaller and older. In 1992 the country's population was estimated at 148 million; today the number is 145 million. That's an absolute decline greater than that in any other nation during the past decade—and some analysts predict that the number of people in Russia will drop below 100 million by 2050. The number of Russians aged fifteen to twenty-four, though temporarily growing because of high birth rates in the 1980s, may shrink by nearly half over the next fifteen years, because of low birth rates in the 1990s. This will greatly strain a country that is already struggling to cope with a daunting array of security challenges, including controlling the world's longest borders and largest land mass, maintaining the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and reining in one of the world's most serious weapons-proliferation problems. The security implications of this demographic change become clear when one examines its effect on Russia's military, police, border guards, and other security forces, which in coming years won't be able to fill their ranks. And more is at issue than a simple decline in numbers. Young Russian men, the population from which the military and other security agencies draw most of their personnel, are today plagued with health problems, among them alcoholism (a long-standing problem), tuberculosis (a returning scourge), and HIV/AIDS (a rapidly emerging new epidemic). The mortality rate among Russian men aged fifteen to twenty-four nearly doubled in the 1990s and is now almost three times that among American men of the same age. The rate of death from suicide, one of the leading killers of young Russian men today, is more than three times that for young American men. And many young Russians who are fit for (ostensibly compulsory) military service bribe their way out of it, leaving a force even less healthy than the military-age population as a whole. Unlike many European states that also have shrinking populations of young people, Russia isn't currently in a position to compensate for a loss of manpower by putting more money or technology into its military and other security organs, because the country's economy and scientific sectors have suffered considerably during the past decade. And as the country's population ages, burgeoning pension obligations will drain away resources that could otherwise have been devoted to security. Although immigration might mitigate some of the population loss and help to fill the ranks, the trend is not encouraging: immigration has plummeted from more than 1.2 million in 1994 to fewer than 185,000 in 2002. Russia could try to expand its military ranks, at least, by relying more on women soldiers, but the military's attitude toward women is hostile in many ways, and cultural adjustments simply will not come quickly. Without enough manpower to police its extensive borders and to respond effectively to internal and external security problems, Russia could well lose its battles against smuggling, terrorism, and weapons proliferation—all threats that pose dangers far beyond Russia's borders.