Re: When Saddam came to power, Iraq's economy was the equal of Spain. 20 years later it was a complete basket case. That's not a sign of "stability", its a sign of among the worst destructions of economic wealth on the planet.
Oh, now I twig it!! So, you Yanks are on a global crusade to fix/straighten out the world's basket cases, aren't you? But then, let me tell you: you guys are barking up the wrong tree!! If you wanna nurse a failed state --actually the world's top failed state-- turn to Russia:
At some level, we all appreciate the depth of changes in Russia's status. But some matters bear repetition, for they underscore how profound this loss has been and how devastating it has been to Russians' psyches.
* Moscow lost its empire in Central East Europe in the space of several months in 1989; with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, it lost half the population, 40% of the GNP, and a quarter of the territory it once controlled overnight.
* The economy controlled by Moscow has already fallen in absolute GNP from third in the world in 1987 to fifteenth in 1996 (behind India, Australia, the Netherlands, and South Korea and just ahead of Mexico, Switzerland, and Argentina). In 1987, Soviet GNP was about 30 percent of U.S. GNP; today, Russia's GNP is less than 5 percent of the United States'. Russian GNP is now roughly a third of Soviet GNP at its peak (1989).
* Russia has been transformed from a "misindustrialized economy" in the Soviet period to a "deindustrialized economy" in the post-Soviet period. Between 1990 and 1996, the share of the natural resources sector in industrial production rose from 24% to 51%, while the share of the machine-building sector fell from 31% to 16% and that of light industry from 12% to 2%. (Machine-building did, however, revive somewhat in 1997.)
* Public health is in a shambles. Over the past decade, the life expectancy of Russian males has declined from the mid-sixties to 61. Contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis and diphtheria, are making comebacks. According to Harvard demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, "Russia's health profile no longer remotely resembles that of a developed country; in fact, it is worse in a variety of respects than those of many Third World countries."
* The Red Army, once the pride of the country, is on the verge of ruin, according to a leading Duma expert, as a consequence of slashed budgets, neglect, corruption, political infighting, and failed reform. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), Russia’s police force, is universally considered to be deeply corrupt and ineffective. Even the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the once feared KGB, has faced serious budget constraints and experienced a sharp decline in its ability to monitor and control society. As we know, the military and security forces proved woefully incapable of putting down an insurrection in the small republic of Chechnya. More worrisome to the leadership, Russia faces formidable financial and technological challenges in maintaining the long-term credibility of its strategic nuclear deterrent, arguably its sole claim to Great-Power status.
* The country has lost its sense of identity and purpose. Russia is no longer the bearer of a grand idea or engaged in a grand project, such as building socialism, with the power to attract considerable support abroad. Nothing has emerged to replace Marxism-Leninism as a legitimizing principle.
* Not only does the country lack a grand mission, it has become abjectly reliant the on West for the resources to rebuild. In the immediate future, it needs Western credits to deal with a mounting debt burden. Over the longer run, it requires technology and capital, available only in the West, to modernize its economy.
To be sure, the nature of the decline, its pace, and its impact on the Russian people, both materially and psychologically, have changed over time. What began as the agony of a moribund system has transformed into the deterioration of a misguided or incomplete reform effort. The pace has quickened since the breakup of the Soviet Union, largely because tinkering with the system gave way to conscious dismantling of it without proper thought or sufficient energy being devoted to creating new institutions. And the impact has changed, in part because heightened expectations of the first years after the Soviet breakup have been far from fulfilled. The key point is, however, that Russia has been on the downward slope for a quarter of a century, the decline has accelerated since 1991, and the end is not in sight.
ceip.org
"...and the end is not in sight"!! What are you waiting for?!? Hurry up and go to Moscow! Bring your best accountants and financial advisors from Arthur Andersen and put them to work for poor Vladimir --to help him sort out his crumbling empire.... Who will help the Russkies get out of their geopolitical black hole? |
