Russia
since the 1998 financial crisis and default has only slowly yet
somewhat steadily moved toward reform such that a market economy
prevails. It was not so many years ago that Vladimir Putin ended the
oligarch domination of the economy and distribution for former Soviet
assets that they had taken much of. That order of oligarch power was
regarded as an unfair distribution of wealth, yet was left somewhat
as it was. From there the economy moved toward liberalization.
The
process was advanced by the rise in world oil prices in the 2000s
that continued until the crash following fracking of old oil fields
to renew supply. A surfeit of world oil production made oil dependent
states lose much revenue. Alaska in the United States faced a
government budget crisis and Russia too lost nearly half of its GDP.
If bad actors are targeted, the principle of mass punishment should not target the innocent too. The U.S. should encourage Russia to continue developing a market economy along sound ecological economic principles.
Even
so Russia continued a slower advance toward a market economy though
the state held some major banks and oil companies. It began an income
tax of a modest scale though it had difficulty collecting that.
Russia faced many internal and external challenges before the regime
of foreign sanctions began to appear for international contention to
permanently wrest away the Ukraine and Crimea from Russia.
The
second largest party in Russia is still the communist party. The
United Russia party- by far the largest, is basically a coalition of
four formerly separate parties that joined to beat the communists.
The economic and social dynamics of economic reform is occurring
concurrent with reform of government, and eventually constitutional
structures, and stimulation of business and new infrastructure
development. All of that is challenging and expensive. While the
United States and Europe tend to place themselves into a belligerent
and adversarial as possible position comprising something of a threat
to Russian security.
My
concern is that the sanctions and hostile external relationship with
Russia will retard the growth of Russia as a market economy and in
the long run solidify less than free enterprise elements in Russia.
Apparently
Russians have a trust in state run media and state ownership of
business because of historical reasons that lie in the fact that
authoritarian or Tsarist government were the fact of Russia for 1000
years. Only since the end of the Cold War has Russia had a pluralist
government, although a multi-party Duma/congress existed briefly,
shortly before the Bolshevik takeover to end that and the tsar.
Ronald
Reagan had a policy of constructive engagement with South Africa and
that led to the DeClerk government and end of apartheid. Reagan also
ended the Cold War along with President Gorbachev in part because of
hi affable character engendering trust. The United States should
think deeply about its reckless and fay sanctions on Russia, since
they may harm U.S. interests more so than Russian, in the lang run.
