TREES, MEET FOREST:

A Crossroad for Russia and America (ELLEN BARRY, 1/11/09, NY Times)

In August of last year, a new Russia presented itself to the world. From the battlefield of Georgia, the message said: We are no longer seeking the good opinion of the West. The new taste for confrontation was seen by many as a byproduct of oil and gas wealth, which had given Russia’s leaders the confidence to risk international isolation. In the title of a book he published in April, the scholar Marshall Goldman offered a one-word explanation: “Petrostate.”

That thesis may have a short shelf life. Russian leaders, no longer hoping to make the ruble an international reserve currency, now face a confluence of disasters: The price of a barrel of oil has slid below $40, shares of Gazprom fell 76 percent in a year and more than a quarter of Russia’s cash reserves have been spent shoring up the ruble.

But does that mean we can expect a thaw between Russia and America?

Who cares? They have been, were then, and are now a state in such rapid decline as to be trivial. Ignore them.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 11, 2009 9:03 AM