Essay: The future of Russia. The kings of wishful thinking versus a more realistic scenario

The flag of Russia

In my essay Why I am not bullish on Russia's future, I indicate that I am not optimistic about Russia's future for a number of sound reasons.

In this essay, I am going to cover left-wing, right-wing and anti-Western delusional fantasies about the future of Russia in addition to giving a more realistic scenario.

Major reasons why Russia is a country in decline

• Russian Power in Decline by Nicholas Eberstadt, August 2022
• Russian Power in Decline: A Demographic and Human Resource Perspective by Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute, August 2022 (Includes graphs and footnotes)

The future of Russia: The kings of Western, liberal, wishful thinking

Below is a liberal-leaning article about the near future of Russia is an example of the "The kings of Western, liberal, wishful thinking about Russia":

• Almost half of global strategists think Russia could become a failed state within the next 10 years, Fortune magazine, January 2023

Right-wing and/or anti-Western, delusional fantasy: Why did so many self-declared international relations experts miserably fail concerning their multipolar fantasy?

Please read: Why did so many self-declared international relations experts miserably fail concerning their multipolar fantasy?

For more information, please read the four essays below:

• The myth of multipolarity. What do the terms unipolar, bipolar and multipolar mean as far as international relations?

• The 2023 BRICS Summit was a bunch of hoopla. We still don't live in a multipolar world.

• The United States will be the leading power in the world for the foreseeable future

• Essay: The wreck of the HMS Multipolar World Fantasy - humor

"The United States and China are undoubtedly the two most powerful countries, but at least one more country must be roughly in their league for multipolarity to exist. This is where claims of multipolarity fall apart. Every country that could plausibly rank third—France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom—is in no way a rough peer of the United States or China." -The Myth of Multipolarity, American Power’s Staying Power, Foreign Affairs, 2023

However, a number of leading geopolitical analysts are skeptical about China remaining a global power as it faces a number of serious intractable problems (See: Skepticism about China remaining a global power).

I do agree with Donald Trump that America should not get into "endless wars" that do not serve America's vital interests. I also agree with Trump's policy of not using the American military to "solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands".

Chart of the growth of U.S. GNP from January 1947 to January 2023.

A great strength of the United States is its very consistent growth of its GNP over decades and its quick recovery the few times its GNP has gone down.

In addition, research indicates that in the long-term, non-authoritarian countries are more likely to experience greater economic growth. See: Time Under Authoritarian Rule and Economic Growth, CORI Working Paper No. 2007-02

For more information on this topic, please see:

*Should You Be Bullish on America?

Why is America so rich?

*Size of a working age population in a country and its correlation with national GNP in advanced economies. The ability of the United States to attract some of the best and brightest workers in the world

*Slow and steady growth over the long term via capitalism and the rule of law versus short-sighted authoritarian economic growth that is costly to the long term economy

The USA was among the most 10 most diverse economies in 2018 according to the Word Atlas website.

Read the articles: The Importance Of A Diversified Economy and Resilient, stable, sustainable: The benefits of economic diversification

China is no longer set to eclipse the US as the world’s biggest economy soon, and it may never consistently pull ahead to claim the top spot as the nation’s confidence slump becomes more entrenched.

That’s according to Bloomberg Economics, which now forecasts it will take until the mid-2040s for China’s gross domestic product to exceed that of the US — and even then, it will happen by “only a small margin” before “falling back behind.”

Before the pandemic, they expected China to take and hold pole position as early as the start of next decade.

See: Skepticism about China remaining a global power

Russian GNP 1991 to August 2023.

Estimates of Russian GNP 1991 to August 2023 measured in US fiat dollars; exchange rates between the dollar and the ruble ended in March 2022 when the ruble became a gold-backed currency.

Recently, the Russian ruble has seen a big decline:

*Russia’s War-Torn Economy Hits Its Speed Limit: Economists see this week’s currency gyrations not as the beginning of a financial crisis but rather as a symptom of the Kremlin’s sclerotic economic prospects, Wall Street Journal, August 2023

*The Russian ruble hit a 16-month low this week and is one of the worst performing currencies in 2023, August, 2023

*Russia Cranks Interest Rates to 12% in Emergency Move Supporting Ruble, Barron's, August 2023

*5 stats show how Russia's economy is declining, Business Insider, 2023

Did you know that is very doable to be a better forecaster in terms of politics, economics and other future events?

Did you know that is very doable to be a better forecaster in terms of politics, economics and other future events? There is a great book on this matter by the political science writer and political science professor Philip E. Tetlock entitled Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction which has some fascinating information. And the book has received a lot of positive reviews by various people involved in forecasting. In addition, Tetlock wrote: Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? by Philip E. Tetlock, Princeton University Press; New Ed edition (August 20, 2006).

Please see:

• The Peculiar Blindness of Experts - Credentialed authorities are comically bad at predicting the future. But reliable forecasting is possible.

• Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? | Philip Tetlock

• Philip Tetlock on forecasting and expert opinions

• Professor Philip Tetlock on His Groundbreaking Research About 'Expert Judgment' - video

• Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? by Philip Tetlock - video

• Political betting markets: Markets where individuals wager on elections or on various politically related events to occur (Be sure to read the section "Arguments on why political betting markets are better than political polls")

Key point: There are cranks on the right and left side of the political spectrum who don't take an investigative and objective analysis of the available facts.

The case for being less partisan and more objective:

"Both liberals and conservatives accuse their political opponents of partisan bias, but is there empirical evidence that one side of the political aisle is indeed more biased than the other? To address this question, we meta-analyzed the results of 51 experimental studies, involving over 18,000 participants, that examined one form of partisan bias—the tendency to evaluate otherwise identical information more favorably when it supports one’s political beliefs or allegiances than when it challenges those beliefs or allegiances. Two hypotheses based on previous literature were tested: an asymmetry hypothesis (predicting greater partisan bias in conservatives than in liberals) and a symmetry hypothesis (predicting equal levels of partisan bias in liberals and conservatives). Mean overall partisan bias was robust (r = .245), and there was strong support for the symmetry hypothesis: Liberals (r = .235) and conservatives (r = .255) showed no difference in mean levels of bias across studies. Moderator analyses reveal this pattern to be consistent across a number of different methodological variations and political topics. Implications of the current findings for the ongoing ideological symmetry debate and the role of partisan bias in scientific discourse and political conflict are discussed."

Arthur C. Brooks wrote in his article Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being: "A 2012 survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University asked a sample of Americans about their news-consumption habits, and quizzed them about U.S. and international political and economic events. They found that those watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those who consumed no news at all."

So what is a realistic projection about the future of Russian Federation ?

Russian demography has long been an existential issue to Vladimir Putin. In 2021, he declared “saving the people of Russia is our top national priority".

Russian demographic crisis has long been an existential issue to Vladimir Putin. In 2021, he declared “saving the people of Russia is our top national priority". See: Demographics of Russia

Russia's fertility rate of 1.58 births per woman is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. It's fertility rate is below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman.

Demographers estimate Russia will fall from being the 9th most populous country in the world to being the 17th by 2050. And estimates indicate that Russia's population will drop from 2014's 142 million to 128 million by 2050.

Russia will go out swinging (Ukraine, etc.), but its age demographics (which is among the worst in the world in terms of an aging population) and other problems will cause a cultural collapse in Russia in the 21st century (See: Peter Zeihan's demography series). See: Demographics of Russia and Aging of Russia

Russia, fertility rate and demographics videos:

• Demographics of the Orthodox Christain world by Peter Zeihan
• Russia's Demographic Crisis Explained - TLDR News
• Updates on Russian Demographics
• Russia’s Demographic Crisis is Getting Worse
• (Russia is DONE) Russia's Catastrophic Demographics Collapse is Here.
• The Future Demographic Destruction Of Russia

The war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis worse (See: Russia is dying out. The war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis even worse).

Other articles related to the war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis worse:

• Russia Facing Population Disaster - Demographic Crisis, Employee Shortages & Economic Crisis
• Russia stares into population abyss as Putin sends its young men to die, The Telegraph, February 2023
• Millennials and Gen Z are blaming Putin for intensifying Russia’s baby shortfall: ‘It’s pretty bad for us’, Fortune magazine, December 3, 2022
• Dramatic Population Drop in Russia, as War, COVID and Emigration Exacerbate Declining Births, 6/03/2023

For more information, please see:

• Russia's 'catastrophic' missing men problem, The Week, 2023
• Russia’s population shrinks and China’s ages, Shifting demographics are posing unprecedented challenges for China and Russia, 2023

Peter Henry Zeihan is an American author on geopolitics and international relations.

Peter Zeihan has an informative series of videos on demographics relating to various countries and regions at: Demographics - Peter Zeihan

Below are two very informative videos relating to Russian demographics and other matters below produced by Peter Zeihan:

• Demographics of the Orthodox Christain world

• Ask Peter Zeihan: Will Putin "Disappear" and Updates on Russian Demographics?

Near the end of the second video, Zeihan projects that Putin and his friends are in this to the end. And then he raises the issues of when the end will be and he forecast that it will be in the next few years or few decades, but it will surely be by the end of century. In other words, he makes no bold projection on when the Russian Federation will disintegrate. See also: Russia is dying out. The war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis even worse

Given the issues that I raised in my essay Why I am not bullish on Russia's future, it is certainly plausible and even likely that should Jesus tarry, the Russian Federation will disintegrate by the end of the 21st century. How soon is anyone's guess given the complexity of the issue. However, using some of the strategies/tactics given in the above section "Did you know that is very doable to be a better forecaster in terms of politics, economics and other future events?", a team of the right type of people can come up with the most plausible scenarios and their potential likelihoods. Unless of course, some unguessable and unthought-of black swan scenario comes about that nobody even thought of!

Below are my essays which cover some of the issues related to Russia that are more in-depth.

Russia

• Vladimir Putin is a corrupt kleptocrat and an authoritarian

• Russian war crimes in Ukraine

• Why I am not bullish on Russia's future

• Russia is dying out. The war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis even worse

• China's economic decline will contribute to Russia's decline

• Russia's economy and gas and oil profits will be BADLY damaged when China's economy declines

• The war in Ukraine and Western sanctions will significantly hurt the Russian economy

• Russia's economy will enter a long-term decline

• Are the Russians as unhappy as they claim they are?

• Is Vladimir Putin a beacon of family values or a complete failure in this matter?

• Do you strongly believe in gun rights? Don't move to Russia!

• The Russian Army compared to the Israeli army. Why is the Israeli army so outstanding?

• Nordsteam pipelines being sabotaged and Putin failing to play politics several moves ahead on the politics chess board

• Vladimir Putin understimates small opponents - big time! - Humor

• There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin plays chess - Humor

• Essay: Why a Westerner falling for Russian propaganda is like a man who is seduced by a corrupt 300 pound woman - Humor

User Conservative's other international relations essays

General

Vladimir Putin as a KGB officer.

• The myth of multipolarity. What do the terms unipolar, bipolar and multipolar mean as far as international relations?
• What drives Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin?
• Why has the West been so successful?
• The anti-Christianity Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and Xi Jinping have opposed homosexuality so this isn't a very high moral bar for China and Russia to clear

The United States

• The United States will be the leading power in the world for the foreseeable future
• Is the USA an economic powerhouse and juggernaut?

China

• Skepticism about China remaining a global power

• The rising rule of communist idiocracy in China

War in Ukraine

• How long will the war in Ukraine last and what will its likely outcomes will be? A prediction on its outcomes
• The SPECIFIC MONTH OF APRIL 2022 was not a pivotal point in politics that will affect politics for 30 years

User:Conservative's essays

• User:Conservative's essays