By Val Poiset
According to Professor Angela Stent, who is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University and has been following Russian affairs for three decades, there is no chance of the U.S. going to war with Russia over the recent invasion of the Ukraine. As of this morning, there has been an overwhelming majority in the vote of the annexation of Crimea from Russia. At a whopping 96% the people of Crimea have spoken in favor of freedom for their people.
Current acting President is the current Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Turchynoy after the Ukrainian Parliament ousted Viktor Yanukoyych from this office on 21 February 2014. The current president has mobilized troops and is ready to act, as of this morning. Putin knew that the U.S. would not go to war over Crimea and regarded Crimea as part of Russia. With this mindset of Putin, the US has very little leverage in the dispute. Stent said that to suggest that a perceived weakness on the part of US President Barack Obama caused Putin to move into Crimea was a complete misreading of the situation.
Stent said that all the former Soviet republics are corrupt, are ruled by a strongman, and so are very susceptible to Russian influence. “We want the West to influence what will happen to the post-Soviet space, but there is a limit to our scope of influence” Stent in her recent speech at the World Affairs council in Los Angeles highlighted Putin’s background to understand his motives behind the invasion of Crimea. His missed the relative political openness of the perestroika period under Gorbachev in Russia while working under the KGB. With a strong foundation in martial arts and law he became a KGb lieutenant colonel to East Germany, for 5 years from 1985-1990.
Putin’s long term plan economically speaking is heavily reliant on exports or raw materials such as oil, gas, and timber. When Medyedev tried to modernize Russia’s economy, but Putin resisted any changes that would greatly impact the overall economy. According to Stent, Russia has a decaying infrastructure and on top of everything Russia has declining population and an average male expectancy of around 60. Male mortality rates between ages 18-30 are relatively similar to those in the sub-Saharan Africa region. Although Russia’s population is relatively large compared to the rest of the world, 40% of the young men applying to be in the army are not physically fit enough or healthy enough to be drafted into the aarmy. This puts a huge limit on what Russia can do to remain a dominant force in the east. At the moment Russia solves its declining labor force problem by importing laborers – most of the construction workers on buildings in Moscow are from Central Asia. But, Stent said with a cautionary note, despite incredible hardships, “the historic story of Russia is that it will always survive”.