If you’re worried about increasing unfriendliness from Russia, you’ll get no agreement from historian Niall Ferguson. Unlike those on the left who used to proclaim that the Soviet Union would overtake the American economy one day because of the superiority of socialism, Ferguson notes in his latest Newsweek column that present-day Russia is “careening toward irrelevance.”
Last Thursday Putin claimed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “gave a signal” to subversive elements in Russia. “They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work.”
Who cares? Russia isn’t quite “Upper Volta with missiles”—West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s immortal phrase. But it’s certainly a shadow of its former Cold War self. The U.S. economy is 10 times larger than Russia’s. Per capita gross domestic product is not much higher than in Turkey. Male life expectancy is significantly lower: 63, compared with 71 on the other side of the Black Sea. And the population is shrinking. There are nearly 7 million fewer Russians today than there were in 1992. By 2055, the United Nations estimates that the population of Egypt will be larger.
Remind me: why did Goldman Sachs group Russia with Brazil, India, and China as the “BRICs,” supposedly the four key economies of the 21st century? Give me Turkey or Indonesia any day.