False Claims About Russia Continue To Cloud The 'West's' Vision

 

moon of alabama

The pro-Ukrainian Spectator states correctly that the sanctions on Russia have failed. But its reasoning is dubious:

The West embarked on its sanctions war with an exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world. As we have discovered, non-western countries lack the will to impose sanctions on either Russia or on Russian oligarchs. The results of the miscalculation are there for all to see. In April last year, the IMF forecast that the Russian economy would contract by 8.5 per cent in 2022 and by a further 2.3 per cent this year. As it turned out, GDP fell by just 2.1 per cent last year, and this year the IMF is forecasting a small rise of 0.7 per cent. And that is all in spite of the war in Ukraine going much more badly than many imagined it would in February of last year. The Russian economy has not been destroyed; it has merely been reconfigured, reorientated to look eastwards and southwards rather than westwards.

Yes, the 'West' had an "exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world". But that is only a part of the problem. The 'West' still thinks it is superior to other countries even as at least some other countries have caught up with it and are, in parts, superior in the use of science and technology.

Moreover the 'West' thought that Russia was inferior to it. In 2015 the late Senator John McCain called it a "gas station masquerading as a country":

"Look, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country," McCain said. "It's kleptocracy. It's corruption. It's a nation that's really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important."

In the early 1990s Russia surely was down. But it wasn't out. It had a heavy industry and everything it needed to feed it. It had well educated people and large scientific community. When McCain spoke, 25 years after Russia's downfall, the country was largely back in the upper league.

Its per head production of steel, cement, energy and food was and is higher than in most 'western' countries. Those are the basics numbers one needs to judge an industrial country and its capabilities, not some dubious number like the Gross Domestic Product which includes 'services' of dubious value. (For example the share of health expenditure in the quite high U.S. GDP is 16.8% with a worse outcome for the general population than in less spending European countries.)

As it has now become clear even to the Spectator that the sanctions on Russia have failed one would hope that the 'West' would come to a more realistic view of itself and of Russia economic capabilities. Unfortunately that is not yet the case.

Witness Florida's governor Ron DeSantis who in March 2023 basically repeated McCain's false claim:

... DeSantis said of Putin. "And so, he's basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons and one of the things we could be doing better is utilizing our own energy resources in the US."

The 'West' will continue to underestimate Russia's capability as long as such false claims are still believed. Only a realistic assessment and more respect for Russia's capabilities can correct the mistake of waging and losing a proxy war against it.

Posted by b on May 12, 2023 at 15:19 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/false-claims-about-russia-continue-to-cloud-the-wests-vision.html