Comments on: The Struggle between Europe and Mankind

By: Official Russia | Interview: Anatoly Karlin – Sublime Oblivion

Official Russia | Interview: Anatoly Karlin – Sublime Oblivion — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:05:23 +0000

[...] one. I was sundered from my native Russian land at a young age and I assimilated most of my “cultural assets” during my period of exile in Britain. The reason I call it an “exile” is that I [...]

By: Ashish

Ashish — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:35:01 +0000

Good analysis, but you (and Mr. Trubetzkoy) ignore one important factor behind this Western drive towards universality and that is the alien semitic universal religion of Christianity. Islam too has similar tendencies (ummah, the brotherhood of all Muslims across borders). Modern non-Orthodox Christianity is not culture, race or civilization specific unlike say Shinto. The Orthodox church has given Christianity a national favour and has reduced its internationalist universalist tendencies. Had Europe had remained pagan, it would have had charted a very different path.

I also believe that the Third Reich irrespective of all its mistakes was a reaction against this increasing universalism of Socialism and liberalism if its time. In other words a very important part of the West was itself trying to escape from and was reacting against what we term as modern Western civilization.

By: highduke

highduke — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:18:48 +0000

I think Trubetskoi is dead on about the Romano-Germanics who’ve perverted the Poles & polonized Catholic Russians of Ukraine but his cultural/ethnic relativism is not right because Orthodox Slavic cultures produce both a less neurotic mass of people & more outstanding individuals than other Whites. I’d like to see Poland & Ukraine de-Catholicized, otherwise they’ll forever masochistically whore themselves to the west.

By: Leos Tomicek

Leos Tomicek — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:31:01 +0000

@ AK. don’t forget that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan rely on US for protection.

As you mentioned Turkey in the article I have the feeling that the Turkish Republic is more Western than West itself. It is very nationalist while in the countries of the West nationalism is almost a dirty word these days that is associated with political radicalism. But it was nationalism, Western import, that helped Turkey define its identity on the ruins of the universalist, Islamic, Ottoman Empire. The EU is one such universalist project on the other hand.

A bit off topic, I kind of like how certain people try to present the US role as the only global superpower as indispensible. One of the arguments for example is that US navy controls the world’s waterways (like Britannia ruled the seas) and it is crucial in securing oil supplies from the Persian Gulf to the rest of world. Wouldn’t the Chinese and Indians be able to secure the Indian Ocean by themselves?

By: AK

AK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Indeed, the question of how much of this growth in retail, construction, etc, was driven by higher oil prices is crucial. Hence one could make the following points:
1) One of the main macro effect of high commodity prices was a strengthening of the ruble, which made imports more affordable and obstructed Russian (manufacturing) exports. This had a negative effect on GDP growth.
2) Public spending rose, but it did not appreciate drastically as a percentage of GDP – IIRC, from around 31% at around 2000 to 34% more recently. On both the corporate and government level, a very significant portion of the resource rent went into savings – not into redistribution. As such I doubt much of the oil windfall translated into increased general consumption.
3) Ukraine, Belarus, even the Baltics, etc, do not radically differ from Russia in their economic environments – at a basic level, they are all post-Soviet middle-income nations with aging, well-educated populations and excessive bureaucracies (Estonia is an exception in the latter). So why did these nations grow about as rapidly as Russia in the last decade? Surely they should have stagnated in the absence of hydrocarbon windfalls?
4) The evidence suggests that the economic shock of 2008-2009 was caused not anywhere near so much by the fall in oil prices, as by the cessation of the cheap Western credit flows which Russian corporations had come to rely on.
5) Of course, developing a competitive, technologically-advanced economy is a worthy pursuit. The Russian government realizes this and there have been some early successes.

By: Aslak

Aslak — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:40:53 +0000

I think the issue here is how much of the increase in other sectors, like manufacturing, household consumption, public spending etc was in fact been driven by the boom in energy and raw material prices. Russia is obviously not Saudi-Arabia and does have important non-energy sectors but given that Russian industry is not competitive on the international market these have to rely, as you say, on domestic demand. The increase in domestic demand seems to be in large part, (but not exclusively), determined by the success of the extractive industries in general and hydrocarbons in particular, which effectively puts the latter in the driving seat of the economy. This is not necessarily such a bad thing but extraction can only take you so far. At one point other sectors have to become more productive and efficient or Russia will stagnate economically from Dutch disease.

Having said that, I agree that the environment is the Achilles heel of the Asian giants and Russia at least doesn’t have the problem of overpopulation and the risks inherent with that.

By: AK

AK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:20:37 +0000

Re-4: a) I would say the budget is substantially dependent on extractive industries. The overall economy - not so much, especially since it appreciates the ruble and makes Russian manufacturing less competitive. b) Oil output cannot be increased any more due to geological reasons, at least not without prodigal, unprofitable outlays or massive artificial acceleration of production / depletion. Most realistic analyses agree that Russian oil production will go into into unstoppable decline from around 2010 (e.g. see Russia's Oil Production is About to Peak). If anything, leaving these resources in the ground would be an excellent form of saving and if I was the Russian President I'd order immediate, controlled reductions in oil output. c) There is no need to increase gas output since what is produced already is enough to satisfy all demand. Russia should instead now focus on improving its domestic energy efficiency. d) Returning to the idea of "dependency" on extractive industries. In what sense? In real terms, Russia has become less dependent on hydrocarbons over the past years because the extractive industries were in relative stagnation since around 2004, whereas sectors like manufacturing (and construction, retail, etc) continued growing at very respectable rates, except in the last year obviously. In nominal terms, the Russian economy has become more dependent - but only because the prices of the commodities it exports went up, which is neither something it has control over, nor is it a bad thing for Russia (since its budget revenues increased). e) Now on to "competitiveness". As of today, Russia has no need to be competitive at exporting manufacturing goods because 1) its comparative advantage lies in exporting raw materials and 2) it is not geographically or climatically well-suited for East Asian-style export-led growth. What has happened during the Putin administration, especially in his second term, was that an industrial policy aimed at import substitution was implemented, and which going by the data on domestic manufacturing seems to have been relatively successful, with plenty of foreign automobile, electronics, etc, manufacturing companies setting up shop in Russia's special economic zones. f) I fundamentally disagree with the assertion the Russian economy is "based" on extractive industries. Granted it constitutes a much greater portion of it than amongst its BRIC peers, but there is no evidence that it "drives" the rest of the economy, which also includes a growing manufacturing sector and an emerging hi-tech one too. Second, it is dangerous to focus so narrowly on purely economic aspects in gauging future economic potential - e.g., being "dependent" on hydrocarbons sure beats having your rivers dry up.

By: Aslak

Aslak — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:19:00 +0000

Scowspi: Fair enough, non-existant was perhaps hyperbolic.

AK:
1: I think we agree here.
2:You’ll have to specify what you’re referring to here. Western countries remain influential of course, but neocolonialism is a concept that is too often used simply by people who dislike the fact that developing countries need to trade with the developed world.
3. Perhaps. It remains of course to be seen how India and China will develop, they’re still at the early stages. It’s certainly possible, perhaps even likely, that they will develop, so to speak, their own modernities but as of now they’re still in a process of Westernization
4. I’ll confess that ‘fragile’ is a bit cliched but I think it’s accurate. When it comes to the military, they are certainly moving in the right direction but they face deepseated problems so success is not certain. The economy remains dependent on extractive industries (oil, gas, metals). Since they face massive investment needs just to maintain the current output of oil and gas, they can’t increase volume much and are vulnerable to price changes. Until Russia becomes more competitive in other sectors I think ‘fragile’ is justified. I’m surprised that Russia doesn’t exploit its huge agricultural potential better for instance. The other BRICs obviously have challenges of their own as you mention but I think that in their cases the growth is more sustainable and of a type that lays the foundation for further growth. I can’t think of any countries that have developed a sound economy based on extractive industries.

By: The Genesis of Total War | Sublime Oblivion

The Genesis of Total War | Sublime Oblivion — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:21:39 +0000

[...] Contact Subscribe! « The Struggle between Europe and Mankind [...]

By: Scowspi

Scowspi — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:04:26 +0000

“Russia’s cultural power is non-existent outside the former Soviet Union”

I would say weak or limited rather than non-existent. Russia’s cultural power abroad is based almost exclusively on high culture – literature, classical music, highbrow films etc. There is an extensive Russian-language pop culture, but it’s basically confined to post-Soviet space. So Russian culture abroad gets a discerning audience, but not a mass one.