The source of Russia’s global power derives not from sophisticated technology, an advanced service sector, or a cadre of entrepreneurs. Russia’s power is almost entirely backward-looking. Its geopolitical position rests on a base of prehistoric vegetation.
That vegetation, of course, has ended up as Russia’s reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal. About one-quarter of the country’s government revenues comes from fossil fuel sales. Those revenues ensure that Russia’s superpower status can’t be boiled down simply to its possession of nuclear weapons. Russia is not “Upper Volta with nukes” as the Soviet Union was famously dismissed. Petrodollars give it considerable geopolitical leverage as well as the means to wage war, most recently in Ukraine.
Consider how crudely Russia uses its crude. For some time, the dependency of certain European countries on Russian fuel imports—notably Hungary and Slovakia—has made it challenging for the European Union to forge consensus on anything related to Russia or Ukraine. Leadership change in Hungary has reduced, though not eliminated, this problem. The election of Peter Magyar has simultaneously gotten money flowing again from Brussels to Kyiv and oil flowing again, via the Druzhba pipeline, from Russia to Hungary.
It’s not just Eastern Europe. Although Europe as a whole has …read more
Source:: Institute for Policy Studies
