I read what the propoganda merchants want people to believe on economies and then look for the facts.
Recedo,
Further to that (and your previous response to me), Russia might have
wealth, but it doesn't have the wealth it did a few years ago. It doesn't have as much flexibility in varying how it derives it, it has fewer options where it draws it from and she has greater demands, bleaker prospects, worsening conditions, far fewer friends and rapidly reduced options. She doesn't have the money she needs or want for the future she has promised her people.
America is addicted to borrowing, but only in the way that Russia and China are addicted to lending. How else could Russia and China get meaningful exposure to the west? It's a weakness for Obama, but also one for those who hold the debt (owe the bank £100,000 and it owns you, owe it £100,000,000 though and you own it). What is Putin going to do now, flood the market with US sovereign debt to prove a point? Hardly.
The US/Israeli comparison is a pointless one and no one is suggesting Russia is going to be invaded and it doesn't matter either that Russia doesn't use the dollar (her currency has fallen almost 20% this year). That is the only silver lining, ie; she exports in dollars and spends in rubles, so the horrific devaluation means there are more rubles kicking around. But Putin has spent $13 billions alone this month to support the ruble and keep it from free fall. He might be managing the battle but he is losing the war. And investors are hard nosed people. They won't forget in a hurry.
Forgetting for one moment, the Kremlin sofa cushions are being groped behind daily for shrapnel, and the fact that the state has effectively stolen the state pension fund for two years running (Maxwell would be proud), the oligarchs didn't exist 100 years ago either and it's probably going to be them turning the screw on the Colonels and Generals, quietly. Putin should be worried,
look how he is trying to keep them sweet. As recently as late last week the Russian government announced it was planning to shelve infrastructure and social projects too, and actually forecasting recession if this goes on any further.
Russia is in a situation that will affect her far more than a similar set of circumstances would affect a far more mature, evolved and diversified (50% of Russia foreign income comes from natural resources) economy in similar foreign policy straits. And it was against that backdrop that I posed my question a day or so ago. Could Putin decide to deflect attention to save his own career/skin? I think/hope that realpolitik will kick in and he'll blink, he knows how resolute the west can be with sanctions (Iran?) and he knows that the west will tolerate only so much sand being kicked in its face by a bloke with a private gym and an inferiority complex.