Sunday, March 16, 2014
Diplomat (Omni Shoreham)
Whatever one's view of Russia's current regime, over the next quarter century, Russian society will keep evolving towards post-industrial Europe even as its standing among the “BRICs” is called into question. Although Russia's steep population decline between 1995 and 2005 led to predictions of a "demographic crisis," the far slower rate of decline now projected over the next 25 years make Russia's demographic story to be similar to that of a majority of EU members. Moreover, as the world’s population surges towards a projected 9 billion by 2050, access to the world’s most vital resources - fossil fuels, arable land, and renewable internal freshwater -- will become more scarce and costly for more of that population. Under these conditions, Russia will increase its already formidable per capita share of these resources, while extending its current advantage over the other BRICs in per capita income and standards of living. While the latter grapple with increasingly complex trade-offs in more labor-intensive economies, Russia will continue to close the already narrowing gap with the EU average in terms of the level of human development. This will be partly facilitated by Russia’s position as a net energy exporter; even if annual GDP growth rates rise and fall with energy prices, the projected growth in total and per capita global energy usage in the next 25 years guarantees Russia a stream of revenue that, in most years, will enable even bigger leaps in the standard of living, regardless of how the regime evolves.
