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With bountiful and diverse minerals, Russia, the world's largest country in land
area, occupying 75% of the former Soviet Union, had a significant percentage of
the world's mineral resources and produced 14% of the world's total mineral
extraction. Mining was the country's leading industry in 2002, and Russia was the
largest producer of palladium and nickel (20% of world output), and ranked
second in the production of aluminum and platinum-group metals (PGMs), third
in potash, sixth in gold, and seventh in mine copper. Russia also produced a large
percentage of the CIS's bauxite, coal, cobalt, diamond, lead, mica, natural gas,
oil, tin, zinc, and many other metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels.
Enterprises considered part of the mineral and raw-material complex contributed
70% of the budget revenues derived from exports; petroleum, petroleum
products, and natural gas were Russia's leading export commodities in 2002;
metals and chemicals also were leading export commodities.
The demise of the Soviet Union a decade ago astounded the world. The
subsequent demise of Russia's economy is astounding too. State-owned
businesses have been privatized, prices are deregulated, and competition
abounds. Yet unlike Poland, which has seen per capita gross domestic product
rise 20% since 1989, Russia's per capita GDP has plummeted more than 30%
since 1989. Productivity is less than 20% of the U.S. level and stagnating.
The path that Russia will take is uncertain, but the implications for the
West are crystal clear. By focusing primarily on high-level macroeconomic policy,
the IMF, the U.S. government, and most economists have completely
misunderstood the peculiar realities of the Russian economy. The right
framework could all be in place, but national and local government interference
in individual industries is so pervasive today it will undermine even the best
macro policies. No more Western taxpayers' money should be put at risk through
loans to the Russian government when the Russian governments own
interventions in the microeconomy are undermining the very stability the loans
are meant to achieve in the first place.
Russia, on the other hand, lacks the extensive and expensive networks of
bases and intelligence-deployment capabilities to actually be true to its word of
going after bases "regardless of what region they are located in," according to
Yury Baluevsky, Russia's chief of the general staff. Since the end of the Cold War,
Russia's external military capabilities have been greatly curtailed, resulting in
recalling its personnel and even closing some bases in many parts of the world.
While Russian intelligence may be capable of intercepting and deciphering
communication traffic between suspected militants and their bases, this effort
has not been followed up by quick military action necessary to destroy the threat.
The country did have limited success in preemptive strikes against the Chechen
leadership in the first Chechen War of 1994-1996; indeed, Russia's missile strike
killed the leader and inspiration of Chechen resistance, General Djohar Dudaev,
after intercepting his cellular phone conversation. But such successes have been
few, as Russia is trying to adjust to the geopolitical reality of the new threat posed
by the largely international terrorist efforts.
But Russia has limited military reach beyond its southern rim, and
military strikes against other states may invite unwelcome political stalemates.
This took place recently with the Republic of Georgia's public stand against the
Russian Federation on the question of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, located to the
south of Chechnya. The Russian government was convinced that Chechen rebels
and terrorists who supported them were hiding out in the gorge, and repeatedly
pressured Georgia to allow Russian forces to invade.
Throughout the Cold War, the U.S.S.R.'s Special Forces were trained to
act after its government would undertake a major negotiation effort. At present,
such conditions no longer apply. As the situation in Beslan showed, fast,
coordinated, well-rehearsed action -- the opposite of what actually took place --
by the security forces was necessary to prevent the tragedy.