Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File

AT: Russian Civil War

Using extensive interviews with participants in all three administrations, and memoirs by former officials, they paint a compelling picture of officials often over-whelmed by the challenge of an entirely new reality. The unexpected collapse of communism and of the Soviet Union, coming just after the GulfWar, left them with no road map to understand how Russia and other post-Soviet states might develop. Nightmare scenarios suggested themselves: nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine; weapons proliferation on a terrifying scale; Yugoslav-type ethnically based civil war on the territory of the former Soviet Union; mass starvation; economic collapse--the ominous possibilities were endless. That these "dogs did not bark" is testimony to the unwillingness of people in the post-Soviet space to engage in armed conflict and to Western assistance that staved off famine and economic collapse. The failure of catastrophic scenarios to come about is one indicator of success--but if one were to measure America's contribution to transforming Russia in more positive ways, the evidence is more mixed. If a minimalist definition of success was the absence of catastrophe, the maximalist definition was the creation of a fully functioning democracy in Russia with a transparent market economy and the rule of law. That has not happened yet, and it is unclear when it will. So far, there is no consensus about what would constitute a realistic timetable for Russia's democratic development.

Cohen takes a distinctly harsh view of Yeltsin, and notes that no Soviet leader was ever able to appoint their successor the way that Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin. (Putin's first official act, prohibiting the prosecution of his predecessor, brings to mind not a Soviet parallel, but an American one - Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon for whatever he might be charged with after Nixon had left the White House to him.) Above all, Cohen would have Americans confront the stark results of the vaunted "shock therapy" that U.S. doctors of economics prescribed for their Russian patients: Total capital flight estimated in the range of $ 150 billion -$ 350 billion; the number living in poverty in the former Soviet Union up from 14 million in 1989 to 147 million nine years later and a male life expectancy that fell below the age of 60. In short, "the literal de -modernization of a 20th-century country." In the hopes of finding something that might strike a more sympathetic chord among U.S. policy-makers than massive human suffering, Cohen continually hammers on the dangers inherent in the fact of the "destabilization of a fully nuclearized society." Already, in Chechnya, Russia has experienced the first civil war in a country with nuclear weapons. It lacks the funds to pay the security and maintenance personnel responsible for those weapons adequately and, in some cases, even regularly. A situation in which a nuclear arsenal was under tight control has devolved into a murky one. Yet the attention paid to it in the United States is minor, Cohen argues, compared to "the campaign against Iraq's infinitely lesser weapons of mass destruction." He suggests that American foreign aid payments targeted at helping Russia pay the costs of maintaining an adequate nuclear security system would prove a far better and cheaper investment than building ever more complex and expensive defense and weapons systems. But, unfortunately, the recent American presidential campaign displayed a bipartisan consensus for just such systems.

AT: Russian Economy

1. Russia’s economy is resilient – strong foreign investment and reserves

Garrels 2008 Roving foreign correspondent for NPR’s foreign desk. (Anne Garrels, “Russia Economy Strong Despite Commodity Fallout”, NPR, September 20, 2008, page 1, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94647099)

For the past six years, Russia's economy has boomed in large part because of soaring prices for oil and metals. Russia is strong in these areas — too strong, though, for a balanced economy. Russian shares have bled almost 50 percent of their value since May, but many analysts say Russia still remains a resilient economy. And after the Georgia invasion and weeks of harsh, anti-western rhetoric, both Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have tried to reassure foreign investors. When those commodities prices dropped, Russia's stock market was hit hard. "The question is if they fall significantly further," says James Fenkner with Red Star Assets in Moscow. Fenkner is one of the more cautious voices in Moscow, and other analysts like Roland Nash of Renaissance Capital look at other indicators, like direct foreign investment. "The level of foreign investment is twice the per capita of Brazil, four times that of China, and six times that of India this year," Nash says. "The market arguments for Russia are still very good and there is still a lot of money coming in." Too Dependent On Commodities The Russia government recognizes it is too dependent on commodities, and while their prices were high, it amassed huge reserves as a cushion. The country now has a balanced budget and financial analysts predict its economy will continue to grow at about six percent.

2. Russian economy resilient

Lucio Vinhas de Souza, May 16 8, Center for European Policy Studies, (http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/russia-economic-rebirth/article-172431)

This economic revival has made Russia an economic and political power and a country that can no longer be ignored, says de Souza. Russia's economic performance after the implementation of structural reforms remains impressive, argues de Souza, with a functioning market economy having been established. This means the macroeconomic framework has become more robust than it was in the 1990s, he observes. Despite structural reform slowing down in certain sectors, it has not stopped altogether, the author adds. De Souza believes the resumption of economic growth in Russia is down to the effects of economic and structural reform, as well as recent high energy prices. For him, the changing nature of the Russian economy can mostly be seen in the way the country has withstood the financial instability which has swept global financial markets. De Souza is suitably impressed by Russia's economic performance since 1999 compared with similar economies from the Commonwealth of Independent States – which gathers the former Soviet republics – both in terms of GDP and inflation.

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