Should Russia create a union with all ex-soviet countries?

russian house is in very good order ,contru that big you will never cover completely in infrastructure, that does not matter , just example at russian far east, vladivostok - amur and sakhalin island ,big areas ,can support 5 times more population then today easy...they are at moderate latitudes around 45degrees good climate comapared to rest of russia ,resourses , large trade nations close by, china japan korea.

sepheronx wrote:No, it doesnt.  Even with India's large population, its GDP is grossly outmatched compared to the amount of people in the country.  The country has a high illiteracy rate, high unemployment and the living standards are significantly lower than a lot of countries.  Its population does NOT make it a super power.

Exactly ! And you can say this again . India will Never become a superpower because it is not even a country . It is just a loosely collected assemblage of states . And the Hindoos are completely divided on caste & community lines . No wonder it is already a failed state .

sepheronx wrote:England was a Superpower itself not because of its large population, but about how effective they were at defeating others or turning one against the other

Completely True . Becoming a superpower is something that you either have in your genes or you don't . English people are born with that gene . We were technologically light years ahead of the Asians & Africans . In India , like I said the Hindoos were already fighting among themselves so conquering that country was not much of an issue . However, India gained a lot more during the days of the British rule that the English themselves . Law and order , infrastructure , education and most importantly the English language .

You don't know anything about genes, that much is clear.

hes correct.
can you imagine revolutions and turmoil in usa like in turkey or egypt or russia in 90s that would ruin economy and split apart a country.
No way . people are smarter there.
they can disagree about everything but still wont let they destroy all the great things they have.

india cant blend that many fractions ,religious, ethnic ,caste, into 1 nation like usa does to people all over the world.
usa is just better at it.
people want to be americans!

Rpg type 7v wrote:hes correct.
can you imagine revolutions and turmoil in usa like in turkey or egypt or russia in 90s that would ruin economy and split apart a country.
No way . people are smarter there.
they can disagree about everything but still wont let they destroy all the great things they have.

india cant blend that many fractions ,religious, ethnic ,caste, into 1 nation like usa does to people all over the world.
usa is just better at it.
people want to be americans!

Sorry, but it looks that Your brains aren't functioning. No offence, maybe You are not retarded in real life, but You are really painting grim picture here.

an you imagine revolutions and turmoil in usa

Revolution in USA already happened. And turmoil and collapsing economy were constant occurrences in USA. How they come out of them are another topic.

No way . people are smarter there.
they can disagree about everything but still wont let they destroy all the great things they have.

No offence to americans, but I really wouldn't play with word smart talking about their society. Sure, there are loads of Americans questioning their government and hardly You can call them drones, but there are mindless drones floating in their society. More than in Russia, but sadly I've met many Russians that are equally chauvinist.

people want to be americans

Tsarnaev brothers were so desperate to become americans, that they even "zarvalis nakhui". Spare us Your bullshit, You have 0 clue what are You talking about. In one post You are stating that Russia is "good house" and in another You are stating the opposite thing.
Mind You, life in Europe, no matter EU nonsense going on is 100 times better than in USA, at least for me.

NickM wrote:

sepheronx wrote:No, it doesnt.  Even with India's large population, its GDP is grossly outmatched compared to the amount of people in the country.  The country has a high illiteracy rate, high unemployment and the living standards are significantly lower than a lot of countries.  Its population does NOT make it a super power.

Exactly ! And you can say this again . India will Never become a superpower because it is not even a country . It is just a loosely collected assemblage of states . And the Hindoos are completely divided on caste & community lines . No wonder it is already a failed state .

sepheronx wrote:England was a Superpower itself not because of its large population, but about how effective they were at defeating others or turning one against the other

Completely True . Becoming a superpower is something that you either have in your genes or you don't . English people are born with that gene . We were technologically light years ahead of the Asians & Africans . In India , like I said the Hindoos were already fighting among themselves so conquering that country was not much of an issue . However, India gained a lot more during the days of the British rule that the English themselves . Law and order , infrastructure , education and most importantly the English language .

So how come Your gov are US lapdogs, like no one else in Europe? How come super power genes aren't working lately and fertility rate is dropping, while immigrants from eastern europe and other wild lands spawn their hatchings twice a year. And plus they are born with a British NVQ as a bricklayers, plumbers and ready for work next day. It's sad to see once a Great Colonial power being... Colonised by disgusting people that have no superpower gene.

Rpg type 7v wrote:hes correct.
can you imagine revolutions and turmoil in usa like in turkey or egypt or russia in 90s that would ruin economy and split apart a country.
No way . people are smarter there.
they can disagree about everything but still wont let they destroy all the great things they have.

india cant blend that many fractions ,religious, ethnic ,caste, into 1 nation like usa does to people all over the world.
usa is just better at it.
people want to be americans!

Speak for yourself.

Your dumbing down of history and political realities is hilarious.

can you imagine revolutions and turmoil in usa like in turkey or egypt or russia in 90s that would ruin economy and split apart a country.
No way . people are smarter there.

Yeah, I remember talking to mericans on the internet who asked about the riots in middle eastern countries and why they are so violent and uncivilised to each other... don't they have self decorum, no self respect... no self control... then the Rodney King riots started in the US and then later on we had Katrina to show us how civilised the US was.

The US is no more civilised than anywhere else... they just have authorities that are more concious of public opinion and use chemical agents like CS gas and pepper spray and now sonic weapons and microwave weapons to deal with angry mobs... not so long ago they used live bullets too.

Yeah there is no way the US would ever split apart on anything... they would never have a civil war... oops wait a minute... the south will rise again...

The US is no more civilised than anywhere else... they just have authorities that are more concious of public opinion and use chemical agents like CS gas and pepper spray and now sonic weapons and microwave weapons to deal with angry mobs... not so long ago they used live bullets too.

   

so US has cohesion because it has this wonderful things, and the rest of the world dont have?

so US has cohesion because it has this wonderful things, and the rest of the world dont have?

Microwave weapons and sound weapons are wonderful things?

The US has "cohesion" through the applied use of force... the same way it maintains its empire... the difference is that in downtown Washington they use CS gas and rubber bullets, while securing their oil reserves in the middle east they use B-2s and cruise missiles and the soldiers of their NATO allies.

GarryB wrote:No.

I think most of the ex Soviet states held Russia back and were more dependencies rather than assets.

Russia should try to have good relations with its neighbours, but there is no need to create any binding EU type structure. Political or military.

disagree here.Kazakhstan has huge oil reserves , while turkmenistan has the third largest gas reserves.Ukraine,Belarus had huge scientific talent of USSR.

I think a union should be retried .

Yeah Russia should go for it while the memories of glory are still fresh and many people remember the respect USSR had ,and while there is still huge support for unification in many ex-ussr countries.

You guys are deluded if you think there is any chance of USSR type union.

Russia has enough of its own problems without adding in more.

a different kind of union not the exact same ofcourse ,confederation ,same foreign policy ,joint troops ,etc. , euro-asian union is just that.

vK_man wrote:

GarryB wrote:No.

I think most of the ex Soviet states held Russia back and were more dependencies rather than assets.

Russia should try to have good relations with its neighbours, but there is no need to create any binding EU type structure. Political or military.

disagree here.Kazakhstan has huge oil reserves , while turkmenistan has the third largest gas reserves.Ukraine,Belarus had huge scientific talent of USSR.

I think a union should be retried .

The current countries that it makes sense to integrate with are exactly Kazakhstan and Belarus. Although Russia should still push for its own economic interests even here (albeit without harming these countries), because at the end of the day union or no - they are still separate countries; it's not Russian territory.

Basically these are the only 2 countries right now where Russia will get actual benefits. All the rest will be a drag, that will take decades to start repaying.
It's an open question as to whether it's best to invest in them and hope for the best, or leave them be and not bother with any unions. Both approaches have their own merits.
The EU seems to have calculated that it's worth taking in a whole bunch of poor countries and giving them each billions every year; in exchange for political influence, an open market to flood their products with and as a source of cheap labour.
So perhaps Russia can do something similar.

The Ukraine might be worth it theoretically; due to its large educated population if nothing else.
A lot of the industry and infastructure has collapsed and it would take collosal investments and over many years before Russia could get a return.
Adding to that a large proportion of the population is outright Russophobic, and many others prefer to integrate with the EU anyway.
At the moment the country is more trouble than it's worth perhaps.

Baltics are integrated in NATO & EU and are way too anti-Russian.

Moldova is the poorest country in Europe; not even the USSR managed to develop it; it will just be a drain on resources although with some steady investment it could turn out alright because the labour is very cheap and its situated right next door to the huge EU market.
Problem is that they're orientated towards the EU too.

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have no interest; they have a lot of oil/gas and are doing fine on their own. Perhaps in time; if the Customs Union develops in a positive direction and achieves concrete results..

Armenia makes no sense for now as it doesn't even share a land border with Russia.

Georgia would be good actually; due to the land-connection with Armenia as well. I don't think their EU trajectory will hold.
Problem is it's a poor country, but at least has done a lot of reforms and so on.

Uzbekistan wants to keep its own independence, it's large and populous and it would be a drain on Russia to develop it honestly.

Kyrgryzstan and Tajikistan are poor, mountaneous countries; but it's important to keep them from sliding into poverty in order to combat extremism and so on.

What he said... most are either Russophobic... afterall they had to blame someone for their problems and the easy answer was Russia.

At the end of the day the former soviet republics want independence... they don't want Russian control and if they ever found themselves in a structure where Russia had a say anything that went wrong would be Russias fault and they would want independence again.

Sure there are a lot of resources in those former republics... human and material, but there is more resources in Russia than they can manage already so adding more will not be a good thing.

Russia needs to focus getting its own ship in order and maintaining good relations with its neighbours.

Free trade agreements and other agreements that make its neighbours safer or more stable or more prosperous should be pursued but not at the cost of any of those things for Russia.

The old empire is gone... let it go. Forcing it on countries is not a way forward and is not healthy either.

Problem is that Russia needs people; skilled, unskilled, professionals, low & highly educated - everyone.

Russia can't keep up its rate of industrial expansion without more factory workers, logistics personnel, engineers, etc.. (I guess it has more than enough managers for a long time already though )
Russia can't keep increasing its proportion of arable land that is farmed and the average yield of currently farmed land without more farmhands and agriculture specialists (technology and foreign investors will only take it so far)
Russia can't maintain it's lead in the defense industry, both R&D and production without more researchers, engineers, industrial specialists & machine operators, welders, programmers, etc... (it needs to attract the next gen. of talent but the wages in military-industrial firms are often no higher than in the private sector or outright uncompetitive)
Russia can't keep city infrastructure spending, construction, etc... costs down without a large amount of low-skilled immigrants

I guess that focusing solely on becoming a richer and more productive country is the key to attracting more people with more skills that Russia needs; more so than integrating a new territory and new people; with all the problems of that territory to worry about too - into a new economic union.
The first approach will probably be more successful as nothing attracts people quite like money.

But still; it would be a huge shame to lose the Ukraine to the EU; so that all the Ukrainians with higher-education or professional experience go to European capitals and improve their industries while completely neglecting the Ukraine's; at least with Russia - the Ukrainian production capacity and their companies would be modernised and put to good use.

GarryB wrote:What he said... most are either Russophobic... afterall they had to blame someone for their problems and the easy answer was Russia.

At the end of the day the former soviet republics want independence... they don't want Russian control and if they ever found themselves in a structure where Russia had a say anything that went wrong would be Russias fault and they would want independence again.

Sure there are a lot of resources in those former republics... human and material, but there is more resources in Russia than they can manage already so adding more will not be a good thing.

Russia needs to focus getting its own ship in order and maintaining good relations with its neighbours.

Free trade agreements and other agreements that make its neighbours safer or more stable or more prosperous should be pursued but not at the cost of any of those things for Russia.

The old empire is gone... let it go. Forcing it on countries is not a way forward and is not healthy either.

Baltics,armenia were the ones who wanted out in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991

I say kill two birds with one stone... if there is a shortage of labour in Russia then they should start building houses and offer ethnic Russians in the various new former Soviet republics a house and a job if they want to move back to Mother Russia.

After they have worked for 5 or 10 years they can keep the house... make them nice and comfortable and modern but also make them semi modular like a space station so with money they can add on extra bedrooms etc if they want to increase their family size etc.

This will bring bodies to Russia to allow the economy to grow while not introducing problems like language issues or ethic tensions.

Not suggesting this for ethnic purity or any BS like that, but if you are going to build nice houses and offer people a home then it should be to someone that has some form of attachment to Russia and is not just going to take the job, sell the house and then move to the UK or US or EU with the money and skills.

GarryB wrote:I say kill two birds with one stone... if there is a shortage of labour in Russia then they should start building houses and offer ethnic Russians in the various new former Soviet republics a house and a job if they want to move back to Mother Russia.

After they have worked for 5 or 10 years they can keep the house... make them nice and comfortable and modern but also make them semi modular like a space station so with money they can add on extra bedrooms etc if they want to increase their family size etc.

This will bring bodies to Russia to allow the economy to grow while not introducing problems like language issues or ethic tensions.

Not suggesting this for ethnic purity or any BS like that, but if you are going to build nice houses and offer people a home then it should be to someone that has some form of attachment to Russia and is not just going to take the job, sell the house and then move to the UK or US or EU with the money and skills.

Yes reunite them in a military/trading/maybe political bloc. But don't let every Muslim fundamentalist nutter have the right to live in Russia.
As expected, the Wahhabist Sauds are up to their shit again. So for every extra 10,000 Muslims who can live in Russia, you have a substantial danger.

A trading bloc area/political bloc is easier to decide. You could have the CIS, Serbia, Kosovan Serbs, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba, maybe India to an extent?

But deciding who I think should have free movement in Russia is harder. Belarus, Kazakstan, and the Ukraine are obvious ones.
Its harder when some issues (eg gas exploration) are being traded against employment rights. I heard 1 in 8 Tajiks are actually working in Russia. Fine if they are ethnic Russians. Not so good if they are allied to fundamentalist bullshit.

A big question for me is what to do about the Ukraine. Tell it to fuck off (and ignore its tens of millions of citizens who are Russian in soul).
Or partitiion it. Or bring it in totally. Or have it as some ambigious half and half place. Perhaps Russia is being cunning and using the Ukraine as "another face" to the Western World. Perhaps Russia should be firmer and say "enough is enough", we built you up, you are Russian.

I also have an idea about having Special Zones created in Russia. Russia has the resoruces, land and knowhow. However it does not have the armies of cheap labour that some places have. So a Special Zone would have immigrant labour in production, at rates which would be low by Russian standards, but good for immigrant standards. They would not have free movement around Russia, they could not mix with and marry Russians or other ethnic groups. They could be Chinese/Central Asian or African. An excelleent standard of living, but they are there to work, not set up a life there. So Russia benefits and the foreign worker benefits. However, Russia is not getting the type of shit that legal/illegal immigrants cause when they move to the developed world and develop families that cause grief. Ofcourse when the Zone is no longer useful, it can be closed down, and the land returned to normal Russian usage. There was never any reason for masses of immigrants to come for work, and then change the face of the country they were working in. The Arabs and the Japanese never let poor, alien culture 3rd world workers stay without question.

Before I went abroad I was thinking about working in Russia. But Russia really has a good amount of people working in IT already.
It's no surprise that You can earn a fortune there. Even Brits go there to teach English in private schools for "new" Russian kids and etc.
Russia is attractive place for peoeple with construction skills or people with engineering degrees. Moscow and Perersburg mostly. I don't know what happened to local population, probably they are overqualified people working clean jobs and demand for exceeds it. No one wants to be grushchik:D
My friend a Young lad of 21 just finished tech, went to Piter to renovate school, do manual and semi skilled labour. Euro remont of some sort. He was paid hourly and he got 60000 roubles in two months and zero tax. Food and living was feee. He met Ukrainians, Belorusians and said only few locals were working there, mostly in higher up positions. Conditions were as You would excpect in Germany, new Bosh tools, best materials used, good management, friendly environment. They even called him back to ask how he got back home.
But now it's easier to travel to UK then Russia even if it's 150 km from place where I lived.

I have heard some real horror stories from the UK where the locals turn up for work and then pretend they are working somewhere else on the job site and play soccer, while the foreign workers do the actual work.

The boss pretends to hire 60 people to do the job but only actually hires 40 and pockets the wages for the 20 he didn't hire each week.

Corruption is everywhere... but gets called "standard practise" in the west...

Not only harder, but more expensive. Couple years ago I had to attend funeral in Russia.
I got back to Lithuania from UK and went straight to Russian embassy. I left my passport to get new page. I had an option to wait 10 days and pay 45 USD (yeah, NOT Euros, but USD ) or pay 140 and wait 3 days. I chose later. I stumbled in to problem as I had to get health insurance and I wasn't in Lithuania for more than 6 months and I had no adress so I had to bribe people to make insurance. I was told by Russian embassy to register myself after 3 days in Russia. I had to go to VISA/Passport place and pay 200 roubles.

To go to UK all it takes me is ID card and plane ticket. And it's cheaper.
Russia was always talking about VISA free regime with it's neighbours, but Brussels only feeds us all with promises. It would mostly help lorry drivers as commercial visa cost You a fortune plus it is resource consuming.

And about construction yards- maybe illegal hard labourers are being cheated. I've heard stories about people not getting paid after work is done and if You have problems then ribyati will send You back in a coffin. But everyone works officially now so You have guarantees. Never happened to anyone I know.
When it comes to roofing, Euro remont, electrical installation, interior works usually are done by experienced workers and they are no spring chickens so they know who hires them.
If You are skilled and not lazy You will find more jobs in CIS countries than in Western Europe.
Anyways Belarus is more attractive country for construction workers and companies from my country. We don't give crap about dictatorship, Luka really made his country safe, clean and good to stay. Only hear very positive things about people who worked there.