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Presumably, we wouldn’t have seen the wholesale nationalization and subsequent fire sale of Russian state assets. It can’t be overstated how badly Russia was basically looted, after they deregulated their export markets and had large parts of their economy liquidated by foreign investors.

Much of that had already happened by then, one of the reasons for 1996 election dynamics. And I don't think there was possibility to make many of Soviet industries profitable or even functional. It was a complete collapse due to administrative rot.

However, that would be a couple fewer years of looting properties which could still be put to some use. Some Soviet plants died later in 90s or even in 00s, which means that they did successfully adjust to market economy.

But the oil price jump was the direct result of our Iraq invasion. And the Iraq invasion was largely possible only after the US no longer had a USSR operating on a global scale as a counterweight. Also, Russian energy exports were a bandaid on a bleeding gut wound.

While that is true, most of that oil wealth was misused, so in just a bit more transparent and democratic system it would be used more efficiently.

And Russia wouldn't be capable of acting as any kind of counterweight for like a decade in any case. So, if that's the main reason, it would still happen.

Its very possible that a CPRF-run Russia wouldn’t be a net energy exporter but a manufacturing hub attempting to rival Germany and Japan.

To rival is a strong word, but Russian manufacturing would still exist, and with it a different culture in the society. Which can't be overstated.

It was harder to see when might was something western states projected outward to make things our flavor of right.

Rather it was harder to see not living somewhere in the ME or Latin America, or Indochina, reading a bit of history.

Now it's easier for me to see being part Armenian. The whole situation with "the West" pressuring Armenia for the same illegal concessions that T*rks do, including the ethnic cleansing part, just "graciously" throwing a few cents to accommodate refugees and not demanding outright surrender of Syunik, is eye-opening.

That’s something Europeans simply don’t want to believe, because they still assume Russians are inferior and incompetent.

Well, the transition from 00s Web to today's Web looks like it just becoming clumsy, crappy and not cool. It doesn't seem like a well-planned operation or a result of consistent policy, but I think it is exactly that.

It may be very inefficient, but it adds centralization and vertical control to powerful governments which they lacked before. They now have ability to efficiently suppress any news or viewpoints or discourses they couldn't in paper media, without accepting responsibility for censorship, and without even spawning discussions of censorship, because of centralized social media where everything can be controlled.

As of Russia, it is simply very hard to believe that a state would spend 200+k lives and a lot of money just thrown out in broken hardware to teach its military to conduct warfare.

But that's exactly what happened. Instead of doing reforms and making things more efficiently, they preserved their power over Russia, their way of doing things, their culture as a kind of elites etc, while still achieving that goal with expenses they consider acceptable. Ukraine may start losing the war soon.

My point is - it was hard to believe for anyone, not just Europeans.