Challenges to Russia Piling Up Quickly Like Snow

Finland's Ministry of Defense recently made available a 2008 study of contemporary Russian challenges (PDF). As might be expected, Russia's demographic problems are highlighted:

Russia is about to face big demographic challenges. Russia’s population is diminishing by approximately 400 000 persons per year; yet, the population in 15 Russian regions increased in 2005. Each of them, such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetya in the North Caucasus has sizeable Muslim populations. The life expectancy among Muslim males is far greater than that of ethnic Russians.

Paul Goble, an expert of Islam and the Muslim populationin Russia, estimates that the majority of Russian military recruits will be Muslims in 2015. In 2020 twenty per cent of the citizens will be Muslims, provided that the current demographic trends continue. If no changes occur, within three decades the majority of the citizens of the Russian Federation will be Muslims. Russian Muslims are a very heterogeneous group, ranging from Volga Tatars and multiethnic groupings in the North Caucasus to the new immigrants from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. _Finish PDF report excerpted in Tundra Tabloids _ via _ Islam in Europe

Russia's muslims breed faster than the Slavic population, just as western Europe's muslims breed faster than the indigenous Europeans. Since muslims tend to settle in cities, where welfare payments are easier to obtain, it is the cities of Russia and Europe which will be impacted by muslim pluralities and majorities first. The Finnish ministry report predicts that by 2020, 20% of persons living in Russia will be muslim. But of course, that number will be much higher in Moscow and other cities.

Within the Russian military, new conscripts will be overwhelmingly muslim, and you will have a Slavic officer corps lording it over a disaffected muslim conscript army. Good luck with that, Vlad.

Even without the falling ruble, Russia’s impoverished population, working for an average wage of $4/hour, already faced double-digit consumer price inflation. Russia’s feeble economy is unable to produce a wide range of basic consumer products, and therefore must import them — and the falling ruble means a whole new level of inflation piled on top of the existing one. _LaRussophobe

With such problems inside Russia mushrooming, who can blame Putin for wanting to travel abroad to hobnob with the rich and famous, and harangue them on how they should be running their economies and their lives?