Russia Turns Its Back on Greatest Dangers

the preoccupation with America has blinded large sections of the Russian elite to other threats facing their country....Foremost among these is demographic decline: the shrinking of Russia. _Blogs.law.harvard/mesh

The city of Moscow contains 2 million muslim residents. By 2015, muslims will make up the majority of the Russian army, and by 2020 they will be one fifth the population of the country. How? By immigration and by differential birthrate. Muslim birth rates remain consistently higher than birth rates of ethnic Russians -- in Moscow and throughout the countryside.

As we have seen in London, Oslo, and Amsterdam, muslims are capable of transforming the life of a large European city with much less than a majority of the population. Anything above 10% muslim population in an important city -- particularly a capital city -- can change the way of life for everyone.

The situation is particularly ominous in Russia, since the indigenous Russian population is dropping so quickly due to high death rates combined with low birth rates. Moscow is apt to be majority muslim within a few decades. Imagine the transformation of once-proud Moscovites into dhimmis -- it may not be long now.

And yet Russians cling to their rabid anti-Americanism, and proceed to encourage nuclear proliferation in Iran, Venezuela, and any other Russia-friendly dictatorship it can form a relationship with. In this case, Russia-friendly necessarily tends to equate with anti-American.

In other words, Russia is forsaking the one reformation that could possibly save it from its almost certain demographic fate. Without human rights and economic reforms combined with stronger relations with the US and/or Europe, Russia is doomed to lose almost all of its country to its neighbors over the next several decades.

Such reforms and such a US or European alliance would require Russia to give up its bully-boy stance in its local neighborhood. But it would inject important investment and technological development into Russia's decrepit energy and industrial sectors. More importantly, it would give indigenous Russians the sense of a real future -- something to live and breed for. Without that, Russia simply evaporates.