“The demise of the Soviet Union had to a lot to do with their reliance on following political ideology.”

The problem with any centrally controlled system is that all you get is what the central controller(s) allows, which is mostly what *he* wants, not necessarily what helps the people; provides consumer technology, service, and quality (and quantity); or advances the overall national interests. The controller does not worry so much about efficient use of resources, because his concern is only the effective use — getting what he wants (and if he has to spend a fortune to complete a launch site on time, then he will go ahead and do so, but those resources could have been used somewhere else).

This can seem to work, for a while, so Russia may become a dominant world power again, but it is doomed to failure. Eventually, even five-year plans do not achieve their goals. This is why the Soviet Union failed; it chose to dedicate its railroad locomotives to move military assets from its European satellite countries, per a treaty agreement, rather than move food from the farms to the cities. They did not have the locomotive resources to do both, thus the hungry population rebelled.

Free market (especially capitalist) countries are controlled by the masses. It looks like anarchy, but there is a method behind the apparent madness (usually explained as an “invisible hand,” because people can relate to central control, such as a brain). What you get is what the people want, and some of those people are willing to supply the government with its needs, too. Free market people see and fill needs (including government’s needs), improve consumerism, increase efficient use of resources, and advance national interests as a byproduct (or maybe national interests are another product, because they are seen as a need to be filled). Hunger is rare in free market countries, because the producers see food-needs in advance and plan ahead to fill them at a profit.* This is why communist countries are now moving toward free markets.

As Putin moves closer to centralized control, he falls into the same trap that Lennon did.

* Profits are not as bad as some would have you believe. They are the reward for increasing the efficient use of resources.

For sure, Jim, you are right. These factors are clearly reasons for Russia to hurry the completion of Vostochny along.

However, my point was to note what appears to be an overall educated and direct interest that Putin is showing to his aerospace industry and space effort. It isn’t just Vostochny that is being shaken up. Everything in Russia’s space effort is being changed, and Putin has apparently been directly involved in every case. And since his model for doing things well is to copy the successes of the Soviet Union, he is remaking Russian space back into what it was back in the 1960s, a single giant heavy industry divided into competing design bureaus that all take their orders from Moscow and from him.

It is possible this is going to work in the short run, over the next decade. Russia will have a string of successes in space, pushed by a determined Moscow leadership. Long term, however, it will collapse again, as did the Soviet Union, in bureaucracy, corruption, and waste.

That’s ridiculous. Russia don’t invade other countries, the US does!
Finland gained their independence from Sweden in 1809 when Russia reluctantly obeyed Napoleons demand to invade Sweden. Russia later liberated Europe from Napoleon. Russia turned Finland into a monarchy with a Russian prince and its first own parliament. 100 years later Russia did little to resist Finland forming a republic. The great modern European metropol of St. Petersburg was the natural focus for Finland. Their first president was an officer in the cavalry of the tsar and naturally had served Russia in war.

Today many in West confuse Russia with the communists. Communism is the same where ever it takes power. Russian communism is not different from what US communism would be. Has nothing at all to do with Russia as a historic state or Russian national culture. Russia has actually been extremely careful in foreign policy. While Prussia, England, France and even Sweden often have got mixed up in adventurous wars against superior foes, Russia has only began war in alliance with at least one other great power and only against one weak state at a time. Its expansion in Poland in the 19th century was a mutual agreement together with all of Poland’s neighbors. Same in 1939. There is no Russian tradition of running adventurous foreign policy.

The fear of communism irrationally creates fear of today’s anti-communist Russia.

The US has been the main supporter of islamist terrorism in the world. having supported the talibans, Saddam Hussein, Saudiarabia (who has the fourth largest military expenditures!), Pakistan (the islamist state with nuclear weapons) and now talk about supporting the Kurds. It has all resulted in total failure and defeat. The only force fighting against islamists in the world today is Russia, and islamists killing each other. The US is holding back Israel from defeating their enemies. Russia is much more efficient as world police than the US is. And they don’t mess with the other side of Earth, they secure their own borders.

Since Putin really needs to be out of our space program, and their having a strong space program is a big point of pride for Russians (IE politically vital for Putin), I expect that big booster will either be launching a new all Russian station, or manned lunar missions. <aybe they'll even start more seriously looking at Mars?

“Soviet collapsed a quarter of a century ago! Get over it!”

And yet, Finland became independent nearly 100 years ago, and Putin has talked in meetings about reclaiming Finland, according to Boris Yeltsin’s last Foreign Minister. Putin has threatened Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania more than once. He is rebuilding *not* the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire.

As for a US presence in the ME, the movement to revive the Caliphate began in 1928, long before we got much involved there. Reviving the empire that was the Caliphate, and extending its rule over all the Earth is a common theme in the websites of both Salafist and Khomeinist groups. The attempts of the current administration to pander to one revivalist group, and then another, and another, reflect the basic incompetent worldview they hold.

That basic incompetence has 30 months to run our policies yet. Then we can hope for better.

“Soviet collapsed a quarter of a century ago! Get over it!
This has nothing to do with that ancient history.”

Tell that to Ukraine and Georgia. Putin’s actions have everything to do with the “ancient” history of the past two decades. Does Putin want to reconquer the old soviet states? Who knows but he does want certain things from these states, like the naval base in Crimea.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Russia is still a geopolitical threat to the USA and the world.

The relationships between Russia and their former victims plays a large role in Russia’s foreign policy decisions. Russia doesn’t want to be dependent on them for anything. Why is this? Perhaps it is a signal they want to rebuild the soviet empire or perhaps they don’t want Europeanization to have any negative impacts on Russian interests.

“More important is the extremely huge and aggressive US military expansion into Central Asia, where the US continues to finance and arm fundamentalist islamist terror everywhere. Terrorists who murder Russian civilians with their bombs in subways and hostage taking of entire schools.”

The USA was not behind the Islamic militants in Chechnya. Do you really believe that?

It seems to me that Russia and the USA have a common enemy.

Soviet collapsed a quarter of a century ago! Get over it!
This has nothing to do with that ancient history. More important is the extremely huge and aggressive US military expansion into Central Asia, where the US continues to finance and arm fundamentalist islamist terror everywhere. Terrorists who murder Russian civilians with their bombs in subways and hostage taking of entire schools. Russia abandons dependence on Kazakstan because the US has bought their corrupt dictators.

The worst terror in the world today is the US-Saudi-Sharia law-al Qaida axis of evil. I am glad that at least Russia stands up against this violent islamistisc terrorist aggression against Europe. No one else does.

Putin recognizes that having operations in other countries creates a mutual dependence and changes the power structure of relationships. He doesn’t want a Kazakhstan to have any power over Russia in the manner that Russia has over the USA right now.

Russia is consolidating industrial power from ex-soviet states to Russia. I wager you will see this happening in many different industries and it explains the strategic importance of the territory they have been seizing from Ukraine. The question is, what are the long term implications? What are Russia’s plans for Kazakhstan after they do not rely on them for launches?

Putin can do what he is doing because he has no opposition in the world, it is strategically wise to do so now because the next president may not be as “evolved” as our current president. And now we see that there really are consequences to elections.