Russia has sent its army into Georgia in what is a full blown war, its repercussions, will have ripples well beyond the region and represents a narrative which to some extent is miraculous.
When Studying for my degree at University in 1998, all my economics classes were about the failure of communism and what it had done to Russia – We all considered by 1998, a good 8 years after the fall of communism, Russia dead and buried, in 1998 it has a financial crash, where the rouble took a tumble causing inflation in a nation already reeling from economic crisis. The IMF and World Bank couldn’t wait to get their hands on Russia, converting a centrally driven economy into a successful free market economy was always their dream. The IMF and World Bank sold states assets and utilities for the cheap and the Oligarchs made millions.
Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltson (who incidentally sold the country to the West) in 1999, a nationalist who endeavored to change the fortunes of Russia. Putin began the process of re-nationalizing key sectors, assets, utilities and industries through policies intended to change the course of the nation. He dealt with the oligarchs who were essentially looting the nation, by restricting the amount of money they took out of the nation; some were allowed to leave the country only if they contributed to the re-building of the nation such a Roman Abromovich, whilst other oligarchs were dealt with ruthlessly. He stabilized the domestic situation through economic policies which were only possible under a dictatorship – any parliament or senate would have stalled on such huge decisions and would have allowed their own interests to get in the way.
In less then 10 years Russia is back, and for all those former communist states that fought for independence and become Western allies it will be payback time.
The lesson for the Muslim rulers is it took Russia less then 10 years to achieve such a feat, China is currently 20 years into its development programme, Germany achieved rapid economic development in 5 years prior to WW2. With some direction and vision Russia has actually achieved something that was considered impossible less then 10 years ago.