Interesting, thanks for that...

Russia won't remain a world power for much longer. China will take over pretty soon with the USA. Countires like Germany, Italy and Japan aren't allowed to make big armies or weapons tech because of end of WW2 Treaty, so that ruels them out...

Putin's become quite the ahole....

While worrying about what other countries should be doing, why doesn't he concentrate on the mess on his own homeland instead of trying strong arm other nations?? Oh wait, communism can't fix the mess at home, so he'll just divert attention away from his country onto other's....

I think Russia has the ability to become a economic super power to rival that of China and the US. They have large numbers of well educated and skilled workers. They also have vast natural resources. Many companies are starting to realize this Ford for example just opened a factory in St. Petersburg.

But many companies are weary to invest large amounts of money in Russia right now because of the horrible red-tape they must go through and other factors like the Mafia control.

Russia is still in a transition period you can't expect the change it was gone through to be easy and quick. I see near unlimited potential in Russia and know it will return to be a super power in a economic sense. The already still have the military power of a super power just from the shear numbers of nuclear and bio weapons they have alone.