Several key Russian foreign policy experts and commentators have recently voiced some very interesting opinions about the future of Russia and its place in the world.
Yulia Latinina of Novaya Gazeta, one of the country's few remaining independent media outlets, analyzed the impact of American inventor Elon Musk's inventions on the global economy, and on Russia in particular. She specifically singled out Musk's recently unveiled solar battery:
"First, car exhaust is really poisonous of the environment," she wrote. "Second, his battery ensures that the house can be truly autonomous - after the invention of electricity, the house seized being an independent entity throughout the world. And third, this battery will change the world as much as shale gas could, and much more than the results of any election and any revolution."
Latinina feels that Musk's breakthrough - along with other creations such as the hyperloop - will shift power away from presidencies and official heads of state, and move us toward a world where entrepreneurs have bigger sway and greater influence on international affairs. She is clearly impressed with the influence America's top high-tech companies have, both at home and around the world. While she may overstate that influence, she importantly laments the absence of like initiatives in Russia, where major inventors and entrepreneurs must toe the government line:
"President Putin is seriously waiting for the United States to finally come to its senses and to sit down to negotiate with him, as with Joseph Stalin at Yalta in 1945 and divide the world into spheres of influence ... The problem is that the ‘zone of influence' of the United States in the modern world is not established by Barack Obama, but by Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs. But since Putin's policy is not to allow a Musk or a Jobs in Russia - since every independent entrepreneur is a potential threat to the authorities - the underlying principle for such negations practically does not exit."
Striking a much darker tone, Russian political scientist Andrei Pointkovsky is convinced that a major war in the Middle East is made inevitable by Russia's promise to deliver its S-300 missile system to Iran. Pointkovsky noted that in such a scenario, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be able to solve all of his "Russian World" projects. Not only will Ukraine decline as a priority for the Americans and Europeans, but the Baltics and the Caucasus may also be threatened.
"Putin checkmated Obama's so-called military option with the S-300 delivery to Tehran. The S-300 is a masterpiece - the pinnacle of Soviet military technology - and it will be placed around key Iranian nuclear infrastructure, cancelling Israeli capabilities (to strike nuclear reactors). The United States will retain some striking capacity - the Russian system cannot help against stealth bombers - but everything else will be much more difficult and dangerous, and Obama will never politically commit to such a course of action." Pointkovsky emphasized that Obama counts on Israel to do all of the dirty work in any scenario involving a military strike. Once the S-300 is in place, Israel will no longer have this opportunity.
"It took Putin 10 years to get to this point, including his policies of not allowing tough sanctions that could halt Iran's nuclear program. Putin's strategy has been to ensure that such actions would sooner or later provoke an Israeli attack," he wrote.
Pointkovsky is also convinced that the broader Arab Sunni world will give Israel cart-blanche to push back against Iranian Shia influence: "I think a mega war in the Middle East is inevitable ... this is eagerly anticipated in Moscow - imagine the price of oil when this unfolds."
