When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was an economic collapse. The Communist government spent itself into poverty in the cold techno-war with the United States. Mismanagement and corruption aided and abetted the inevitable.

The value of the Russian ruble fell to nearly nothing and organized crime surged and nearly toppled what was left of the Russian government, in the face of a tattered and disorganized government no longer equipped to combat it.

Slowly and steadily, the Russians worked to rebuild their economy, helped in great part by the foreign investment cajoled in with promises that investors would be treated well, “not like the old days.” Yet as soon as their economy started gaining strength again, the investors were booted out. The old Russian arrogance never seems to die even when there’s no reason in the world left to be anything but humble.

Then the price of oil took off and the Russian economy soared with it. By the time oil hit $140 a barrel, Russia had already threatened everyone with deliberate fuel shortages in winter and financial ruin, and was ” re-negotiating” established fuel contracts that had been written in stone, supposedly.

Russia had big plans of rebuilding and modernizing it’s military, replacing all their very old nuclear submarines with new subs, and all their 30 and 40 year old nukes with new missiles and new warheads. Technologically advance weaponry of all type were planned with all that vast wealth pouring into Russia.

Suddenly, the entire global economy went into reverse. Banks world wide began collapsing, and still are. Unemployment is dramatically increasing, factories are shutting down as sales decline, and the demand for oil has fallen to less than half globally. Since oil accounts for nealy all of Russias exports, this has hit Russia like a ton of bricks as oil has rapidly dropped from over $140 a barrel to less than $54 a barrel as quoted today.

As I write this, Russias stock market is collapsing. Russia looks to be the first domino to fall in a cascade repeat of the Crash of ‘29, and will probably be among the very last to recover from it. All Putins big plans of gaining dominance over Europe, with a renewed and vigorous and very threatening army, and the control of all that needed oil that isn’t needed so much now, have evaporated, and all that’s left is an attack on tiny little Georgia and a lot of empty bluster.

Just when you think the world is headed one way, it changes course. Russias economy isn’t the only thing declining over there. So is their population and the number of available recruits for a declining army. Putin would do well to just sell oil, feed the people and shut up.

Iran is also hard hit by the almost bottomless drop in oil prices. Governed by fanatics who’ve poured all the national income into creating an atomic bomb to attack Israel with, Iran’s population was faring poorly even before the price decline. If their fanatic leaders don’t stop and start feeding their population, that government may not last long either.

North Korea, that nation of poor, skeletal people, may collapse completely as well, since their only real income was from selling nuclear material and tech information. With no buyers, there’s no imports of rice. Starvation is going to wipe out a lot of North Koreans in the coming year. We may see some strange changes over there.

What the Saudis are doing about their diminished income, I don’t know and I don’t think they’re telling. Certainly they have untold billions of dollars on tap anyway, since what they spend on themselves is chicken feed compared to the money pouring in, even now. We may see a Saudi Arabian takeover of chunks of the Middle East, possibly starting with Iran. With all that money, they could really ingratiate themselves to a few stupid and greedy European leaders and thereby create some Islamacised, Wahhabbist states in Europe. Wahhabism is what the Taliban practices. Women shot in the back of the head for walking in public without a male escort, and so forth.

The Muslims have been trying to dominate Russia for ages and the weaker Russia grows, the more inroads the Arabs will attempt and probably succeed at.

Speculation. It’s all just speculation. Obama had that one right, for sure. Change is what’s happening, all over the world, and I really don’t think anyone can predict the future other than what changes, will change again. The tenuous global stability we’ve enjoyed for a long time now is done and over with. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.