Russia DA

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Russia DA

Uniqueness – Russia and the United States get along now

Medvedev: No progress with US after Bush meeting, Steve Gutterman (staff writer), The Associated Press, July 9th 2008.

Medvedev said Russia wants good relations with Bush's successor in the White House, and that

he and Bush agreed the U.S. election campaign should not disrupt their ties.

"We expressed our mutual opinion that under no conditions should we allow a pause in the

relations," Medvedev said. He said that "irrespective of who wins in the elections, we are interested in

normal, comprehensive and constructive relations with the U.S. administration."

Internal link- Europe, china and many other countries will follow

the united states for alt. energy.

John Podesta, Todd Stern, and Kit Batten, (President, Managing Director for Energy and

Environmental Policy, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress), Capturing the

Energy Opportunity,, November 2007,

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/11/pdf/energy_chapter.pdf Retrieved 6-5-2008

“But far-reaching, mandatory U.S. action has to come first. Without that, the United States

will have no credibility to argue for broader global participation. American action will spur

developing world action in two separate ways. First, the policy changes needed to cut

carbon emissions in the United States are job producing and growth-generating actions.

Other countries will emulate them, just as China, Russia, Brazil, and other countries have

adopted building energy codes and appliance efficiency standards based on U.S. models.”

(So after many countries start switching to alternative energy. The demand for Russia oil is

going to decrease dramatically)

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External link- Russia’s economy is dependent on

exporting oil

Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas exports. In order to manage windfall oilreceipts, the government established a stabilization fund in 2004. By the end of 2007, the fund was

expected to be worth $158 billion, or about 12 percent of the country’s nominal GDP. According to

calculations by Alfa Bank, the fuel sector accounts for about 20.5 percent of GDP, down from around 22 percent in 2000.

According to IMF and World Bank estimates, the oil and gas sector generated more than 60 percent of

Russia’s export revenues (64% in 2007), and accounted for 30 percent of all foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country.

Most of Russia's product exports consist of fuel oil and diesel fuel, which are used for heating in

European countries and, on a small scale, in the United States. Russian oil exports to the U.S. have almost doubled

since 2004, rising to over 400,000 bbl/d of crude oil and products in 2007. Updated monthly and annual data are available from

EIA’s Petroleum Navigator. Increases in product exports can be attributed to political pressures to maintain refinery operations and

higher international oil product prices.

Impacts- Russians economy would collapse with no oil

Russia’s economy will collapse if oil prices decline.

Hudson Institute Study Group on U.S.-Russian Relations in 7(U.S.-RUSSIAN RELATIONS: IS

CONFLICT INEVITABLE?, Summer, http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_uplo...-Web%20(2).pdf)

in 2005 the number of dollar millionaires in Russia grew by 17.4 percent as against 6

percent in the U.S. However, like everything else in Russia, the economy has a false bottom.

The causes of the economy’s success give no grounds for optimism, mainly because it is

associated with high oil prices and has partly been achieved by sectors protected from

foreign competition. A collapse of the oil price could plunge the Russian economy into

recession, and people remember what a fall in the oil price means. Yegor Gaidar has repeatedly reminded us

that the sixfold decrease in the oil price in 1986 led to the collapse of the USSR, and the twofold fall in 1998 caused

a financial crisis that almost finished off the barely breathing Russian economy.

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Impact 2- A collapsed economy in Russia would result inchaos and maybe nuclear war.

David '99 (STEVEN R. DAVID is a Professor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins

University. "Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars." Foreign Affairs January, 1999 /

February, 1999.)

Divining the military's allegiance is crucial, however, since the structure of the Russian Federation makes it virtuallycertain that regional conflicts will continue to erupt. Russia's 89 republics, krais, and oblasts grow ever more

independent in a system that does little to keep them together. As the central government finds itself unable to

force its will beyond Moscow (if even that far), power devolves to the periphery. With the economy

collapsing, republics feel less and less incentive to pay taxes to Moscow when they receiveso little in retur n. Three-quarters of them already have their own constitutions, nearly all of

which make some claim to sovereignty. Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies

may motivate non-Russians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control

inspired similar movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If these rebellionsspread and Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely.

Should Russia succumb to internal war, the consequences for the United States andEurope will be severe. A major power like Russia -- even though in decline -- doesnot suffer civil war quietly or alone. An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic

attacks from enemies such as China. Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and

western Europe. Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear plants, would poison the

environment of much of Europe and Asia. Within Russia, the consequences wouldbe even worse . Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of

Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime.

Most alarming is the real possibility that the violent disintegration of Russia could

lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal. No nuclear state has ever fallenvictim to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be

foreseen. Russia retains some 20,000 nuclear weapons and the raw material for tens of thousands more, in scores of sites scattered throughout the country. So far, the government has

managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much material. If war erupts, however, Moscow's already weakgrip on nuclear sites will slacken, making weapons and supplies available to a wide range of anti-American groupsand states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And itis hard to think of anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civilwar

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Russia DA