Rusisa’s hardly a “Cold War” threat — indeed, people who talk in this way tend to come across as hysterical. Rather, it’s a counttry about as powerful as Portugal which attempts to use the wealth it digs up from the ground to alter the foreign policy of our friends in the core of the Old Core, New Core, and Gap

While plummeting oil and natural gas prices are doing a job at containing Russia, we should not be lulled by the low prices into relying more on these hydrocarbons. Rather, the United States, Europe, India, China, and Japan should work together at developing alternative energy sources, and take away Russia’s ability to cause trouble.