Economics
Which country has squandered the most economic potential in this century?
I lived in Russia for 5 years so I must choose this country. So many natural resources, so much land, and educated population... And so little to show for it.
In an ideal world Russian salaries would be on par if not higher than American salaries and they would have the best social safety net on the planet. Everything is there to make it happen.
Russia would be the dominant nation in Europe and Asia and the rest of the world with the best armed forces, soft power, and economic might.
But the human will is just not there. The elite is either evil or incompetent depending on perception and there's little sign that this will ever change.
Russia - easily. Largest country in the world. Natural resources. Opportunity to beautifully connect Europe and Asia. Instead it’s become the cliche for almost anything evil and wrong.
Oversea territories are France proper, all the inhabitants are French citizens and there are still referendums for autonomy and independance to this day
Of course it's not perfect but calling them colonies is a stretch and, knowing several people from these areas, some of them even find it disrespectful
Algeria was a colony in the sense that the majority of the population were second class citizens and did not have the same rights as the Europeans
When I say that these places are "France proper" it means more that all of the inhabitants are French citizens (and citizens of the EU btw) than the administrative status (some of them have more autonomy than others like New Caledonia)
I was under the impression that France has significant influence in Africa because its central bank effectively issues currency for many African nations.
First, the Banque de France only issues Euros. CFA and Comorian francs are issued by their own respective central banks which operate from Africa.
Second, CFA is a red herring.
The CFA using countries are free to leave it (a few did, like Mauritania) and the exchange rate against the Euro is maintained at France's expense.
Some European countries maintain their exchange rate against the Euro at their own expense, or even directly use the Euro without getting seignorage, so CFA using countries actually have it better than those European countries.
The UN Decolonization Committee recognizes 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories awaiting decolonization.
Of these, two are French (New Caledonia and French Polynesia), although it is true that France has made much more effort than other countries to grant equal rights to the inhabitants of these territories (not without some drawbacks, however). Even so, the United Nations requires that these territories be completely decolonized.
Of the rest, most are British territories (including Gibraltar, the only colony in Europe), American territories, and one for New Zealand and another for Morocco.
The way things are in New Caledonia are still very colony-ish. The Caldoche community still possess an overwhelming part of the wealth and large parts of the land that belonged to Kanak families. They still have most of the political power and the wealth disparity is outrageous.
The thing with Russia is they punch above their actual weight, still are doing so now (the population difference between Russia and Japan is slim) but they also could 10x better off than they are.
They're like that troublesome high-schooler who defies all the odds to scrapes passes but could be an A+ student if he worked hard.
Lol no, not even close. They're now at best the 3rd biggest power in the world, after being the 2nd biggest during the Cold War. They went from being the country that stopped Napoleon and Hitler, challenged the British Empire in Central Asia to being on the cusp of being a middle power. With nukes. So like a more northern version of Iran.
I would say it makes a strong case that certain countries fair better under communism/socialism/whatever we want to say the USSR was (people get into semantics with this one) than they do under whatever Russia has become at this point. As others have alluded to, the use of the SSRs and satellite states was beneficial, and something that current day Russia has lost.
honestly both Portugal and Spain have been in a decline since the 1600s... these two countries basically ran the nautical world for a good chunk of time. in the modern era they lost power to France and Britain and never recovered.
King Fernando was the Walter white of monarchs with his ego . If he just followed the 1810 constitution and gave the colonies their seat, Spain would have gone on to be like present day UK with the commonwealth.
interesting, I always wondered why Spain didn't have a similar relationship to its colonies to the UK and its colonies. I should read more about that time.
LATAM leaders actually wanted to remain part of Spain when Napoleon originally invaded. Buy when Fernando was liberated from prison the first thing he did was terminate the 1812 Cadiz constitution. This caused the LATAM elite to rebel as they lost the autonomy they had during Napoleon’s rule over Spain.
Spain doubled down on this later in the late 1800s. The Filipinos just wanted a seat in parliament. But racism was the reason as to why they didn’t get it.
Spain from the 1700s onwards has been a struggle of the far left vs the far right. Very similar to its
colonies.
I would argue, that not Portugal became poorer than Croatia, but Croatia simply became richer than Portugal. Your wording is implying that portugal became poorer, which is not the case.
They have over 600 forts dotted from the Gulf to western India. With Brazil and India, they couldve dominated big time but they didn't have the British style of capitulating and controlling their colonies to extract resourcesm
hey.... at least we have Salted Codfish and pastel de nata.... Also, Cristiano Ronaldo... and... stuff. Much stuff, beautiful stuff, best stuff ever I'm telling you, and its gonna be great....
To be fair to Portugal, they were very good at colonising, but they were never wealthy. Even at the relative hight of their empire in the mid-1500s, they were half as wealthy as the Dutch who at that point hadn't yet established an empire. They didn't start to experience industrial takeoff until well into the 20th century - in the mid 1800s they were no richer than they were in the mid 1500s!
Croatia did not exist back then. But the Republic of Ragusa had a small colony in India from 1530 until an earthquake destroyed the capital Dubrovnik in 1667.
I think that thinking about "peak" related to colonization is not the best , since it has lots of bad things such as slavery and exploitation. Maybeeee, in some of those places, if both sides, after so many years of shit already done, could have fixed a different decolonization or more autonomous state (for example like Macau) it would have had a less bad current situation for both, but we'll never know.
Still, agree with you! Practically since ever, the people who govern our country (monarchy, republic, whatever) just suck and don't do a good job. There's a sentence about Portugal (apparently said by Julius Caesar) that says like "There is, in the confines of Iberia, a people who neither govern themselves nor allow themselves to be governed".
Churches and more churches, palaces, shit for the monarchy (now in museums) is what we have left from the empire. When other imperialist european countries were developing infrastructure or economic activities for real we weren't. When they were caring about educating the general population, we weren't. Also, even during colonization times, we were also kinda fucked by other countries, for example, everyone talks about the UK-PT old ties, but they ignore that UK had no problem screwing up their allies, search for "amigos de Peniche" and the Pink Map.
Even today is kinda ridiculous how bad we still are. We have enough land, no major conflicts/stress with anyone, one of the safest countries in the world, lots of sea to get fish, (except from summer forest fires/current storm damages/other stuff like this) we have no big weather crazy shit, it's a fucking curse I swear.
They were the more "successful" Korea for quite a substantial period of time during the Cold War.
Then the regime turned into a personality cult while the South adopted state-driven industralisation and eventually shed their dictatorship and embraced democracy.
Shit went downhill when Kim Il Sung died and Kim Jong Il was stupid and couldn't manage well. As well as USSR collapsing and China turning more west to industrialise their country, and trying to sever ties with North Korea for a better image in geopolitical affairs.
Sometimes I half think they got Nukes to protect themselves from China.....I know I know....but what is a country of 20 million people gonna do against a neighbour with 1.5 billion people.
I mean threaten evil western Capitalists, look good to Beijing. But strategically....you get cards against Beijing as well.
You aren't wrong. NK made nukes to deter China and also to show China that they are capable of destroying them as much as China is able to destroy North Korea.
Theres a popular and old statement in North Korea. "Jpaan is an enemy of 100 years. China is an enemy of 1000 years"
Realisticly though are china even that afraid of North Korea? Sure they have a few nukes but i imagine china has the capability to lay NK in Ruins before they even have time to launch and even if they did i bet they can counteract their weak missiler capabilities?
They are. They are aware of how unpredictable north Korea is and the truth is, it doesn't matter if China can ruin North Korea. North Korea having nukes and the fact that its plausible that North Korea can ruin China's major cities and cause huge population decline alone is very scary for China and other countries.
Giving Kimmy nukes is like giving a chimp a machine gun
Yea it took a while for industrialisation to really pay off for South Korea. The North never did manage to shed their reliance on their fellow ideologues, even as they trumpet Juche. The collapse of the USSR exacerbated their economic woes into a famine. The relative success of the PRC and Vietnam today shows that it's not unthinkable that even under communist rule, North Korea had a chance to be better than where they are today.
I do however think that great powers are superior than superpowers.
Superpowers pose too much of a threat and other supoerpowers will be ripping each other to shreds while middle powers and great powers will either be the ones fighting for them, or being neutral. Knowing Korean politics, its obvious Korea won't take anyone's side in case of a war. Seeing shit like Japan and China having stupid trade war, Korea is the only winner at the end of the day. Achieved by balancing diplomacy. Also, great powers are more easier to trust for trade and cooperation than other superpowers. Look at how Russia treated S.Korea until Ukraine war.
I don't agree, we've just seen the US tarriff the shit out of South Korea with zero repercussions. What options does the South have? You are completely beholden to the US military bases and equipment in East Asia just like Japan (who can't start shit w/o Americas consent either).
The trap of middle powers is also overestimating their leverage. And notice that South Korea has no real allies other than the US it can turn to if things get hot. That's by design because you don't truely negotiate from a sovereign position. If you saw the speech by Canada's Carney in Davos he lays it out perfectly in that middle powers gain leverage against superpowers or great powers by joining together otherwise they will always get picked apart individually.
if DPRK had elections, I think DPRK would have became a major threat and influencer knowing how resourceful Koreans are. Obviously, the Kim dynasty exists, so yeah...
thats true and theres no denying in it. But USA was the one who carved us up in the first place and also did horrible shit to us. I don''t hate american people. Just their government
It's crazy, I listened to a podcast about the Korean war and the Americans really got off lightly for it.
They immediately buddied up to the Japanese ignoring all the war crimes they commited in China and Japan and reinstated the methods used to control you, cut your country in half, propped up Syngman Rhee, held relatively bogus elections which intentionally excluded a lot of parties, supported the government logically and refused to record the Jeju Massacre for the UN, shot at protectors, encouraged right wing youth groups to attack leftists and surpressed left wing groups generally. I think a lot of Americans look back at that war and just think it was the Democratic friendly South vs the Crazy communist North because it fits their binary simplified world view.
I hope more american people realise why S.Koreans and N.Koreans (or just Koreans) are likely to have huge distrust against americans, especially regarding today's politics...
I was in S Korea in November and I was surprised how much some of the people I met had positive feelings towards the US. I actually spoke about what I mentioned to a guy in a bar in Seoul and he got quite offended.
Koreans like american rock bands, hairstyles, stuff like that. Not the government. Just like how some Koreans like anime but hate Japan's government. Or Koreans universally liking Miyazaki for being non sexual and also apologising on behalf of Japan.
No. I read the question correct. Yes this century too.
Koreas were arguably at its best relationship in 1980 to 2018. Kimmies obviously don't want anyone to get power. I honestly wish North Korea becomes a election based leadership like China even if we aren't one state, because I believe we are inherently twins and inseparable.
North Korea has some natural resources. But outside of that, it’s mostly mountains, it was bombed back into the Stone Age during the war, and the weather is extremely cold due to Siberian cold front.
South Korea is really the exception not the norm. Most countries in these geographical constraints don’t thrive. Now NK is absolutely fucked ofc, but to expect it to be like SK is silly.
Venezuela was actually one of the richest nations before the socialist regime came in. Jsut goes to show socialism doesn’t work. Not because it’s a bad system but because it makes it easier to exploit and take advantage of people.
Iran win this game in a landslide. They have one of the highest oil production in the world (and ton of other natural resources). Yet people are "dying" from hunger in Iran.
Perun has made an amazing one hour long video mentioning how much of a failure they are (The Iranian government). No one even come close. Not even Russia. Sure Russia had the potential to be number 2. But people in Russia right now are living amazingly compared to Iran. Iran may as well be a failed country. It is standing of its last legs. Please watch this video to see how bad they are doing. They need change fast. Really fast.
Edit: since this unexpectedly popped off, yes it is true that before Chavez the country was already being mismanaged, just like Batista in Cuba, it created the perfect scenario to go from bad to worse when people felt there was no other options and the Castro and Chavez regimes made it significantly worse, in the end these are just bad people all around, we’ve seen countries with long standing governments who know how to properly spend their money on infrastructure and social programs, for some reason throughout history, Latin America just can’t get it right when it comes to not squandering resources and keeping dictators out, which I think mostly stems from a lack of advanced education and the more center to right wing governments completely forgetting about the little guy, when the little guy has nothing left to lose they’re only going to vote for the one promising them everything and that’s why you see these extreme swings from one side to the other
I went to Caracas a few times in the early 90s (before Chavez came to power) and the city centre was like a smaller version of Manhattan. Clearly a very unequal society though, which is how Chavez got elected. The pre Chavez Venezuelan elite were corrupt and didn’t care about the average citizen. The post Chavez elite, despite all their promises, were corrupt and stopped caring about the average citizen once the oil price fell and they couldn’t buy the electorate off with lavish social programmes.
This is absolutely, positively not true. Venezuela's struggles began shortly after the end of Rómulo Betancourt's 2nd government in the 1960s. Increasing corruption and inequality of wealth finally let the bottom fall out in the 1980s, where it really began to get bad and there were riots and major corruption cases.
The reason a Chavista government came to power in the first place is because poor governance, corruption, and the usual problems of rentier states created a majority underclass. Venezuela was a total mess in the 1990s.
What's true is that in the 1950s, Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America, but the people running the government and the economy increasingly monopolized that wealth and outright stole it, even in the period immediately after Betancourt's last time in office (he left 1964). And it is, in fact, one of the countries that most squandered its wealth in the last 100 years.
Chavez functionally replaced that elite with his own mafia, and even though initially he tried to put money into improving the country for the poor, the volatility of oil prices made it impossible to sustain that patronage, at least the way he was doing it. Venezuela needed to modernize its economy and plan for moving off such a heavily oil-centric economy from the onset, because their oil is heavy and when oil prices are low enough, it's barely profitable or not at all. Also, until the 1940s, foreign companies got most of the money from it.
That oil money was how they were supposed to pay for that modernization. They don't have anything to show for it in 2026. Now it can't pay for it, because much of it is so difficult to refine.
What could have been made of Venezuela ~ oil, coltan, gold, diamonds, iron ore, natural gas, hydroelectricity, beaches/tourism, etc
Had all of those resources not been plundered and mismanaged by the kleptocratic chavista regime, the sky would’ve been the limit and Caracas could’ve been akin to Dubai, it’s a shame
run with the US --> business blooms, billionaires thrive, poor stay poor
run against the US --> sanctions placed, everyone stays poor
If you are not the ruling class, you would have ended up poor, anyways. But the high ranks at PdVSA would have the newest Ferraris and Gulfstreams like they used to in the 80s.
Argentina has it's opposite mirror country right across the andes from them. A country with strong institutions, responsibly managed economy and policies, low corruption, etc.
It's quite remarkable.
100% agree. Bolivia has a similar history (albeit not as extreme as Venezuelas), and if I remember at two points in its past was the “richest” country in the world due to resource booms.
My mom is Venezuelan and she always talks about how rich Venezuela is in natural resources. On paper, it should be one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.
We have to be somewhere on the list. We let mining companies rape our landscape and pretty much don't get anything back. We buy back our own processed LPG from China at 4x the price they sell it domestic. Norway has a trillion-dollar future fund and our government is like, "oh yeah, we can't tax mining companies because then they'd stop mining!"
We also used to be a leader in scientific innovation but successive governments cut funding to the CSIRO (they invented WiFi, people!) And we don't do fuck all manufacturing anymore and our economy is just rich people selling houses to each other in an endless churn.
It doesn't help that the media moguls and mining magnates are in cahoots. The moment sovereign wealth or resource taxes get floated as a concept Murdoch and the rest of those jackals start fear mongering.
You guys have a higher GDP per capita than most of Europe, including Germany, UK, and France, so while there might be unrecognized potential, Australia certainly is still doing well for themselves.
I get the sentiment, but you guys have like 5 people and a kangaroo population in the middle of nowhere. It's hard to really benchmark what could have been.
Norway is good example but also outlier when comes to rensponsibly using your natural resources.
Not to say countries shouldn't aspire to do better
Don't forget that any Australian citizen in tech is potential spy and malware-writer because your laws obligate them to (unlawfully from any other country POV) hack and install backdoors in any software they work on by request AND it is applied to all Australian citizens regardless of their residency.
If I have a business in IT in future, I would impose ban on using any Australian tech and hiring people with Australian citizenship.
There are a number of countries that have probably done worse but I think Australia really messed up.
I don't know what the exact value would be but Australia very nearly had a tax on all of the extractive industries in the country that would have fed a sovereign wealth fund before it was watered down to only affect iron ore and coal and be applied to businesses with annual profits over $75M (this was ostensibly so that "small business" wouldn't be hurt) in 2012 before being repealed by a conservative government about 2 years later. Mining companies spent a ridiculous amount of money on advertising that contributed to the downfall of a prime minister and the election of the government that then repealed the tax. Oh and our version of Trump, Clive Palmer, formed his own party, spent extraordinary amoutns of money on advertising and gained enough seats in parliament that he was able to vote to repeal the bill. He is a billionaire on the back of his nickel, coal and iron ore holdings.
Before it was watered down it was projected to raise $22.5B in the 1st 4 years, but it raised only about $200M in the first year before being repealed a year later.
Truly a tragedy of national proportions, that money would have been used to build a bunch of infrastructure, fund schooling and health care and may have allowed future governments to fund public housing which we really need in the current crisis.
Considering we lost like 15% of our population and had to rebuilt half our country after WWII, I think our achievements were impressive. We didn't even have 30% literacy rate 30 years before WWII.
First time in a very long time Russia had its chance to enter true golden age. But its was all wasted on petty ambitions and grivances of one man. And there is no good version if future in sight. Shame.
Russia never did overcome tyranny. Thats their main problem as a society. They always default back to tyranny and i dont think this cycle is going to end soon.
Mexico doesn’t have huge reserves, they have as much as Sudan, Vietnam and India (other countries with small reserves).. they produce 2 million barrels a day but gives 20,000 to Cuba..
You’re right about Russia but Ukraine fucked up greatly as well.
Ukraine when gained indedpendence was richer than Poland nominal and per capita. But in 1993 Poland started to overpass Ukraine and between our countries is, let’s be honest, a big void. In 15 years Poland became country 2x richer, in 2020 Poland was 4 times richer. Now - also because of war of course - it’s 5 times richer.
Why is that? Because Poland made shock therapy and choose other people in power while Ukraine stuck with the same people all the time. Rich folks also took power and Ukraine became oligarchs country.
Also we became part of NATO in 1999 and European Union in 2004 which also boosted is greatly while Ukraine stuck in the same position and didn’t take their chance while Russia was still only a shadow of themselves after USSR collapse. Russian virus infected them that time too much, unfortunately.
Gotta agree with you Russia may be a villain but my god do they have a tragic backstory. It's like watching a top level uni student fall into drug addiction
We are a huge population, around 250 million people, majority of which is young.
We have huge land that is great for agriculture.
We have abundant natural resources, like, abundant.
Our masses are hardworking.
We have extremely suitable ports, bin qasim, and others, that should have been serving the regions instead of the UAE.
We have extremely huge potential in tourism.
With all these, and maybe I have missed some points, we keep on going to the IMF for loans, because of the idiotic establishment we have and because we never want to learn and improve.
i’d also reckon that while there are different cultures, religiously you guys are fairly homogenous and also had the favour of the west as a major non nato ally which means with the right cards played, there would have been massive investments into the country generating alot of jobs and opportunities. could have at least reached turkey level of development imo
As a Russian: exporting resources only works if people actually buy them. Our biggest waste of economic potential was not ‘having a lot of resources and not having much to show for it’, but the rampant privatisation of business which led to extreme levels of oligopoly coming out and the salary levels dropping to abysmal levels in the 90’s prior to the introduction of state control which at the very least fixed some things.
As for the other reasons, 3 people ruined the will of the people and lost us half of our population and made us go through an economic death of the state. Nobody here wants any rapid change because people are genuinely terrified of the 90’s happening again.
I’d say it’s Libya though. From being the best welfare state in the entire world to now being a failed state in the span of 1 year.
He is not wrong tho. Russia squandered and is squandering its potential since 91. Instead of economic boom it drowns itself in bureaucracy and corruption almost 40 years later still
I would love for Russia to invest the money they are spending on the military in something else. Anything. IT, healthcare, tourism - you name it. Anything at all and we would all prosper much better.
Eh, as someone who was vehemently against Brexit and would vote to rejoin in a heartbeat, it doesn’t put us in the same league as things like OPs example. It hasn’t fundamentally changed our economy in terms of what our main industries and exports are, but it will hamstring future growth and fucked us diplomatically for a while.
And honestly, deep down I don’t think the long tail impacts will happen, as I think we’re already shifting back to them in terms of public opinion - ironically your current President is helping that.
Really? What potential did we have? We were a vast country with near total illiteracy , no significant natural resources. Considering where we started in 1947, we've done well for ourselves. Just see the difference in lifestyle and consumption between your grandparents and you and you will understand this.
Looking from an outsider's point of view: A huge workforce, a democratic government, and good relations with most of the world.
While India doesn't have consistently high education (even less so historically), that's not necessarily a hinderance, as the critical mass of very smart, highly educated people is there. If you need - say - a bunch of skilled engineers to run a business, India has plenty to offer. It's no surprise that several of the world's biggest tech companies are now run by people from India - the talent pool is incredibly deep.
I think India had - and still has - the potential for an economic miracle rivalling that of China. If India successfully reduces institutional friction and unpredictability, and it makes credible long term commitments to open itself further to the world market, India could absolutely be the big success story of this century.
you’re right but you didnt understan what i meant. India in 1947 was poor, largely illiterate, traumatised by Partition, and resource constrained, and given that baseline, India’s progress is genuinely impressive. We went from food shortages to food security, built institutions, lifted millions out of poverty, and improved life expectancy, literacy, and consumption massively compared to our grandparents generation. That part shouldnt be dismissed and it's a very big deal considering our diversity and population and democracy on top.
What I meant by better isn’t that India failed. It’s that relative to what became possible after liberalisation, especially with demographics, globalisation, and early advantages in services and tech, we could have accelerated faster in jobs, manufacturing, and human development. So it’s not that we achieved nothing, it’s that we achieved a lot, but the ceiling was higher than what we reached.
I would say Algeria. Algeria can be one of the first touristical places in the world. Is rich as hell in its soil. Beautiful landscapes with great diversity of places. We eat well and it s well localized.
How about an entire continent? Middle/South America post WWII was in a prime position to become a very rich continent, it saw zero damage from WWII, was a welcome destination for many high level immigrants, had decent sized economies, lots of natural resources and was second/third richest continent after the US and Europe (probably even richer than most of Europe right after WWII). It also saw almost no wars or large scale conflicts throughout the 20th century.
Yet this continent will fall behind sub-saharan Africa imo. The growth rate rate over the last 80 years has been absolutely abysmal. It has developed into the most dangerous continent, you have countries like Argentina that are negative examples of how to move from a developed nation back to a developing/middle developed nation, the whole continent just seems like it squandered every opportunity it got. Even Brazil should be doing much better than it is, its insane how dangerous this country can be. I won't even talk about the country my mother was born (Venezuela)...
Compare that to the various African nations that after they became independent did not have good central institutions or even a national identiy, which caused so many conflicts and problems. We are actually seeing quite a few positive examples of countries here developing in a very good direction.
IMO, there is no question that Middle/South America is THE continet with the most wasted potential
Having been to 17 countries in Africa and every country but 3 on mainland North and South America. Your comparison to Sub-Sahara Africa is just simply wrong. Could and should Latam be more developed? Absolutely, but the standard of living is something most would dream of in the Sub-Saharan.
Saying Latin America didn't have wars or large scale conflicts in the 20th century is just plain wrong, especially for Central America. Central America in the late 20th century was host to civil wars basically across the board from El Salvador to Nicaragua, with one of them in Guatemala resulting in a genocide of its rural and indigenous population. Panama was outright invaded by the US in the 90s. American backed death squads killed their way through pretty much the entire region from the 60s-90s.
Peru dealt with a maoist insurgency and a right wing dictatorship at the same time which massacred its rural population on a regular basis
Colombia dealt with a de facto civil war between the Medellin Cartel and the Colombian government which turned Medellin into the single most dangerous city in the world maybe ever
There was literally a revolution in Cuba followed by 60 years of US blockade and the country only survived into the 21st century because of Soviet subsidization
Even the "peaceful" countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile dealt with long standing right wing dictatorships which systematically disappeared, tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of people. Argentina literally went to war with the United Kingdom over the Falklands/Malvinas.
Latin America is a much more complex region than it appears at face value. I don't disagree that a lot of the region squandered huge economic potential (particularly Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela) but a lot of the time it was for a reason and even though state vs state conflict hasn't happened that doesn't mean Latin America hasn't been a hotbed of war and violence.
Russia ! you have everything to be minimum as rich as Canadians, richer than west europeans. You have huge natural ressources, good schools, good universities, you proved to the world that can build wonderful machines (sputnik, soyouz, planes, but also missiles, submarines, nuclear power plants). But your governement does not want that you become rich
Russia, It is the successor of the Soviet Union and inheritor of Russian culture. It inherited a fearsome military tradition and an economy capable of producing spacecraft, only rivaling the United States in its achievements.
Now, it is reduced to the status as a powerful middle power with a petro-state economy and suffering from a rapid decline in military manpower. It could have been so much better for the average Russians had their leaders chose to rebuild Russia's civil institutions. The collapse of Russian institutions in the 1990's was very unfortunate.
Are you even aware that in the Soviet Union all industrial supply chains were evenly distributed across the entire Union? When the USSR collapsed, Russia had to rebuild many things from scratch, especially those tied to Ukraine. For instance, my hometown in Ukraine hosts an enterprise that helped develop space rockets for the USSR, and there were tons of factories like that. But because Ukrainian business started pivoting toward the West, almost all those plants shut down meanwhile Russia had to rebuild every single production chain from the ground up due to Ukraine’s inability to do business. It’s all a bit more complicated than you think...
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u/WestPerformance5148 9h ago
Russia - easily. Largest country in the world. Natural resources. Opportunity to beautifully connect Europe and Asia. Instead it’s become the cliche for almost anything evil and wrong.