For decades, first the Soviet Union and then Russia languished under adverse population trends. Deaths far outpaced births, life expectancy was dismally low, and social ills, from alcoholism to unsafe abortion practices, were rampant.
If North Korea could develop and test a nuclear weapon, even under a stringent arms control regime, why can't Iran also build a bomb under a far less ample nuclear deal?
Amid multiple signs of an impending battle in Ukraine, NATO and Ukraine have stepped up their response. But so has Russia.
By July 2015 it was clear that Russia is paying a steep economic price for its war in Ukraine. Poverty, inflation, unemployment are all rising, the economy is shrinking, and foreign investment is drying up. Moscow had to cut spending on the 2018 FIFA World CUP, pensions, and infrastructure, not to mention health care, education, science and technology, and infrastructure, i.e. human and social capital.
Those in America's foreign policymaking circles who are concerned about the emerging U.S.-led nuclear agreement with Iran are increasingly pinning their hopes not on Washington changing its negotiating posture but, instead, on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei walking away from the table.