Falling Oil Prices are Saving the World from Russia’s Ambitions

- Pols Goubls According to an anecdote now circulating in Russia, when oil is 160 US dollars a barrel, Vladimir Putin says that Moscow should rule the world. When the price falls to 120 dollars a barrel, he argues that Moscow should control all the countries of the former Soviet Union.

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When it declines to 60 dollars a barrel, the Russian prime minister says that Moscow will oppose the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. But should the price of oil decline still further, to 30 dollars a barrel or less, the anecdote concludes, Putin is going to say that Moscow demands NATO offer membership to both of those former Soviet republics. Now, in a case of life imitating art or at least one of its most expressive popular forms, an article reviewing the impact of oil prices on Russia's foreign policy agenda around the world has concluded that "the decline in the price of oil has saved the world from the ambitions of Russia" ([url=http://www.obozrevatel.com/news/2008/11/18/269161.htm]http://www.obozrevatel.com/news/2008/11/18/269161.htm[/url]). Russian specialists on oil extraction say that the price declines have effectively "put a cross on the ambitions of Russia [to develop the petroleum fields] on the Arctic seabed." And prices would have to rise to more than 100 dollars a barrel and Moscow give companies involved a tax holiday to make drilling there worthwhile ([url=http://www.rbcdaily.ru/index2.shtml]http://www.rbcdaily.ru/index2.shtml[/url]). More...

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