In earlier posts I suggested that declining trend growth for the global economy is going to make for governance problems, particularly for the world’s democracies. I also argued that pre-existing economic problems for three of the four key players in the Ukraine drama – Ukraine itself, Russia, and the European Union (the exception being the United States) – are being aggravated by, and are constraining choices in, the Ukraine crisis.
What I want to focus on here is how Russia’s economic problems are impacting Russia’s neighbors and unsettling the region politically. I will leave aside Ukraine (whose acute economic problems I’ve covered in earlier posts) and the three Baltic states (which as members of the EU and the Eurozone are less affected by Russia’s downturn). Continue reading