No Place for Russia

Those of you who pay attention to the news will know that the G-8 is meeting now (the 15th-17th), and some of you may even know what the G-8 is.

The origins of the G-8 can be traced back to the oil crisis of the '70s, and the global recession that followed. In 1975, France arranged a meeting of six of the words industrialized democracies (France, U.S.A., West Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.). The next year, Canada was invited to join by the U.S., and the group became known as the Group of 7. The European Union has also attended meetings at the invitation of the U.K. since 1977. There were few changes until after the Cold War, when Russia met with the member nations after the main summit in 1994. In 1997 they started to participate more fully in the activities, and the name was officially changed to the Group of 8 at the request of U.S. Pres. Clinton. Russia never did participate in the meeting of the financial heads of the group, because they aren't a major economic power, and this meeting is called the G-7. That brings us up to date, with the G-8 meeting every year to discuss issues of importance to the world.

I think the G-7 was a good thing, but that Russia has no place in an organization of economically advanced democracies. This is because Russia has neither a powerful economy nor a democratic government. They were more democratic 12 years ago when they started attending meetings than they are today. It's only a matter of time before Putin stops bothering to stage elections, and assumes the powers of a dictator. I also heard the argument on a talk show that there are lots of countries with bigger economies than Russia, and if Russia is a full fledged member, you can't justify leaving these other countries out.

The group does meet with additional countries (Mexico, China, India, Brazil, and S. Africa) after the main meeting. Some of these countries (by some, I mean China) aren't democracies, but without checking the numbers, I can confidently say that most, if not all, have bigger economies than Russia.

I propose swapping India for Russia. Really, India has more people than any of the other member nations, has a real democracy, is a major military power, and has a booming economy that is fast becoming one of the biggest in the world. The other up side is that India's been attacked by Muslim terrorists, so they must be good guys. The inclusion of India would end the monopoly that mainly Caucasian, western countries have on the G-8, lending a little more credibility to the organization.

But of course, nobody will put in a motion to swap India for Russia any time soon. Russia is the source of Iran's nuclear equipment, the AK-47s that our Islamic friends love, and the closest thing to a western democracy that hasn't had a jihad declared on it yet. So it follows that they are the only country with any control over Iran, and because we think we can control Russia, we think they're our best chance of controlling Iran. That would work great, if we had any control over Russia. As it is, we don't, and pandering to them is pointless.

Now, if we could turn India into a staunch ally of the west, we'd have a little more leverage over Iran, and the whole middle east. That leverage would be in the form of two pro western, nuclear states, one at each end of the mid-east (Israel and India). As it is, India's potential influence is being wasted on it's constant feud with Pakistan (which is probably another reason holding us back, Pakistan has turned into a helper in the WoT).

I guess I don't see why nobody's trying real hard to make friends with India, when such a friendship could do the whole world a lot of good, but we're still trying very hard to be nice to the Russians, who are just throwing everything back in our face. If we're going to keep Russian in the G-8, then the G-8 needs to be a lot bigger. Don't want a G-25? Fine, the door's that way, Mr. Putin, call us again when you've got an economy and a democracy.