All 10 of those reasons are explanations for why Russia will not restore its former stature as a great power through economic growth. While some of those issues are pertinent to Russia's current strategy, I think the big picture concept is off base. Russia is not attempting to embark upon economic revitalization. Russia is seeking to regain power and reassert itself. Economic growth is one way to do that, but Russia knows that such a strategy will not work due to its corruption and negative population growth. That is why it is attempting to grab resources, assert influence in the Caspian, and establish relations with countries like Iran. It needs streams of income from petrodollars, from countries who will give economic assistance in return for security assistance, and to blackmail other countries over issues like gas pipelines and waterways.

Russia is a country that thinks it SHOULD be great, but it isn't. That is frustrating. It WANTS to be great, but won't be and can't be so long as it suffers from negative population growth. They know the clock is ticking. Because of Russia's negative population growth and the primitiveness of its institutions, the tried and true method of restoring a country's economic health is not compatible with achieving great power status in this generation. It only has the time and resources to do one or the other. It can reform or it can gamble on a belligerent foreign policy to try to rewin its perceived rightful place in the world. So what to do? Fearing that negative population growth will win out before education of its people and reform of its primitive institutions can run their courses, it apparently is opting to go all-in with a belligerent foreign policy designed to stoke nationalist sentiment through regain of lost satellite countries and to fund the state with the capture of natural resources, influence over strategic corridors, and relations with rogue states who need Russian assistance.

This is a desperate, cornered animal that will one day lash out when its gambles inevitably fail to pay off. The sad thing is that we have no incentive to help Russia succeed in its current misguided course and we also have no incentive to hasten its disintegration because we're not ready to deal with that many loose nukes. Contrary to the view that we are making Russia feel corned by way of NATO expansion, Russia is making itself feel cornered by not facing up the reality of its lost superpower status. Russia sees its current mediocre status as the walls closing in around it, rather than recognizing that the size of the room hasn't changed - it's just that the country's stature is shrinking. It's no longer an enigma in a riddle or vice versa. It's just a giant delusion with a lot of nukes and some leaders with a taste for imprudent risks and brinksmanship.

The more willing (NATO) allies and the better (SDI) defenses we have prepared, the better off we will be when this time bomb finally detonates.