Jim Oberg wrote:
Here are my conclusions, and I'd like to open them up to
discussion, critique, and suggestions.

For the foreseeable future, Russia appears committed to internationalization
of its main non-military space activities, mainly as a crutch in obtaining
services disproportionate to contributed resources ("For 5% of the
investment we get 30% of the resources" is a frequent comment in
justification of the space station partnership) and as a badge of 'major
player' status in the world.

That may well be true, however, given its failure to meet some module
deadlines in connection with the ISS, it's not clear if they will find
any international partners willing to play any more, so its commitment
in this regard is likely to be a moot point.

Providing commercial launch services for foreign customers has provided
multi-dimensional benefits to Russia. Beyond the significant cash flow, such
activities fund booster upgrades and, in the case of converted military
missiles, fund validation of lifetime extension efforts for still-deployed
missile weapons.

This is certainly true enough. As recent discussion in this newsgroup
has illustrated, China is becoming a significant cut-rate competitor
to Russia in this sphere as well.

Russian officials have
evidently decided that, despite any public posturings over US military
threats, there is essentially no prospect of actual hostilities in the
foreseeable future and hence little pressure to reconstitute military space
assets to a Soviet-era level.

This is certainly good news. While someone here wrote of "obsolete
Cold War" thinking, it does look as though Russia has fallen into a
form of government not particularly democratic or friendly to the
world's democracies (well, at least to the United States in
particular), even if it is still an improvement over Communism. This
is regrettable, but the economic collapse of Russia after abandoning
Communism can only be expected to produce an imperfect result.

Attempts at domestic commercialization of space-related services, including
communications, navigation, and mapping, remain seriously - perhaps
irremediably - hamstrung by the recent resurgence of a traditional Russian
top-down structure of authority.

Russian bureaucrats are unlikely to be the *main* obstacle to this.
Russia is in a very difficult economic condition, so there is not much
of a market for any exotic goods or services there. The limited
capital there is goes into small-scale projects with quick return
under such conditions. Unusual and innovative enterprises are few and
far between.

John Savard