Fiona Hill

He cannot understand why you would slaughter all of these people that you actually need to make your economy work.

Even with a miraculous shift to AI, you're still going to need people.

And that's what Putin has done.

He has squandered, you know, the future of his human capital.

A lot of people are working admittedly offshore, particularly in the Gulf, you know, in other places and still contributing, you know, to the Russian economy.

You know, you look down the line on the idea of economic recovery, the idea of innovation that's not just related to defense and to innovation on the battlefield.

That's one of the areas that Putin has likely squandered.

And of course, he's completely eroded trust.

And although other countries look to Russia right now and still want to factor them in as a great power, they no longer think of Russia as a superpower.

And they absolutely certainly do not think of Russia as a technical, innovative, economic superpower.

And as you said, it's much likely to end up being some kind of appendage of China at the end of all of this, even more so than it already is.

Yeah, and actually, I mean, Russia was on before this.

And in fact, before seizing Crimea, which I think was the moment where Putin shifted the trajectory of his presidency, Russia was up there in the larger economic powers.

There was a whole goal

of being not just in the G7 or the G8, but being one of the top five or six global economic powers.

And at one point, it looked like that might be possible.

But as you're saying, that's not likely to be where Russia is, although it shifts in its trade patterns still, the commodities, that might bring something.

But I think that the world is going to be a very complex place if I look up to 2036.

You know, I think we're squandering ourselves, the United States.

Some of that, you know, bases, those fundamental bases of power, which, I mean, you've been pointing out in many of your podcasts and other things that you've, you know, been writing and with your colleagues in the Atlantic.