The document discusses several Second World and developing countries/regions including Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Mexico, and the Arab world. It describes Russia's weakened economy and declining population despite its large energy exports. Ukraine struggles with defining its identity and improving its economy. Central Asia remains an area of geopolitical competition due to its location along the Silk Road and oil/gas resources. Mexico has struggled to develop into a First World country due to issues like poverty, drug trafficking, and economic dependence on the US. The Arab world also grapples with development challenges while dealing with tensions between Western influence and local political/cultural movements.

1. The Second World Part 2 Briana Kather Saddleback College August 1st, 2010 The Second World Part 2 Briana Kather Saddleback College August 1, 2010

2. Changed Russia Russia is known as the world’s largest conundrum. The country is split into four: Slavic, European Russia, Caucasian Russia, Ural and Siberian Russia, and Pacific Russia. Russia’s connections with the West have shown how materially inferior the country is. The United States, Europe and China fear Russia because they do not want it to get strong since it is such a big country. The KGB have restored Russian glory by making them the top natural gas and second oil producer in the world. Russia’s Eastern states fall into two categories: those individuals wealthy enough to evade energy extortion by Moscow and those vulnerable to cabals of Russian businessmen. A Moscow intellectual claimed that Russian pride has suffered but this has only caused them to try to make their nationalism further. Russia is hostile toward its neighbors, it has become a Siberian Saudi Arabia. The former KGB is now very different in Moscow. Russians are not consumers instead of citizens. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities, and where Russia’s economy is centered. The mayor has resurrected the city with big sculptures and fancy shopping malls that change entrance fees. In 2005, Andrei Illarionov declared that Russia had “ceased to be a politically free country.” Russia’s command and control is disorganized with its outdated military equipment. The national population is also in decline at a half a million per year and two-thirds of Russians living near the poverty line. If Russia’s energy goes away, there will be no more Russia, it is keeping the country going.

3. Ukraine’s Potential The diplomatic game is currently the center of Ukraine. Ukraine means homeland, although the Russians claim it to mean borderland. Ukraine and Russia are currently in a struggle together. They are no longer a Soviet republic. Ukraine still feels like two separate countries, split along the Dnieper River. The halves are European and Russian-oriented halves. In Ukraine the economy was bad. Entire generations lost their social security because prices skyrocketed, incomes plummeted, and the cost of basic food raised out of reach. Then thousands of elderly died because they were not prepared to face the cold winters and hot summers. The livelihood of common Ukrainians are sill in danger with inflation. They are aiming at turning Ukraine into the next Poland to get it away from its third-world qualities. There is no connection between Ukraine and the color orange. Although orange was an inspiring symbol to lure people of into the dreary, frigid Ukrainian winter. After the Orange Revolution Ukraine had chosen Europe geographically, spiritually, and morally. In 2005, Tymoshenko and Yushchenko were unable to agree on the form of state Ukraine should have: presidential or parliamentary. Ukraine continues to rebrand their country as European even though its genetic code is Western. Many hoped that Ukraine would join the EU, but Ukraine is still too poor and big for EU membership.

4. The Silk Road and the Great Game The most fundamental issues that shaped global order are showing in Central Asia. Central Asia is a Silk Road conduit and a Great Game laboratory of imperial competition. Since they are great powers, all sides seek to secure newly discovered oil and gas resources. In the fourteenth century when the plague took of most of the population, Amir Timur claimed lands from Kashgar to the Caucasus and his grandson tried to establish the Mughal dynasty. During the Great Game, Britain and Russia mirrored each other’s maneuvers. They absorbed khanates and fighting through Anglo-Afghan wars. Russians conquest forced mass production of clothes and food that was returned to Russia. With the Soviet Union dismantled, Russia seeks to retain influence. The key powers work to plot as covertly as possible. Russia continued to sell arms in large quantities while also buying up energy infrastructure. America maintains a network of military supply. Europe works to modernize economies and institutions and China floods the markets with low cost good. NATO shows which power is driving the vision for Central Asia. The SCO sought to bind countries close to China by initiating confidence=building measures. China has become the standard business man with the help of SCO countries. China’s economic, demographic, and diplomatic strengths show that it will replace Russia and the regions’ organizing principle.

5. The Russia That Was Russia has two Asiatic zones: Siberia and the Far East. With these two zones, it makes it the ultimate swing state in determining whether NATO or the SCO will have the upper hand in Central Asia. Russia’s boarders have stretched and contracted but the state has never been able to control the lives of large populations. While the Great Wall is crumbling, hundreds of thousands of illegal Chinese migrants a year are coming into Russia’s depopulated Far East. Russia’s Far East contains massive deposits of zinc, nickel, tin, diamonds, and gold, which attract the world’s largest importer of raw materials. The Far East is looking bad to Russia, China is developing the Russian region. Today China is now the lord of the East with all their development. After a rough break up, the KGB decided to refer to China as a Major Adversary, even though China became convinced that Russia was a strategic rival. Russia did not want to get humiliated again so they conducted bilateral military exercises with Japan. This Sino-Soviet friendship boosts China far more than Russia so that the relationship may fail. Russia population is so spread out that it doesn’t even make sense as a country democratically.

6. Mexico- attempts at a first world country The North American Free Trade Agreement did not propel Mexico into the first world like it was supposed to. Instead, the agreement started an insurgency to draw attention to marginalized farmers. President Carlos Salinas responded to this outrage by unleashing a crackdown against the Zapatistas. This mistake revealed Mexico more as a third-world country than a first. It is hard work to pull Mexico out of the second world. Mexico is now forever going to lie under America’s strategic umbrella. The main problem in Mexico is globalization because of its international competition, wider income gaps, and more drug and people trafficking to the U.S. Mexico is trying to break away by diversifying away from dependency on a single commodity. The former mayor of Mexico City built his reputation by creating social and food support programs for the elderly. Coyotes continue to traffic illegal aliens into the United States. These Mexican immigrants are known as double edged swords because they take jobs that Americans don’t want, by working harder and longer for less pay. It will take more than the NAFTA to make Mexico one country. Spanish is rapidly growing as America’s second language. Many illegal Mexican immigrants take advantage of American social services at the taxpayers expense. The Central America Free Trade Agreement has lowered U.S. tariffs to attempt to create jobs and raise exports.

7. Arabian Sand Dunes American conservatives thought that Iraq invasion was necessary. The the Arab world, there is no naïveté about its centrality as far as success of globalization. Even though the West frets over Arab disorder, Arab order is currently defining the region’s future. This is happening with the combination of massive oil wealth, mass media, shared grievances, and the painful awareness of the arbitrary Western-imposed borders. They are pushing for a political change. Arab democrats are competing for the next generation’s soul with Al-Qaeda’s Voice of the Caliphate news program which aims at glorifying anti-Western violence. Between Arab and the West, the cultural stress of fighting radicalism continues. No mater if Arabism or Islamism prevails, they both seek to solve problems with their own strategies. Since now Europe and China are pursuing their own agendas, it is unlikely that America will get its way without the active support of one of the other of its superpower counterparts.

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