The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), signed in 1960, has long stood as a testament to the possibility of cooperation between India and Pakistan, even amidst deep-seated hostilities. Facilitated by the World Bank, the treaty meticulously delineated water-sharing rights over the Indus River system, ensuring a relatively peaceful management of this critical resource for over six decades. However, recent geopolitical upheavals, particularly following the tragic Pahalgam attack in April 2025, have led to India’s suspension of the treaty, casting a shadow over regional stability and raising pressing questions about the future of water diplomacy in South Asia.
I authored this article october 2024 and updated it to 2025 recently.
The current Crude Price of only around 60$ adds to further pressure on the russian economy, but its resilience has been so far remarkeable in the sense, that there has been no significant sign of extreme pressure on the Ruble. The cannibalisation of the NWF continues and it will be available for another 2 years, the ballooning of forced private debt towards the military industrial sector gives a longterm headache to russias economy, but for the moment, even at 20% interest rate, seems to work. Russia has greatly increased its balance sheet and is thus leveraged and can continue its effort for some time.
The problem is the size of the current effort. Russia cannot sustain on a prolonged basis a annual deficit of 30-50 Billion$ without permanently degrading ts currency.
I think the economic game is decided long-term and i think that the costs are far greater than any possible profit for russia.
And as Russia will somewhen need to transition to peace again, the hidden mounted costs will pushback in an brutal manner.
It is somewhat discussed that right now the Russian economy cannot even simply stop to rely on its military industry - as the unemployment rates would skyrocket if production would be limited.
But of course, this deficit spending (into things that are literaly going UP IN SMOKE) cannot continue forever without more Debts or Devaluation.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I agree that things are certainly economically bad for average Russians citizens and will continue to get worse. But as long as it does so gradually, they'll remain cowed, grumble and go along. On the hopeful scenario, the danger point will come if Putin no longer has sufficient resources to keep co-opting those in positions of power and their number grows too quickly for Putin to keep killing the ones who become problems.
Underneath the yacht-hiding oligarchs there's a large strata of sub-yacht minigarchs and they aren't happy. Their ill-gotten gains elevate them far above the common Russian but they don't have an oligarch's wealth to soften the impact of embargos. They can't easily jet-set off to international playgrounds anymore and replacement parts for their BMW are starting to cost more than a Prada. Their wife is bitching about not feeling safe to visit their seaside condo in Crimea and even their mistress has moved to a timeshare model with multiple patrons.
If this malaise gets too deep for too long, disloyalty festers. Not disloyalty to the country but to the illicit system that's permitted limited latitude to pillage the economy at every level in exchange for perpetuating the system. If the lower rungs in the pyramid start working together in ever-larger ad hoc schemes to restore their take to what used to be, which is more than the system can now permit, the whole pyramid gets brittle. First, it just starts crumbling around the edges here and there but when wide shocks hit the system it starts triggering landslides caused by the illicit system fighting itself over the diminishing spoils trickling down. It's manageable but costly. A lot of people who weren't that high up start getting disappeared. Enough that everyone else notices. Too many to just chalk up to being too stupid, too greedy or too unlucky.
Once that reaches nearer the base of the pyramid, if multiple large shocks happen to hit at once, the disparate landslides could coalesce into an avalanche. The stagehands keeping the pretense going stop playing along and start mostly playing for themselves. Too many of them to keep the grocery shelves in Moscow stocked. It's worse in the provinces and once reliable regional governors aren't so reliable anymore. Stopping that requires tanks in regional capitals, more than one at a time. Pretty soon, the Kremlin starts running short of the most loyal internal security troops, the ones you can count on not only to open fire on civilians but shoot at local troops with guns. Eventually they have to start sending troops that aren't much more loyal than the locals they're putting down.
When the system starts swaying, Kremlin elite outside the inner circle get worried. When the instability continues to grow most get scared, but a few get opportunistic. And some of them start talking. Then the talk creeps into plotting. And this is how the end always comes. At first, slowly - and then all at once.
Obviously, we're nowhere close to any of that but Prigozhin's folly was a small preview of what's possible. So, I doubt it'll happen but I'm hopeful.
In the current global economic framework, a fragile balance of power has begun to unravel, creating fertile ground for new forms of money. Bitcoin, as the first decentralized cryptocurrency, stands in stark contrast to the traditional monetary systems that have long been manipulated by powerful state actors and financial institutions. Bitcoin’s rise presents a solution to systemic issues rooted in the centralization of currency and the manipulation of financial markets. By examining the game theory behind Bitcoin and its role in global economics, we can see how Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovation challenges the status quo, offering a resilient, decentralized alternative that defies manipulation by geopolitical and financial powers.
As the war in Ukraine drags on into its third year, Russia finds itself at a critical economic crossroads. The Kremlin’s war chest is rapidly depleting, and sanctions are tightening the noose around key revenue streams. With the National Wealth Fund almost exhausted and budget deficits ballooning, Russia’s ability to sustain the current pace of war spending into 2025 looks increasingly dubious. While state-controlled media touts the narrative of resilience, the numbers tell a far grimmer story.
