Thomas P.M. Barnett, a highly-touted strategic thinker, has a vision for changing U.S. grand strategy based on The Pentagon's New Map of where U.S. forces intervened in the post-Cold War era. As you can see here, Russia is by most of Barnett's accounts integrated into the global market economy, and therefore is part of the "Core" rather than what he refers to as the "Non-Integrating Gap".

Of course, as we have pointed out several times here at RussiaBlog, the bombed-out rubble of Grozny is only 800 miles from Moscow, or about the same distance between Seattle and San Francisco. The number of Russian troops and security forces killed and wounded in the Caucuses since 1994 dwarf the American casulties in Iraq. To make matters worse, Russia does not have the option of simply packing up and leaving like America theoretically could from Iraq, there are too many Russian civilians in the surrounding republics vulnerable to terror and ethnic cleansing.

In fairness to Barnett, Russia's demographic crisis is just the leading edge of Europe's overall baby bust, though it is accelerated by the social problems we have documented at this site. And no is questioning that nearly all of Europe, even the Balkans, is on the road to being more integrated into global markets. Also, if you accept Barnett's belief that China will not turn back from its drive towards a market economy (if not political liberalization), then considerable sections of Siberia may soon become "Core" rather than "Gap" -- but with a different complexion.