This piece is a heavyweight compendium of various expert opinions of several aspects of Russia today and in the years to come. One of them, Stephen Kotkin, correctly in my view says that the shock of so many Americans, at the Russian invasion of Georgia last month, arose from their profound self-delusion about the nature of power in the world today. Nina L. Kruscheva predicts that Vladimir Putin will try to retake Tallinn (Estonia), Sevastopol (Ukraine) and Tbilisi. I think this is unlikely, though a great deal of care needs to be taken regarding the situation of the Russians in the Crimea. Two experts saw the dangers to continuing Russian strength posed by severely adverse demographics. Thirty years ago, I could see the end of the USSR was approaching, in part because of this same problem. Personally, I like Putin's assitance to the recapturing of some at least of the grandeur of the Russian Empire. While many think the empire has been "lost", in fact Russia retains enormous tracts of Asia that were captured over the centuries, while Britain, France, the Netherlands and Japan lost their empires in that continent (and elsewhere). Losing can in fact be a gain, but that is too large a topic for here.