Geopolitical Effects of Russia having the GDP per capita (nominal) of Italy or Germany?

TheCrucible

Banned
POD: After the end of the cold war Russia embraces Social Democracy and Capitalism with an Authoritarian event. Putin is still in power and the country has a population of 150 Million. It is now a diversified economy with a living standard for its citizens similar to Germany or Italy.

How does this effect geopolitics and the world in general?
 
Democratic Socialism or Social Democracy? Who owns the means of production?

With Putin as an authoritarian leader, you can’t get either.
 
The effects of Russia merely being richer but otherwise different are already interestingly far-reaching, but I'd still know how it came about.
For example: did far-reaching mixed-economy reforms begin in the late 1950s already and were escalated into wholesale market socialism, accompanied by democratic reforms a few years later? If so, the Western world might well turn a lot redder in 1968ff.!
If we're just positing a continuously higher oil and gas price plus slightly less deindustrialisation because there's no Yeltsin listening to shock therapy whisperers, then the global implications are somewhat more limited, the world looks more recognisably like ours.

Either way, I think it's really difficult to get Russia to Germany's or Italy's levels with any post-WW2 PoD... and neither of the above is likely to do it.
 
Top