I've had many arguments with people where I can't get it across that it costs a lot to get a human being all grown up, socialized, educated and ready to work in high value industries. Then we get them swept away to the west (and for good reasons, more money, higher quality of life etc.) and end up with nothing for all our societal investment. If we're lucky, some of them come back with some know-how and create a viable business, but most don't bother.
3 / 4 of the people I went to school with (primary, secondary, high school and college) are now gone for good. Almost as many upcoming graduates (soon to be 18+) are planning to either study here and go, or just go.
This pains me as someone that decided to stay behind and try to change something. But I do understand their motivations.
Resources are nothing without people.
For now. Take a look at those demographic age pyramids and sub-replacement fertility rates. What's the population of the EU going to be in 2100?
They are overrated until you don't have any. It's hard to manufacture anything without natural resources. It's hard to heat your home or fuel your car. As far as the "stable civic institutions" the farmers in the Netherlands would like to have a word with you.
I think any sober assessment of which regions will achieve or maintain economic preeminence in the coming decades would have to include Europe and almost certainly exclude Russia.
Just an example: https://www.cadtm.org/Africa-How-France-Continues-to-Dominat...
France is still operating a colonial governance system, we just kinda ignore it.
It doesn't have the natural resources that the US/Russia/China have. It is interesting that the time was the nations that would be the EU were most dominant, they used colonization to get the resources from all over the world (see for example British Empire).
In addition, there is still lack of political unity, with a much less powerful centralized government compared to say China or even the US.