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> If Russia falls apart it's a serious problem for everyone, because it won't fall apart quietly or peacefully. It might still be an improvement over its curre
by swombat 11y ago
> If Russia falls apart it's a serious problem for everyone, because it won't fall apart quietly or peacefully.
It might still be an improvement over its current approach - which is not falling apart, but is neither quiet nor peaceful. There's a fair bit of political analysis that suggests that Russia is for example about to test NATO by starting a war with Turkey, and that it is deliberately killing civilians in Syria to increase the flow of refugees to Europe (which destabilises the EU, naturally).
I'll take a Russia falling apart noisily over a Russia attempting to hegemonise half of Europe again...
- gdy 11y ago"There's a fair bit of political analysis" You mean propaganda?
- swombat 11y agoWell, as they say, the first casualty of war is truth, but there are a number of factual events that fit the narrative of Russia under Putin being willing to flex its muscle and encourage instability in its neighbour to the west while inspiring Russians to dream of days of yore when they ruled half of Europe... There's the numerous videos and reports from organisations like Amnesty International, accusing Russia of basically doing the Assad thing of bombing the shit out of civilian populations in Syria (which is bound to cause more refugees to flee). And then the whole Turkey airspace thing. And then reports of Russian troops conducting large "training exercises" in the exact region they'd need to be to start a war with Turkey... There's the Crimea/Ukraine thing, which fit into that pattern as well. Overall, no matter which source you read, Russia is currently spelling trouble. I was worried about Trump being elected and starting World War 3 - I'm now worried that even without Trump we might get there thanks to Putin.
- MisterWebz 11y agoYou're clearly not following the Syrian civil war very closely if you think Russia's the one acting irresponsibly.
- swombat 11y agoI think everyone is acting irresponsibly there.
- gdy 11y agoAnd what doesn't "fit the narrative" you ignore. As you you ignore other possible narratives.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoCare to share your sources? Who are all these credible analysts saying Russia wants to start a war with Turkey? As for creating a Syrian humanitarian crisis, the regime, the rebels, and Isis are doing a perfectly fine job on their own.
- SXX 11y agoReal problem is that both Putin and Erdogan are autocratic leaders that are fine on global destabilization to keep influence on population.
- iSnow 11y agoNATO has just warned off Turkey, telling them in no uncertain terms that if they start a war with Russia, they are on their own. So I think the reality is the other way round.
- matwood 11y ago> I'll take a Russia falling apart noisily over a Russia attempting to hegemonise half of Europe again... At least in current Russia there is someone in control. If the oligarchs tire of Putin and have him taken care of, Russia could fall into a civil war. Normally, this would not be a huge problem, but Russia has ~5k nukes laying around. Think Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, but with nukes scattered about.
- merpnderp 11y agoYou think things are bad now? Wait until Russia falls apart and nuclear weapons start getting auctioned off to terrorist groups around the world. Things are awesome compared to a world where the Russian state has failed.