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Putin promised Xi the war in Ukraine would be over very quickly but what has transpired is that China is part of the blowback against Russia as a result of know

Putin promised Xi the war in Ukraine would be over very quickly but what has transpired is that China is part of the blowback against Russia as a result of knowing beforehand that Putin would invade Russia. The US now has every excuse to coerce China, from everything ranging to Taiwan, trade issues. In large, Putin's war with Ukraine ended up raising fossil, food prices which puts real pressure on Xi's regime. I do not think Russia has the same level of worry as China because it has endless amount of oil and food that China does not. If China is suddenly no longer allowed to import these from other countries, it would be forced to trade with Russia under Putin's terms. The last time we did this to a country, they launched a war instead of waiting for the inevitable internal collapse. All of this is creating an uncertain and volatile future. TLDR: Putin's war and looming US sanctions against China will cause a volatile reaction.

adventured 5y ago
Russia's primary problem is going to be the instability that comes out of the reveal that Putin is a typical incompetent authoritarian and Russia's military is weak (and there's nothing they can do about it, clearly, or the past decade of 'modernization' and spending would have). To the extent Russia has had some limited stability under Putin, it has been built on the image of Putin's competency as a command & control operator of the Russian state and Russia's supposed potent military strength in particular - the projection of strength generally, all the fake imagery the propaganda machine has dished out regarding Putin over two decades. Naturally, as it turns out, the truth is closer to the opposite. It always seemed a distinct aberration that Russia would manage to somehow maintain a competent, potent, relatively well-organized military while everything else was so subpar and rotting. Everything makes sense again, their military looks like the rest of the nation. The knives will come out for Putin now that everybody knows he's weak and fragile. His recent moves to punish powerful internal figures will force him to go even further. Being likely paranoid as dictators commonly are, Putin will likely do as much damage to Russia's internal functioning as sanctions do from the outside to its economy. Putin is likely to elevate the fascism to the point where their system stops functioning much at all, including their domestic economy. Purges, gulags, genocide, things typical of later stage statist regimes, it's all on the table if Putin's intention is to retain his present power. Putin only has two choices: give it up, or kill lots of people to try to fend off the sharks that will inevitably come for him and challenge his position. The considerable, fake image of strength was previously making it largely unnecessary to go as far as most dictators do to retain control, that luxury will now vanish and it'll dramatically damage Russia. People fleeing Russia are making the right choice, get out while you can.
- marktangotango 5y ago
  The only exception I see with this analysis is that a lot of people really genuinely seem to hold Putin in high regard. His supporters really, really support him. It's like a cult, similar to what we had in the US recently. Therefor I conjecture anyone who replaces Putin forcibly will have a rough time. Time will tell.
  - adventured 5y ago
    Highly emotional opinions won't change overnight in terms of the cultural adoration of Putin. It was built up over decades of lies, fake projections of strength and promises of a better future for Russia. It'll take time to erode. Observers outside of Russia can rapidly change their estimation of Putin because very little of it is rooted in emotionalism, nationalism, cultural bindings - whereas for people inside of Russia the exact opposite is true. It's like the joke that half of the time spent in a failed relationship is on exiting it - that's because the emotional erosion can take a long time (whereas scientific, rational type estimations are more often very fast). Interestingly it was George W. Bush and an American war that provided Putin with his image foundation: high oil prices, sparked by the US debasing its dollar via outlandish spending (post 9/11 and up to the great recession crash), and the Middle East chaos including the Iraq invasion. Those high oil prices, which Putin had little to do with, made him look like a hyper competent manager of the Russia state, and he has been riding on the lifestyle improvements delivered to the Russian people from those good years ever since.

adventured 5y ago

Russia's primary problem is going to be the instability that comes out of the reveal that Putin is a typical incompetent authoritarian and Russia's military is weak (and there's nothing they can do about it, clearly, or the past decade of 'modernization' and spending would have). To the extent Russia has had some limited stability under Putin, it has been built on the image of Putin's competency as a command & control operator of the Russian state and Russia's supposed potent military strength in particular - the projection of strength generally, all the fake imagery the propaganda machine has dished out regarding Putin over two decades. Naturally, as it turns out, the truth is closer to the opposite. It always seemed a distinct aberration that Russia would manage to somehow maintain a competent, potent, relatively well-organized military while everything else was so subpar and rotting. Everything makes sense again, their military looks like the rest of the nation. The knives will come out for Putin now that everybody knows he's weak and fragile. His recent moves to punish powerful internal figures will force him to go even further. Being likely paranoid as dictators commonly are, Putin will likely do as much damage to Russia's internal functioning as sanctions do from the outside to its economy. Putin is likely to elevate the fascism to the point where their system stops functioning much at all, including their domestic economy. Purges, gulags, genocide, things typical of later stage statist regimes, it's all on the table if Putin's intention is to retain his present power. Putin only has two choices: give it up, or kill lots of people to try to fend off the sharks that will inevitably come for him and challenge his position. The considerable, fake image of strength was previously making it largely unnecessary to go as far as most dictators do to retain control, that luxury will now vanish and it'll dramatically damage Russia. People fleeing Russia are making the right choice, get out while you can.

marktangotango 5y ago
The only exception I see with this analysis is that a lot of people really genuinely seem to hold Putin in high regard. His supporters really, really support him. It's like a cult, similar to what we had in the US recently. Therefor I conjecture anyone who replaces Putin forcibly will have a rough time. Time will tell.
- adventured 5y ago
  Highly emotional opinions won't change overnight in terms of the cultural adoration of Putin. It was built up over decades of lies, fake projections of strength and promises of a better future for Russia. It'll take time to erode. Observers outside of Russia can rapidly change their estimation of Putin because very little of it is rooted in emotionalism, nationalism, cultural bindings - whereas for people inside of Russia the exact opposite is true. It's like the joke that half of the time spent in a failed relationship is on exiting it - that's because the emotional erosion can take a long time (whereas scientific, rational type estimations are more often very fast). Interestingly it was George W. Bush and an American war that provided Putin with his image foundation: high oil prices, sparked by the US debasing its dollar via outlandish spending (post 9/11 and up to the great recession crash), and the Middle East chaos including the Iraq invasion. Those high oil prices, which Putin had little to do with, made him look like a hyper competent manager of the Russia state, and he has been riding on the lifestyle improvements delivered to the Russian people from those good years ever since.