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I'd like to see deunification of Russia to Duchy of Moscow and spin off the other oblasts as independent states. It secures the region while undoing some of the

I'd like to see deunification of Russia to Duchy of Moscow and spin off the other oblasts as independent states. It secures the region while undoing some of the colonisation. More countries I feel should be broken down into smaller independent states. More democratic that way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Moscow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Moscow

samhyde69 5y ago
Sure. But let's start with the usa
jansen555 5y ago
dmitriid 5y ago
> It secures the region while undoing some of the colonisation It doesn't necessarily secure the region, as now you will have conflicts in the Caucasus and weakening of Central Asian borders esp. with Afghanistan (which were always complemented by Russian forces). Don't forget, there will also be a lot of hurt feelings along the lines of "we were a large powerful country, look what happened to us, we must gain everything back". Edit: Also, who gets to keep the nuclear weapons?
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Whoever has them gets to keep them. Same with the oil. Seems unlikely that any split of Russia would happen smooth and nicely
- Aspos 5y ago
  Those are literally the Russian propaganda talking points. I've seen reasonable and intelligent people who used to believe these sincerely. Seems like you are under a similar influence.
- adventured 5y ago
  > Edit: Also, who gets to keep the nuclear weapons? Russia will keep the nuclear weapons. From the split there will still be a Russia, it'll hold Moscow and St. Petersburg for example. That new country will still be a significant economy with a large population (Western Russia obviously by far holds most of the nation's population density). Ideally they'd downscale the number of nukes they have (with the US also doing so), but that might be hoping for too much. The biggest problem with the splintering will be what China and North Korea do in their regions near the present Russian border. China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes for their navy forces into the Pacific.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > From the split there will still be a Russia, it'll hold Moscow and St. Petersburg for example. Ah yes, the well-known locations of Russia's nuclear weapons, Moscow and St. Petersburg > That new country will still be a significant economy with a large population (Western Russia obviously by far holds most of the nation's population density) Population density does not translate into significant economy. Regions that don't receive subsidies from the federal budget are located mostly along the Ural mountains. Rather far from the capital cities. And you're forgetting that if Russia gets split, most economic ties between the various regions will be be either severed or significantly disrupted. The fall of USSR was only 31 years ago, and apparently people are unable to either remember it, or read up on it. > China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia That's a very good observation. China will definitely move in to grab Siberia, aka the source of most of Russia's raw materials such as oil (so no "still significant economy" for the rest)
  - livueta 5y ago
    > China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes for their navy forces into the Pacific. It's interesting to note that this is already kinda the case in economic if not military/political terms: cities like Blagoveshchensk are basically part of Heilongjiang - in that particular case, it is very nearly a direct extension of the Chinese city of Heihe. They do way more trade with China than with the rest of Russia, and in some cases the populations are 30+% Chinese nationals, who often run all the important businesses and, ironically, use the native population as cheap labor. In these conditions, stepping in more formally would be very trivial in the absence of a robust Russian response. Info mostly sourced from The Emperor Far Away, Heilongjiang chapters.
yike321123 5y ago
It sounds like a good idea but would this actually work? Russia itself while it pretends not to be is a very ethnically diverse region. The people living in certain sections of this area are very very different. Along with the fact that the population density varies from region to region how would with even give proper representation to those within the northern regions? Suggestions like this should be taken lightly as other nations have undergone similar "democratic" unifications such as ethopia and india which have lead to the further establishment of their systemic castes. In Ethopia we are starting to see the start of their civil war due to these underlying issues. While the current government claims it to be a regional conflict the underlying issues are much more severe.
g8oz 5y ago
There is a better chance of Texas seceding than Russia breaking up. And realistically neither are going to happen.
- adventured 5y ago
  There's excellent reason to doubt that premise is correct: Russia has a long history of losing and gaining territory. The last thing Russia has been is stable throughout its history, a break-up is far more likely than the opposite. Realistically Russia has no future other than being splintered. Nothing can stop that future outcome, it's already being pulled at now. Adding salt into that wound, the world now knows how exceptionally weak and backwards Russia's primary point of power is: their military. The projection of (supposed) immense military power has been integral for many decades in holding big Russia together, through fear, intimidation, and so on. They've burned up enormous resources trying to force it to remain together over time; it has broken their people, it has broken their potential, it has impoverished the Russian people to an extreme. And today we know they don't even have a potent military to show for it. And now the Russian people are being confronted with the consequences, the cost, of trying to force big Russia to remain together (the Russian people had been temporarily sheltered from paying that price for much of the prior two decades, and those days are over). Russia has to keep burning resources to force big Russia to hold together. That will increasingly come in the form of the Russian people watching their standard of living vaporize, on top of having lost essentially all human rights under Putin's two decade dictatorship. They will soon have nothing to lose, and they will react accordingly (although on a delay): prepare for revolution as an outcome.
  - watwut 5y ago
    I don't see all that many Russia regions trying to split up now. And to add, there will be no revolution in Russia for years. Revolutions happen only after police, secret service and other similar forces were weak enough for long enough. Russian ones are strong currently. There is no organized opposition to speak of, so even if they became weak overnight, it would still took years till the discontent organizes itself enough to make revolution.
pelasaco 5y ago
We saw it in the 90s and in that point of time it didn't make the region any safer. You could buy any soviet weapon everywhere. I think one of the reasons that US, UK and France were happy that Ukraine gave back their nuclear arsenal to Russia was exactly to avoid it being sold in the black market to some third country in the middle east.
- adventured 5y ago
  What we understand now is that the US (+ allies) should have purchased that arsenal and dismantled it (with Russian oversight), rather than allowing Russia to take it.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    yes, that's accurate. It would probably demand different effort and budget however.
giraffe_lady 5y ago
"secures the region" from what and for whom? Assuming there is a single point of view from which this is true, and that you share it with the people living there, doesn't sound like less colonialism to me.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  From Russia, of course. It is Russia that started the war with Ukraine now, and previously in Georgia and other places. We (Europeans) need a decent neighbor we can collaborate with, not a bully. We can disagree on many things like with Hungary for example, but Hungary is not having a fit over some issue and doesn't invade Romania for example.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    Keep the invasions to the middle east and asia where they belong. /s
    - giraffe_lady 5y ago
      Either as a joke or chillingly honest, I think this is basically where US and european foreign policy is with this.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      I believe by now the USA has finally learned that there is no single case where an invasion makes sense. Not only you won't help anyone, you just increase the number of people killed and further destabilize the situation you intended to "fix". BTW I consider the invasion on Afghanistan and Iraq as a pure fit of Bush over his inability to deal with the circumstances that provoked 9/11.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Yes, it would be much better for middle east and asia if Russia cleansed Ukrainians out of Ukraine and managed to continue to Poland, Finland, Moldavia, Czech Republic and so on. Somehow, magically, middle east would then became peaceful. As long as there is no world peace, no other world region has right to care about its security.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
If the main thing is securing the region, deunification is not necessary - denuclearization would do just fine. Currently nobody is helping Ukraine in their tragedy only because of Russian nukes.
CountSessine 5y ago
Maybe… Something to keep in mind is that land-locked countries experience slower economic growth and have lower GDPs than countries with access to ports. Russia is mostly restricted to their Black Sea ports but they still have something. Break Russia up and you’ll be condemning a lot of people to a lower standard of living long-term.
- adventured 5y ago
  > Break Russia up and you’ll be condemning a lot of people to a lower standard of living long-term. That's of course not necessarily true. You haven't factored in the retardation of economic outcome that the present union is causing because it can only exist through the extreme and persistent application of force (which is very substantially regressive for human development). The reason they keep getting authoritarians century after century is because Russia as it presently stands should not exist, they can only hold it together with force. That comprehensive application of force destroys liberty, creativity, free expression, economic growth, investment, and so on. You can simultaneously have economic negatives from the lack of a port, in a landlocked Russia spin-off state scenario, and be better off being out from under the forever strangulating authoritarian umbrella of big Russia. That is to say, that's just how horrific and dampening of human potential it is to be under the boot of authoritarian Russia. There's a good reason so many nations that were formerly dominated by Russia are now exceeding them in GDP per capita.
  - CountSessine 5y ago
    There's a good reason so many nations that were formerly dominated by Russia are now exceeding them in GDP per capita. “Isn’t ruled by Vladimir Putin” is highly predictive of GDP, but “has a warm-water port” is far more predictive. Who is doing well? Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan. Who isn’t doing well? Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Tajikistan… There are other variables. “Who has oil”, for example. But “who has unencumbered access to world trade through the sea” is the best.
  - nevermindiguess 5y ago
    It would be interesting to hear why you think Russia is an authoritarian state. Have you lived there? Have you studied it deeply? Do you have reliable sources to substantiate your claim? You certainly repeat what the western media says, but they are hardly an independent or unbiased source (speaking of authoritarian regimes). To me it looks like you may be making a lot of assumptions without having first hand experience or professional knowledge on the subject.
kwere 5y ago
Outer Manchuria & Siberia has been chinese since ancient time moment
throwaway3968 5y ago
In the pro-Western Russian circles, until recently, there was a notion of Great Neo-Russia. A supposed liberal democracy that would arise in the same borders, after putting everyone with blood on their hands on trial. It is now shattered to pieces by the tragedy of Ukrainian people. But there aren't any secession movements either (other than Chechnia, a can of worms of its own). We have no idea what awaits us, literally anything is possible.
elric 5y ago
I'm a bit puzzled by the matter-of-factness of this comment. You're essentially talking about impinging upon a people's right of self-determination. It has a kind of colonial smell to it. Calling it more democratic seems a stretch at best.
jl2718 5y ago
What about Ukraine?

samhyde69 5y ago

Sure. But let's start with the usa

jansen555 5y ago

dmitriid 5y ago

> It secures the region while undoing some of the colonisation It doesn't necessarily secure the region, as now you will have conflicts in the Caucasus and weakening of Central Asian borders esp. with Afghanistan (which were always complemented by Russian forces). Don't forget, there will also be a lot of hurt feelings along the lines of "we were a large powerful country, look what happened to us, we must gain everything back". Edit: Also, who gets to keep the nuclear weapons?

oneoff786 5y ago
Whoever has them gets to keep them. Same with the oil. Seems unlikely that any split of Russia would happen smooth and nicely
Aspos 5y ago
Those are literally the Russian propaganda talking points. I've seen reasonable and intelligent people who used to believe these sincerely. Seems like you are under a similar influence.
adventured 5y ago
> Edit: Also, who gets to keep the nuclear weapons? Russia will keep the nuclear weapons. From the split there will still be a Russia, it'll hold Moscow and St. Petersburg for example. That new country will still be a significant economy with a large population (Western Russia obviously by far holds most of the nation's population density). Ideally they'd downscale the number of nukes they have (with the US also doing so), but that might be hoping for too much. The biggest problem with the splintering will be what China and North Korea do in their regions near the present Russian border. China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes for their navy forces into the Pacific.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > From the split there will still be a Russia, it'll hold Moscow and St. Petersburg for example. Ah yes, the well-known locations of Russia's nuclear weapons, Moscow and St. Petersburg > That new country will still be a significant economy with a large population (Western Russia obviously by far holds most of the nation's population density) Population density does not translate into significant economy. Regions that don't receive subsidies from the federal budget are located mostly along the Ural mountains. Rather far from the capital cities. And you're forgetting that if Russia gets split, most economic ties between the various regions will be be either severed or significantly disrupted. The fall of USSR was only 31 years ago, and apparently people are unable to either remember it, or read up on it. > China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia That's a very good observation. China will definitely move in to grab Siberia, aka the source of most of Russia's raw materials such as oil (so no "still significant economy" for the rest)
- livueta 5y ago
  > China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes for their navy forces into the Pacific. It's interesting to note that this is already kinda the case in economic if not military/political terms: cities like Blagoveshchensk are basically part of Heilongjiang - in that particular case, it is very nearly a direct extension of the Chinese city of Heihe. They do way more trade with China than with the rest of Russia, and in some cases the populations are 30+% Chinese nationals, who often run all the important businesses and, ironically, use the native population as cheap labor. In these conditions, stepping in more formally would be very trivial in the absence of a robust Russian response. Info mostly sourced from The Emperor Far Away, Heilongjiang chapters.

yike321123 5y ago

It sounds like a good idea but would this actually work? Russia itself while it pretends not to be is a very ethnically diverse region. The people living in certain sections of this area are very very different. Along with the fact that the population density varies from region to region how would with even give proper representation to those within the northern regions? Suggestions like this should be taken lightly as other nations have undergone similar "democratic" unifications such as ethopia and india which have lead to the further establishment of their systemic castes. In Ethopia we are starting to see the start of their civil war due to these underlying issues. While the current government claims it to be a regional conflict the underlying issues are much more severe.

g8oz 5y ago

There is a better chance of Texas seceding than Russia breaking up. And realistically neither are going to happen.

adventured 5y ago
There's excellent reason to doubt that premise is correct: Russia has a long history of losing and gaining territory. The last thing Russia has been is stable throughout its history, a break-up is far more likely than the opposite. Realistically Russia has no future other than being splintered. Nothing can stop that future outcome, it's already being pulled at now. Adding salt into that wound, the world now knows how exceptionally weak and backwards Russia's primary point of power is: their military. The projection of (supposed) immense military power has been integral for many decades in holding big Russia together, through fear, intimidation, and so on. They've burned up enormous resources trying to force it to remain together over time; it has broken their people, it has broken their potential, it has impoverished the Russian people to an extreme. And today we know they don't even have a potent military to show for it. And now the Russian people are being confronted with the consequences, the cost, of trying to force big Russia to remain together (the Russian people had been temporarily sheltered from paying that price for much of the prior two decades, and those days are over). Russia has to keep burning resources to force big Russia to hold together. That will increasingly come in the form of the Russian people watching their standard of living vaporize, on top of having lost essentially all human rights under Putin's two decade dictatorship. They will soon have nothing to lose, and they will react accordingly (although on a delay): prepare for revolution as an outcome.
- watwut 5y ago
  I don't see all that many Russia regions trying to split up now. And to add, there will be no revolution in Russia for years. Revolutions happen only after police, secret service and other similar forces were weak enough for long enough. Russian ones are strong currently. There is no organized opposition to speak of, so even if they became weak overnight, it would still took years till the discontent organizes itself enough to make revolution.

pelasaco 5y ago

We saw it in the 90s and in that point of time it didn't make the region any safer. You could buy any soviet weapon everywhere. I think one of the reasons that US, UK and France were happy that Ukraine gave back their nuclear arsenal to Russia was exactly to avoid it being sold in the black market to some third country in the middle east.

adventured 5y ago
What we understand now is that the US (+ allies) should have purchased that arsenal and dismantled it (with Russian oversight), rather than allowing Russia to take it.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  yes, that's accurate. It would probably demand different effort and budget however.

giraffe_lady 5y ago

"secures the region" from what and for whom? Assuming there is a single point of view from which this is true, and that you share it with the people living there, doesn't sound like less colonialism to me.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
From Russia, of course. It is Russia that started the war with Ukraine now, and previously in Georgia and other places. We (Europeans) need a decent neighbor we can collaborate with, not a bully. We can disagree on many things like with Hungary for example, but Hungary is not having a fit over some issue and doesn't invade Romania for example.
- postalrat 5y ago
  Keep the invasions to the middle east and asia where they belong. /s
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    Either as a joke or chillingly honest, I think this is basically where US and european foreign policy is with this.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    I believe by now the USA has finally learned that there is no single case where an invasion makes sense. Not only you won't help anyone, you just increase the number of people killed and further destabilize the situation you intended to "fix". BTW I consider the invasion on Afghanistan and Iraq as a pure fit of Bush over his inability to deal with the circumstances that provoked 9/11.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Yes, it would be much better for middle east and asia if Russia cleansed Ukrainians out of Ukraine and managed to continue to Poland, Finland, Moldavia, Czech Republic and so on. Somehow, magically, middle east would then became peaceful. As long as there is no world peace, no other world region has right to care about its security.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

If the main thing is securing the region, deunification is not necessary - denuclearization would do just fine. Currently nobody is helping Ukraine in their tragedy only because of Russian nukes.

CountSessine 5y ago

Maybe… Something to keep in mind is that land-locked countries experience slower economic growth and have lower GDPs than countries with access to ports. Russia is mostly restricted to their Black Sea ports but they still have something. Break Russia up and you’ll be condemning a lot of people to a lower standard of living long-term.

adventured 5y ago
> Break Russia up and you’ll be condemning a lot of people to a lower standard of living long-term. That's of course not necessarily true. You haven't factored in the retardation of economic outcome that the present union is causing because it can only exist through the extreme and persistent application of force (which is very substantially regressive for human development). The reason they keep getting authoritarians century after century is because Russia as it presently stands should not exist, they can only hold it together with force. That comprehensive application of force destroys liberty, creativity, free expression, economic growth, investment, and so on. You can simultaneously have economic negatives from the lack of a port, in a landlocked Russia spin-off state scenario, and be better off being out from under the forever strangulating authoritarian umbrella of big Russia. That is to say, that's just how horrific and dampening of human potential it is to be under the boot of authoritarian Russia. There's a good reason so many nations that were formerly dominated by Russia are now exceeding them in GDP per capita.
- CountSessine 5y ago
  There's a good reason so many nations that were formerly dominated by Russia are now exceeding them in GDP per capita. “Isn’t ruled by Vladimir Putin” is highly predictive of GDP, but “has a warm-water port” is far more predictive. Who is doing well? Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan. Who isn’t doing well? Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Tajikistan… There are other variables. “Who has oil”, for example. But “who has unencumbered access to world trade through the sea” is the best.
- nevermindiguess 5y ago
  It would be interesting to hear why you think Russia is an authoritarian state. Have you lived there? Have you studied it deeply? Do you have reliable sources to substantiate your claim? You certainly repeat what the western media says, but they are hardly an independent or unbiased source (speaking of authoritarian regimes). To me it looks like you may be making a lot of assumptions without having first hand experience or professional knowledge on the subject.

kwere 5y ago

Outer Manchuria & Siberia has been chinese since ancient time moment

throwaway3968 5y ago

In the pro-Western Russian circles, until recently, there was a notion of Great Neo-Russia. A supposed liberal democracy that would arise in the same borders, after putting everyone with blood on their hands on trial. It is now shattered to pieces by the tragedy of Ukrainian people. But there aren't any secession movements either (other than Chechnia, a can of worms of its own). We have no idea what awaits us, literally anything is possible.

elric 5y ago

I'm a bit puzzled by the matter-of-factness of this comment. You're essentially talking about impinging upon a people's right of self-determination. It has a kind of colonial smell to it. Calling it more democratic seems a stretch at best.

jl2718 5y ago

What about Ukraine?