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

by g8oz 5y ago

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.
  - adventured 5y ago
    They're chewing through muscle now. The Russian people had already been suffering a decline in standard of living for much of the past decade. That was brutal enough. It's going to get drastically worse. They've lost all human rights, now they're going to lose the veneer of relative prosperity that they temporarily had (which led them to tolerate Putin a lot more than they otherwise would have). I pointed out it would happen on a delay, because it'll take time to grind them down. The combination (deprived of all human rights and loss of perceived prosperity and forward progress) is explosive to a country as chaotic, unstable, as Russia. The indications that Russia's fabric is being pulled at are numerous. The decade long decline in standard of living, which is now going to plunge. Protests that were going on prior to recent Ukraine war, as in the east. Their military being fake, an entirely corrupt fraud (the image of which is critical to holding big Russia together). Their leadership being wildly incompetent, including Putin. The image of Putin was as a competent autocrat; there were always indications that that wasn't the case (it's an exceptionally rare outcome to begin with), and now we know Putin is a standard issue incompetent autocrat. The big oil gains that Russia benefited from, due to Bush's wars and the dollar decline, papered over Putin's incompetence and gave him at least an extra runway of a decade to conceal all of that incompetence. Russia's military being a fraud is a significant example of them being ripped apart because their system requires the constant burning of resources to prop it up, to hold it together. It requires the image of a very powerful, competent military to hold it all together. Holding big Russia together is extremely expensive and can't go on indefinitely, it inherently must collapse as the fuel runs out. It's always a question of at what stage of collapse they're in (and my opinion is they're going through muscle now, and will hit bone sooner than later). One of the sources of fuel is the Russian people, the system eats them (so to speak): big Russia chews up their standard of living, burns up their potential in the name of holding the whole together. The Russian people sacrifice their potential so big Russia can exist. Big Russia can't even maintain an effective, functional military: so yes, they're being ripped apart, it just wasn't so obvious because the projection of power derived from their military hid a lot of that visual.
    - watwut 5y ago
      > The Russian people had already been suffering a decline in standard of living for much of the past decade. That was brutal enough. Russia has huge inequality and poverty already. And it was moving toward more authoritarian each year. And the drop last decade is still not as bad as the drop in living standards after 1990. And what that 1990 drop brought us is current situation. The place being poor on itself does not make revolution. The other question is, revolution toward what and by whom? Revolution by group of oligarchs amount to mafia taking charge and more of the same. Revolution "by people" requires those people to already have some organized opposition groups working on background. It is not happening currently nor has potential to happen as of now. Russian society, seems to me, is characterized by apathy way more then by revolutionary thinking. > It requires the image of a very powerful, competent military to hold it all together. I don't think military is key here. It is internal secret service and cops. That is what keeps Russian government in power in Russia. Those are running strong. You can spin military loss to whatever you want to, as long as internal secret service and cops are powerful when suppressing opposite opinion groups. The Russian military being internally mess is not exactly secret in Russia. There is a reason why those who can avoid military service. Russia, just like any other country, can be poor, strongly authoritarian and still believe own myth of superiority.

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

by g8oz 5y ago

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

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.
- adventured 5y ago
  They're chewing through muscle now. The Russian people had already been suffering a decline in standard of living for much of the past decade. That was brutal enough. It's going to get drastically worse. They've lost all human rights, now they're going to lose the veneer of relative prosperity that they temporarily had (which led them to tolerate Putin a lot more than they otherwise would have). I pointed out it would happen on a delay, because it'll take time to grind them down. The combination (deprived of all human rights and loss of perceived prosperity and forward progress) is explosive to a country as chaotic, unstable, as Russia. The indications that Russia's fabric is being pulled at are numerous. The decade long decline in standard of living, which is now going to plunge. Protests that were going on prior to recent Ukraine war, as in the east. Their military being fake, an entirely corrupt fraud (the image of which is critical to holding big Russia together). Their leadership being wildly incompetent, including Putin. The image of Putin was as a competent autocrat; there were always indications that that wasn't the case (it's an exceptionally rare outcome to begin with), and now we know Putin is a standard issue incompetent autocrat. The big oil gains that Russia benefited from, due to Bush's wars and the dollar decline, papered over Putin's incompetence and gave him at least an extra runway of a decade to conceal all of that incompetence. Russia's military being a fraud is a significant example of them being ripped apart because their system requires the constant burning of resources to prop it up, to hold it together. It requires the image of a very powerful, competent military to hold it all together. Holding big Russia together is extremely expensive and can't go on indefinitely, it inherently must collapse as the fuel runs out. It's always a question of at what stage of collapse they're in (and my opinion is they're going through muscle now, and will hit bone sooner than later). One of the sources of fuel is the Russian people, the system eats them (so to speak): big Russia chews up their standard of living, burns up their potential in the name of holding the whole together. The Russian people sacrifice their potential so big Russia can exist. Big Russia can't even maintain an effective, functional military: so yes, they're being ripped apart, it just wasn't so obvious because the projection of power derived from their military hid a lot of that visual.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > The Russian people had already been suffering a decline in standard of living for much of the past decade. That was brutal enough. Russia has huge inequality and poverty already. And it was moving toward more authoritarian each year. And the drop last decade is still not as bad as the drop in living standards after 1990. And what that 1990 drop brought us is current situation. The place being poor on itself does not make revolution. The other question is, revolution toward what and by whom? Revolution by group of oligarchs amount to mafia taking charge and more of the same. Revolution "by people" requires those people to already have some organized opposition groups working on background. It is not happening currently nor has potential to happen as of now. Russian society, seems to me, is characterized by apathy way more then by revolutionary thinking. > It requires the image of a very powerful, competent military to hold it all together. I don't think military is key here. It is internal secret service and cops. That is what keeps Russian government in power in Russia. Those are running strong. You can spin military loss to whatever you want to, as long as internal secret service and cops are powerful when suppressing opposite opinion groups. The Russian military being internally mess is not exactly secret in Russia. There is a reason why those who can avoid military service. Russia, just like any other country, can be poor, strongly authoritarian and still believe own myth of superiority.