Will Russia Collapse?
People fall into the trap of seeing history repeating. The post WW2 assumption was that global maps won't change that much. Until they did. After which the assumption was of a big nation collapse.
People fall into the trap of seeing history repeating. The post WW2 assumption was that global maps won't change that much. Until they did. After which the assumption was of a big nation collapse.
So can and will the modern day Russian Federation collapse? What are the bad and good core assumptions?
One question that is not answered is: what would the situation turn into?
What would Russia dissolve into? That question is never answered. Majority of the people living in modern day Russia are Russian. This was not the case of the USSR.
We can look at maps and data:
USSR:
Two very different states. Plus modern day Russia is a capitalist state, where business interest has a strong tie, holding together people, therefore an actual economy and works better as a unifier when compared to Communist mumbo jumbo and the KGB hitting you in the head.
A state leaving a larger state is not the same as the other state collapsing.
There is a difference between the edges of Russia breaking off and Russia collapsing. The Caucasians breaking off and becoming their own states makes sense. But not something random like Siberia.
In a capitalist system, collapse is less likely if there are lots of raw materials like in Russia. Trade interlinks everything, and when the political system is left by a smaller part, there is economic damage and sometimes starvation and drop in living standards.
Just look at the UK leaving the EU.
Having a large market with the same consumer rules and currency makes a capitalist economy so much easier. Free trade will further push integration. Capitalism also forces interaction and more ambitious people will travel towards concentrations of economic activity. But they often go back to place of origin or send back money.
In the Soviet system, people were together because the State and the Party said so. Once that system lost its legitimacy, no person would obey it.
If Russia sticks to pragmatism on the inside as opposite to the creepy WW2-Russian Empire nostalgia nationalism, the well integrated people wouldn't want to see the Russian state to be taken apart, but democratised and localised.
The Kremlin picks the Governors of the regions, that can easily be slipped back to regional elections, and a governors assembly.
I think there will be an EU with Ukraine and Belarus, but it will stop at Russia because of the current war. Poland or the Baltic states would block a country like Russia. I think they would just accept Serbia.
The USA and the EU are looked as models because how they manage to stay decentralised but also to be united just enough, to not break apart.
A lot of nation states started out as Empires. France before 1789 was more of an Empire, with French being spoken in the main cities, otherwise the languages being fairly heavily divided. A Kingdom is not an Empire due to several differences, BUT Empires evolved out of Kingdoms, top down leadership where outside of the elite and economic interest, most peasants had nothing in common outside of religion.
You have the 18th century where the concept of a nation state is articulated. Napoleon ends up exporting it to the rest of Europe, it even spreads to the Americas as a concept. The late 18th century and through the 19th century you have nation state after nation state forming from Gran Colombia attempting to move away from the Spanish Empire as Simón Bolívar was a student in France when the French Revolution was taking place. The USA really takes to heart the idea of the nation state and in WW1 sees it as agreat opportunity to export it to Eastern Europe, and not as if the nation state is not being articulated in Eastern Europe before. When the Ottoman Empire begins to decay, the leaving parts become nation states, often with mass killings, as the elites of that society believe that a nation state is defined by an ingroup and an outgroup. On the other hand you have nation states like Britain that allows internal groups to have just enough autonomy to have things like their own church and courts.
Modern day Russia is an Empire, that can go the way of the nation state especially if the Caucasian section leaves. The other problem is that a large chunk of the minorities in Siberia are herder-gatherers, which is a way of life that is pre-settled civilization.
I think the idea that a Communist state without force is much more vulnerable to breakup as opposite to a Capitalist state is important as well. Capitalism has a reinforcing effect.
Fossil fuels and metals are not magic. You are not guaranteed wealth by simply just having them. You need to find, survey, extract, refine just to get the low cost, basic product, which is used to turn things into high value goods. What Moscow provided was administration and centers that were well connected into the international world.
Look at Ukraine. It wants to be a sovereign nation away from Russia, BUT it wants to be part of the EU and NATO as well. This requires some sovereignty to be given up. Now joining the EU also means you will switch to the Euro down the line, which gives a lot of state power to Germany.
Sovereignty is not binary, and a nation state is not binary.
The economy in a capitalist system tends to push integration as the regions need to sell the raw materials to make the money, which is not as easy like a garage sale. You need a system of companies that extract and refine and even manufacture the resources.
Look at the US shale gas industry. It is a country scale integrated network of pipes, storage sites, regulatory bodies, interstate cooperation, the Federal government having a say, ports with refineries,ports to export. This includes a stable and well integrated financial system with insurance both for the ships down to an employee level. After that you have housing, healthcare, education all needed by the people who make the system work.
Resources are not magic.