A disorderly failure of the Russian state is pretty much one of the nightmare scenarios.
To countries far away, but wary of, dunno, nukes going into the hands of terrorists, sure.
To countries bordering Russia who are intimidated and threatened (or invaded!) on a continuous basis, this is a definite improvement.
Even the nukes, scary as they could be, are less of a threat when the individual actors are smaller and weaker. They may not even be able to maintain these nukes. And even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.
I'm not sure "the people with nukes would be in a precarious position" is the comforting statement you intended it to be.
If nothing else, these post-Russias would struggle to afford even more to upkeep and upgrade the stash of nukes. And would be easier to neutralize too...
Again, not comforting. "Might as well use them on <hated neighbor>!"
Ask the people living on the Borders of Latvia, Estonia or Georgia what they think of that. These warlords won't respect borders.
>even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.
I think they have even more incentive to use them, far less consequences if they do. Losing your position as warlord of some Fiefdom is a lot less scary then losing your position as the Dictator of a nation with a top 10 GDP, a permanent UN Security Council seat and having personal wealth in the Hundreds of Billions?
Smaller dictators can do less harm, not more.
I'm sure Serbs and Libyans had said the same about Milosevic and Gaddafi for years before they were removed from power.
They will fight between them with their remaining soviet weapons, since they are not competent to fight any large country. Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.
Says who? They can just as well harass non-Russian neighbouring states. Or quite likely form some kind of
> since they are not competent to fight any large country
That doesn't prevent them from trying though.
> Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.
Democracy in such states is an illusion. You are either USA with sustainable, refined over time, extremely restricted (2 parties, electors, strong continuity of the government of the selected few) and deeply rooted in tradition mechanisms of democracy, or you are just a vassal to a state with a good propaganda.
I know imperialists prefer to see the small countries as brainwashed nations that need to be put back in their place and probably this is the reason Putoin is threatening this countries all the time, they show non brainwashed Russians that democracy works, that you can live better then during Stalin or Putin regime, that cooperation works.
Sorry, but when just a few of many countries had managed to barely setup an election process, but can't go on without some violent political crisis every 10 years, that is hardly a functional and sustainable democracy.
What does this have to do with Russians anyway? It's a general principle, which works all ways with all actors. The fact that some west-leaning ex-soviet states are hard on censorship and restriction of Russian media illustrates my point perfectly.
Americans loosing sleep over the idea that TikTok is a threat to national security is another good illustration of this general principle.
See, one really doesn't have to be an imperialist to assess how popularity-based systems can be hijacked in the era when internet and targeted propaganda exist.
Refugees on the border suddenly seems like a nice problem to have.
Your argument would be valid, if this was something exclusive to Russia, and not a common mutual thing between Russia and NATO. NATO bombers just as well fly into Russian airspace, NATO deploys military manoeuvres at Russian borders, and NATO states politicians are just as keen to ramble about nukes as anyone else.
Even now, if only those pesky Ukrainians would stop shooting back at them, peace could be introduced overnight.
Russian peacekeeping corps WAS attacked in Georgia. The EU fact-finding mission, had blamed Saakashvili:
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-report-on-rus...
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-shattered-dream...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...
It's insane how this truth has been erased in the last 14 years, despite being publicly available and easily googlable. This wiki article should provide a good enough context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian%E2%80%93Ossetian_conf...
But hey, why bother with studying facts when you can study propaganda memes, am I right?
In 1994 Chechnya was legally a part of Russia. By that principle, are you considering that Ukraine had invaded Donetsk? Not trolling, just wondering if it is a point of principle or doublethink.
In 1999 Chechnya had invaded Russian Dagestan, which triggered a military response - exactly how does this consitute as "Russia invaded"?
> Georgia once (in 2008)
Georgia attacked Russian peacekeeping corps in 2008:
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-report-on-rus...
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-shattered-dream...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...
I am really puzzled by how people are so reinforced in their ignorance, despite facts being easily available for anyone who cares to spend 5 minutes to learn something.
Like at least four, and if we use the same counting logic you did for Russia, it would be at least 20.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...
> naked territorial aggression
Well, that depends on what you consider to be worse: pushing neo-colonial policies by installing puppet governments through war and staged coups on the other part of the world, or resolving local conflicts created by dissolution of the SU along the administrative (instead of historical, ethnical, or national) borders, while granting citizenships, providing social infrastructure, or at least allowing states to gain sovereignty (if Kosovo can be independent under UN's self-determination principle, why can't Ossetia, who had been at odds with Georgia for ages and was only territorially related to it, because at some point the Soviet Union decided that budgeting that way is easier?)
Besides, considering the US geography, it's kinda hard for it to have territorial disputes, even if it really wanted to. On the other hand, you can ask Mexicans what they think of US law enforcement openly operating in Mexico.
What's the source on that claim?
For example, the most hawkish interview with Dugin (Pozner is the interviewer) is from 2014. The interview is in Russian and Dugin is clearly enraged about the Maidan events, so he is more straightforward than in English interviews.
If the English subtitles are correct, Pozner explicitly asks which countries should be part of the "Greater Russia". Dugin unambiguously excludes the Baltic states, Poland and Finland.
He wanted the eastern Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan in a Eurasian union.
So if even the hawk who is always cited as an expansionist does not want Latvia/Finland/Poland, who does?
The U.S. does military manoeuvres and close fly-by missions in the South China sea.
The people in charge in Russia grew up during the cold war and believe that NATO is a threat. It does not matter to them what people on Twitter who were born in 2000 think.
I don't think either that NATO is a threat in the case of Russia (unlike for Kosovo, Iraq, ...), but they don't care. If someone is in the business of foreign policy, he has to take the opponent's thoughts into account.
Russia's unlimited expansionism is a narrative that is supposed to obfuscate the mistakes that foreign policy has made since 2008.
You think NATO is a threat to Kosovo?
If that is the case: «ты всё Россию прославляешь; а лучше б мусор выносил!»
As opposed to a single, stronger failed state with economic problems?
You're somehow ignoring that countries bordering Russia have already a failed chaotic state with economic problems on their border which also is systematically threatening with invasion, destruction, and genocide.
There are very good reasons why Baltic states are the highest per-capita providers of military and economic support to Ukraine.
The in-fighting that will occur when the current government collapses will weaken them further.
The Ukraine war has strengthened NATO and shown the (quite surprising!) unity of Europe to the point that people here just aren't afraid any more.
My armchair analysis tells me that there might be coming another round of peripheral nation(alitie)s peeling away.
Not such a bad thing. And let the center - the Burkina-Faso-with-nukes - keep the comfort of their nukes, if it's what it takes to keep them from actually using those weapons in fear or in anger.