Why a Broken Russia Is Bad for the World
economist.com
economist.com
All I ever read are demands for Russia to end the war, acknowledge Ukraine as a state, retreat from all Ukraine territory.
I don’t see how that means “the destruction of that sovereignty or its radical limitation”. Do I see that wrong or did I miss other news?
- "A humiliated Russia, lingering on the periphery of the West." - the result if Russia backs down in Ukraine.
- "Russia ends up in China’s orbit." - except that China doesn't really want Russia. China already has a big northwest that's only marginally useful, and doesn't need a buffer state. Or Russian technology. Or Russian manufacturing. Or Russian military support.
- "Fragmentation" - many of the oblasts break off, especially along Islamic borders. Decades of local wars. Who gets the nukes?
- "Fortress: closed, mobilised, in permanent siege." Like North Korea.
Those are all depressing options.
Read this from a Russian perspective. In the Russian view, Russia is entitled to be a world power. It's a huge country, stretching from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, even though it only has 140 million people. Russia has fought off invaders, from Napoleon to Hitler, and won. Being reduced to a regional player, like Brazil (221 million people) does not fit the Russian mindset. Obama once referred to Russia as a "regional power", and that insult has not been forgotten in Russia.
Melnichenko is very worried about nuclear war. It could happen all too easily. Both Putin and Trump have nuclear release authority on their own. The premiers of the USSR after Stalin did not. He sees a conflict possibly getting to the point where conventional warfare threatens the existence of a nuclear power, and points out that stopping at the edge of annihilation cannot be relied upon. That's a very real fear.
This is one of the more insightful views of the future of the world. This is someone who trained as a physicist, yet made his money by focusing on the fertilizer and used pipe industries after the USSR went down. (Essential industries, and mostly ignored by others with political power.) A very practical business type, knows everybody important from Putin on down, and looks at the future as a failure analysis problem.
Maybe that's a practical business take on matters but if anything it makes me less interested in saving Russia from its own stupid mistakes.
Maybe threats is how you make billions in post-Soviet-collapse finance. Clearly it's not by building a better society for the people who live there.
"The richest Russians" wanted that war, they used Putin to get it, he was selected for his nationalism and nationalism is going to ruin Russia regardless of the outcome of the present war.
Neither fertilizer nor concessions can't change that, so what's the point?