If Russia collapses…what happens next?
Paul J. Warburg
28 min
Claims that Russia can never collapse as a result of their war against Ukraine are the most speculative idea of all. There are strong reasons once you understand the internal makeup of Russia to see that people might actually want to split away from that country.
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Vladimir Putin
Chapters
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0:00
Putin's Fear of Collapse
Vladimir Putin has done several things throughout his war against Ukraine that seem to indicate that at least he is genuinely worried about the possibility of Russian societal collapse, particularly if the war continues to go as it has been going and things continue to go awry for the Russians. In Russian history, just in the past 100 years or so, Russian society has experienced several full-scale societal collapses.
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1:04
Internal Rebellion Risks
Vladimir Putin is worried about one or even two different ways that he might lose power. One of those being that his soldiers become so frustrated with him that they communicate amongst themselves to actually do some sort of bottom-up coup, bottom-up rebellion to take him out. Vladimir Putin is worried about one or even two different ways that he might lose power. One of those being that his soldiers become so frustrated with him that they communicate amongst themselves to actually do some sort of bottom-up coup, bottom-up rebellion to take him out.
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6:00
Civil War Outcome
When Russia collapses historically, they descend very quickly into bloody civil war. Obviously, that was the case in the Russian Empire, but it was also the case in the Soviet Union. Russia is not actually Russia. A lot of people know that the actual name of Russia is the Russian Federation. And the reason it's called that is because at least in theory, Russia is made up of not one homogeneous people, the Russians, just as was the case in the Soviet Union, but rather several theoretically autonomous republics.
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12:20
Secession Vulnerability
If you are a vassal and your relationship with your central government is essentially one of convenience, one of mutual benefit, what happens when the relationship starts to look one-sided? For example, what happens when your central government is asking you to send your people to war, and your reward for that is inflation and a destroyed internal economy?
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19:28
Nuclear Weapon Risks
If Russia really did disintegrate into competing republics, a scenario that a lot of people are worried about is there being a whole lot of warlords all across Russia with access to Russia's nukes.
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23:19
External Territorial Loss
The mere risk of rogue nuclear weapons is certainly something that would capture the popular imagination and it would get people's attention. And that attention could then be converted into justifications, excuses, whatever you want to call them, for certain countries to do things that they've long wanted to do.
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23:44
China and Turkey Expansion
The countries in particular that I'm thinking of are China and Turkey, which each play similar roles, but on different sides of Russia. Turkey in the west, near the Caucasus, China in the east.
Key points
- 0:00
Russian society has experienced several full-scale societal collapses in the past century.
- 1:04
Putin fears soldiers might stage a bottom-up rebellion to take him out.
- 1:04
Governments often fall when elites within the government replace the leader on top.
- 6:00
Russia historically descends quickly into bloody civil war upon collapse.
- 12:20
Vassal republics may seek new masters if Moscow demands war for inflation and economic destruction.
- 20:29
Nuclear materials might be sold by rogue states without delivery mechanisms after collapse.
- 23:44
China could use nuclear risks as justification to take over Far Eastern Russian territories.
- 24:59
Turkey might try to court Chechnya again if the Russian state weakens significantly.
- 26:34
Claims that Russia can never collapse are the most speculative idea of all.
Who and where
People · 1
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Vladimir Putin 16
President of the Russian Federation
Photo 1
1. Photo: Пресс-служба Президента России, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · redrawn in our house style (Vladimir Putin)
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