Posted on 12/12/2021 5:24:29 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Kazimierz Woycicki, a specialist on Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw, says that there are six possible scenarios for Russia’s future. From Moscow’s perspective, four are disastrous; and two are more hopeful although apparently in the Polish scholar’s view less likely.
The four negative scenarios, he suggests, include “the territorial disintegration of the Russian Federation,” “the gradual but peaceful falling apart of Russia,” “the Balkanization of Russia,” and “the fall of Russia under the influence of China” (k-politika.ru/mrachnye-prognozy-v-polshe-raspisali-shest-scenariev-budushhego-rossii).
The two more positive ones at least from the perspective of the Russian leadership at the present time, Woycicki argues, are “the restoration by Moscow of its influence with the acquisition of its ‘former imperial position’” and “modernization conducted on the basis of cooperation with the West.”
Russia could fall apart if Moscow can’t cope with the difficulties of controlling its enormous territory or attract outside funding for investment. In the end, the Polish scholar says, Russia could lose everything to the east of the Urals and the Caucasus. This process could be violent or peaceful.
Woychicki says that any “’Balkanization’” of Russia would lead to threats not only to Russia itself but to the international community and likely generate wars around what is today the periphery of the country. The fourth scenario, likely if Russia weakens further, would result in a fundamental reordering of the international scene.
None of these is inevitable, however, the Polish expert continues. It is possible to high oil and gas prices will allow Moscow to build up the country and that weakness in the West will open the way for the restoration of a Russia-led empire.
China isn’t too far off from its end either.
It’s one-child has been so successful that parents are interested in more than one children. In thirty years, China might fall under a billion people.
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Who and what comes after Putin? I can more easily see China trying to seize parts of Siberia - sparsely populated and rich in natural recsources which the Chinese need and are better positioned to exploit - than China going to war with us. They can always go to war with us later, watching us weaken year by year.
Russia has a problem. Extremely rich in resources, not many people to defend those resources over the distances they must control.
Nobody in the West trusts them because they kill their own people with little remorse.
Chinese will move into the “far East”.
Personally, I think Nukes in Washington DC, Moscow, and Bejing, destroy those three cities( and the government there) and the entire world would be a better place.
Just an opinion.
We need Russia to join with us against China.
“the territorial disintegration of the Russian Federation” is the most likely scenario unless they find a strongman to succeed Putin and rule the country with an iron fist.
That's his biggest flaw. He needs to nurture a successor. But the problem is that he is probably too paranoid to do that.
Empty our prisons. Send them to Siberia and reopen the Gulag.
In Russia the successor names themselves.
;-)
You're right. Even if Putin named a designated successor, he would get murdered by the eventual successor. Just look at what happened to Trotsky.
I believe the primary reason the democrats have made Russia the boogie man of everything is it’s what their masters in Beijing have instructed them to do.
Don’t forget Beria.
He interviewed himself for the job and thought he got it.
Then....
Oops.
The Democrats have done us no favors with the Russia collusion hoax. Putin understands the US and can see there are a lot of self serving politicians under the thumb of China that cannot be trusted. It is an opportunity that has been wasted so far.
The Polish are never right in their predictions for Russia and this one is not an exception.
Four negative scenarios are wishful thinking unrelated to reality, the “positive” scenarios do not reflect the popular sentiments and the goals of the elites as well.
Real Putin’s problem is that his popularity historically stems from improved rule of law and significant growth in living standards. The latter is under ginormous foreign pressure over the last decade, there he manages to competently handle it on macro-level, but for the average person, it seems stagnant at best.
There are two lines of opposition towards the current status quo, where the left views Putin as a corporatist elitist who lets big business not pay its fair share, and the right sees him as a Westernist who spent too much time in Germany, weak on defense and foreign policy.
Whoever replaces him in 2024 will have to address these two problems. The reconstitution of “Empire” is not on the menu because everybody is tired of the fSU countries and doesn’t want to support them anymore. “Reforms with Western help” are a tough sell because everybody remembers the Yeltsinite oligarchy, and there is a fresh example of the trainwreck Ukraine under Western “reformers” nearby.
That’s a good point. The Chinese don’t want us to be friends with the Russians. Neither do the Dems.
Yes. Inevitably his acolyte will take him down.
The average Russian shouldn't complain the way things are going right now. In Russia, things could get much worse. And usually they do.
Everybody wants better but you are right that it is not really bad. The alleged requirement of foreign investment is the Polish projection. Russia is currently a creditor nation with near-zero debt and huge reserves, there is no problem of underinvestment.
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