OK--what's the authors offers instead of "Great Russia" ? Russia disintegrating along ethnic lines into pieces ? What are geopolitical consequences of that ? I.e. what happens if North Caucasus falls into hands of the likes of Shamil Basayev--will it be democracy or Islamist State bent on spreading "jihad" ? What happens with underpopulated Far East--Will Overpopulated China look calm at disintegration of Russia and won't try to grab Far East and Siberia ? What exactly author suggests should happen to Russia, so it can become successful democracy ?
There are plenty of multiethnic countries around the world that are successfull democracies. As for his criticism of Empires, Empires existed as long as civilization existed and some of the empires brought a lot of good to this world. British Empire tried to instill (with mixed results) culture of parlamentarism and democracy on its former territories. Roman Empire was a beacon of civilization in Europe and North Africa incomprarably better than what succeeded it--Dark Ages of Barbarism in Europe for about 6 centuries and Islamic Conquest of North Africa.
The problem was not that Russia was (and arguably somewhat still is) an empire of different people. The problem was what kind of Empire Russia Was--oppressive, brutally authocratic heavily centralized, etc. It's true that Putin is just unable due to his KGB mentality to find any better model for Russia. However, what Russia needs is a decentralization (not disintegration) with Central Authorities having minimal powers like foreign policy and defense, while localities should have majority of powers. Putin done quite a few awful things to Russian development. However, the alternatives to Putin and overall centuries old authocratic model of Russia should be something better than disintegration.
" - - - Central Authorities having minimal powers like foreign policy and defense, while localities should have majority of powers."
Sounds similar to the original formula for the USA.
This is typical tripe. They hate Russia and don't think past that. These are the same people who wanted to get rid of the Tsar and destroy the Russian Empire for years. They gave Trotsky lots of money. Well congrads. Thanks to the exact same idjits, we had Communism International, Nazis, WW2, the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the various trajedies of Africa, etc and a resurgent Islam. But why admit that the original plan screwed up to kill 300 million people, we'll just continue with the same brain dead stupidity.
During my 12 years in the US army, I got to work on 2 UN missions (what eye openners those were to the UN corruption) but the interesting thing is, I met a lot of educated black africans and all of them admitted they wished the empires had not left Africa. They were better off as colonies.
Russia had that for 8 years under Yeltsin. Was it better off?
"Russia disintegrating along ethnic lines into pieces ? What are geopolitical consequences of that ? "
What were the geopolitical concequences of disintegration of British or French colonial empires? Very bad I would say. Does it mean that the Brits should have killed Gandhi and stay in India for all eternity?
"The problem was not that Russia was (and arguably somewhat still is) an empire of different people. The problem was what kind of Empire Russia Was--oppressive, brutally authocratic heavily centralized, etc"
I fully agree with that, but does it really matter for the Chechen women and children who lost their men, slaughtered by Putin's mercenaries? I honestly wish good for the Russian people, that they one day become truly free and democratic nation, but when I think about Chechnya, I'm losing hope.
You want Russia mutiethnic and democratic? OK, that would be fine. But what if Chechens don't want be a part of any Russia at all?
"what happens if North Caucasus falls into hands of the likes of Shamil Basayev"
It will fall into their hands only if Russia continues its criminal policy against Chechens. If Russians would have been willing to talk to Dudayev and establish civilized relations with independent Chechnya, it wouldn't have come to the situation we have now.