Qing empire map
Posted on 04/29/2024 6:03:51 PM PDT by BeauBo
The Soviet-Afghan War destroyed Afghanistan and eventually the Soviet Union, which dissolved in 1991 into 15 republics. Numerous satellite states in Europe were liberated at the same time.
History may repeat as the Russia-Ukraine war weakens Moscow, financially and geopolitically. Russia’s 2022 invasion was about reoccupying a former colony, Ukraine, but there are other Russian republics that hope to become liberated...
… in December 1991, Ukrainians voted for independence and Ukraine became the first of the Soviet republics to leave. The Baltic republics followed, as did Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and others. Now there is unrest across the Russian Federation…
… a story in the Moscow Times in February:
“Russian indigenous and minority activists have long warned that the Kremlin is banking on using the country’s non-Slavic population as cannon fodder in its protracted quest for capturing Ukrainian territories.”
Chess master and political activist Garry Kasparov predicted the war will result in the collapse of the Russian Federation.
“I’m pretty sure that within the next five years, Russia will end up smaller,” said Kasparov, who predicted that the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chechnya “very likely will walk away.”
(Excerpt) Read more at financialpost.com ...
Qing empire map
Not quite.
Ottoman empire circa 1914
Turkey may want to grab Syria, but the Iranians won't allow that
The Turks also may want to take Armenia, but more likely just keep it as a vassal state (it provides them no benefits).
Any adventures into Greece or Cyprus would bring it into other countries' spheres of interest.
Furthermore, look at Turkiye's economy under Erdogan
and inflation
Turkey MAY want to get the Caucasian lands, but can they?
Furthermore, Iran despises Turks (in the middle ages the Iranian lands were tossed between various Turkic powers right until the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. They look on TurkiC rule as having damaged their national ethos
Works for me. Just as long as I'm not being taxed for it.
If you look at the GDP per capita of Russia - it fell from $16,000 in 2013 to $10,000 in 2020 -- and there was little change in Russia's population at that time
Even if we take that in rubles, not in USD (to discount currency fluctuations, Russia's GDP per capita fell by 16% between 2013 and 2020 -- during this same period there was eonomic stagnation, some mega projects, some fancy events like Sochi Olympics and World Cup 2018, controversial and poorly thought decisions during 2014 crisis in Ukraine, which later proved to be wrong. Economic sanctions by the West, half-hearted import substitution attempts. Unpopular pension age reform.
Since 2020, he has damaged the Russian economy irrevocably to stay in power.
As I've said before, pre-2014, Russia was winning Ukraine the same way it was winning Belarus - through soft power. There was the inevitability that the Russyski mir would absorb the two by the simple fact that people were consuming Muscowy's media.
If Putin had not invaded in 2022, then he would have won. But hubris got to him
As you can see, there were still Dzhungarian Mongols, Gurkani (Timurid) emirates in Central Asia
and in 1800>
Still TurkiC, Timurid rulers and some Chagatids
A breakup of Russia would not have it dominated by Western Financial interests -- you may see (and this is a guess) a split of Muscowy into
split into various statelets - I'm guessing a Moscow-St. Petersburg axis covering pretty much the entire north-west. Then an Omsk based area around the Urals
It uses Russia to get cheap oil, but it values its relationships with the West and Israel more.
They HAD sheer potential. And squandered it.
The brilliant Russians left due to the kleptocracy around Putin and his St. Petersburg mafia.
“And millions of drones”
Yes, literally millions of drones.
In January of this year, a coalition of nations was formed under the joint leadership of the UK and Latvia, just to provide combat drones to Ukraine, including Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden, Estonia, and Denmark.
Denmark and the Netherlands alone announced a joint procurement of drones worth 400 million euros. When the UK Prime Minister addressed the Ukrainian Rada during the signing of the UK’s ten year support agreement with Ukraine, he specifically mentioned their goal to support the Ukrainian domestic production of a million drones in 2024, as well as the additional external provision of drones (which is currently targeted at two million more this year).
The world has never seen such a fleet of combat drones.
Of course, the UK’s GDP is much larger than Russia’s (and drone coalition member Germany’s is much larger still), but talks are underway to expand the drone coalition to two dozen countries this year, which is expected to increase the number of drones further.
Russia’s atrocious war crimes (literally tens of thousands being formally investigated) have so shocked the conscience of the world, that many multi-national coalitions have been established to provide military capabilities to Ukraine, like the French led Artillery coalition, the Norwegian led Naval coalition, and of course, the fighter jet coalition that is providing F-16s.
The thousands of F-16s that have been produced are being replaced by F-35s. With over a thousand F-35s already delivered, many more F-16s are available, than the few hundred remaining Soviet era fighter jets in Russia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s production of new fighter jets dropped to a small fraction of Soviet production, and they were overwhelmingly exported. Since sanctions were imposed in 2022, Russian fighter jet production has collapsed. Russia fields about 400 in total, but not all are operational, and they are wearing them out with a high rate of operational hours during this war..
No one is asking you to move to Russia (although you’d be smart to do that...you guys will understand why in about a decade as EU social policies go into full effect).
As to whether Putin has been good for Russia, Putin’s results in his last election, which was within about 5 points of Western polling there, likely says more to answer that question than some unnamed operative on FR.
“It is a shame the Russians need to fight with such inferior weapons”
You fight with what you have. Overwhelmingly, what Russia has, is what was left over from the Soviet era. They are burning through it at a hectic pace.
They can produce a lot of artillery shells, but more complex systems being sent to the front are overwhelmingly reconditioned equipment pulled from storage, and they mostly took the best stuff first.
Open Source INTelligence (OSINT) analysts have been tracking the emptying out of the old Soviet storage sites from commercial satellite imagery, and tracking as those models of equipment turn up destroyed or captured on the battlefield.
At these burn rates, they can keep up this operational tempo roughly through 2025, all other things remaining equal. Then the party is over, for Russia as a conventional military power.
Intelligence Services around the world are also counting down the old Soviet arsenals, and preparing for a future where Russian power collapses. Russia’s former client states in Central Asia have already significantly shifted to the Chinese sphere of influence, in just the last two years, as have large segments of Russia’s domestic economy, like its auto industry.
“Turkey MAY want to get the Caucasian lands, but can they?”
More likely they would exercise soft power to support independence of Turkic peoples from Russia (and closer to Turkey). Political and diplomatic support in International relations; covert support and agitation.
Although the Turkish economy is a basket case, they have one of the top ten defense industrial bases on Earth (Turkish companies got the contract to expand US artillery shell production in Texas). Turkey also exercises a lot of soft power and influence in Muslim Central Asia, with popular media (TV, movies, music), as well as religious and cultural outreach programs.
“If you look at the GDP per capita of Russia - it fell from $16,000 in 2013 to $10,000 in 2020”
The 2014 invasion of Ukraine was a watershed for the Russian economy, but it pales in comparison to the effects of the 2022 invasion. Putin is driving Russia to become Novo North Korea.
Good grief, the rah rah war propaganda just never stops. Haha, embarrassing how conservatives are particularly prone to this pap. Wave a flag, salute, and they get hard dreaming of the American war machine engaging in another forever war.
To be reborn as a textbook communist state, the capitalist elements supporting the economy must first be purged.
China is in turmoil as the Xi CCP purge progresses
As I said - Putin has been bad for Russia - while GDP did initially rise in the mid 2000s due to the oil boom, it was not due to Putin's policies.
If you look at the GDP per capita of Russia - it fell from $16,000 in 2013 to $10,000 in 2020 -- and there was little change in Russia's population at that time
Even if we take that in rubles, not in USD (to discount currency fluctuations, Russia's GDP per capita fell by 16% between 2013 and 2020 -- during this same period there was eonomic stagnation, some mega projects, some fancy events like Sochi Olympics and World Cup 2018, controversial and poorly thought decisions during 2014 crisis in Ukraine, which later proved to be wrong. Economic sanctions by the West, half-hearted import substitution attempts. Unpopular pension age reform.
Since 2020, he has damaged the Russian economy irrevocably to stay in power.
As I've said before, pre-2014, Russia was winning Ukraine the same way it was winning Belarus - through soft power. There was the inevitability that the Russyski mir would absorb the two by the simple fact that people were consuming Muscowy's media.
If Putin had not invaded in 2022, then he would have won. But hubris got to him
Very good points. I completely forgot about the spread of Turkish television, which is very popular in its near abroad.
You are correct, they may be able to just walk in without firing any bullets
Yes and the Russophiles completely ignore his destruction of Russia
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