the mess that is russia

Jim notes an interesting piece on how Russia got to where it is and several possibilities of where it might go.

snip

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The Russian Federation, the inheritor of Moscow's remaining dominions, is a failed state with an incomplete national identity. It has proved unable to transform itself into a nation-state, a civic state, or even an effective imperial state. Russia's numerous weaknesses are exacerbated by a convergence of factors, including dependence on export revenues based predominantly on fossil fuels, a contracting economy with little prospect of growth or global competitiveness, and intensifying regional and ethnic disquiet.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 accelerated the process of state rupture by failing to achieve the Kremlin's stated goals and resulting in substantial military casualties and damaging international economic sanctions.

Although Russia's 1993 Constitution defines the country as a federation, in reality it is a centralized neo-imperial construct integrated on the basis of administrative proclamation and not voluntary agreement. The artificial state is approaching the end of a regime cycle in which the political status quo is becoming increasingly precarious. Not since the fracturing of the Soviet Union have several simultaneous crises become so stark, including the government's inability to ensure sustained economic development, widening disparities between Moscow and the federal regions, deepening distrust of Moscow's governance, the limited efficacy of mass repression, and a looming military defeat or indefinite quagmire in Ukraine.

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