Russia is a Sick Man of Europe

First a little bit of history. Back in 19th century when UK and Russia were two biggest great powers, and played the so-called Great Game, in which the two divided the world into spheres of influence. There was so called Eastern Question: 

What to do with the Ottoman Empire. 

Ottoman Empire used to strike fear all across the Europe in 16th and 17th centuries. Back then it was almost undisputed superpower. However, nothing lasts forever, and fortunes of the Ottomans started to falter. After the Great Turkish War it began to wane. It could still hold most of its ground in early 18th century but lost more closer to the end of that century. By the middle 19th century, Ottomans were no longer able to defend itself and thus so-called Eastern Question came to be.

Russia wanted to conquer all the Ottoman Empire and simply annex it. However, that would have been contrary to the interests of the UK, as that would have made Russia much stronger than UK. So, UK France and Sardinia-Piedmont (future Italy) interfered to save the Ottomans and fought a bloody Crimean War

Ever since a question of what to do with the faltering empire occupied minds of UK's politicians. They did not want it to just fall prey to Russia but did not want to guard and protect it with their own armies either.

UK tried to reform and modernize Ottoman Empire so that it would be able to somehow stand on its own. However, curing this so-called Sick man of Europe, turned out to be an impossible task. Endemic corruption, inflexible vested interests and overall unwieldiness of this multiethnic and multi-confessional empire collapsed it on its own head, and it fell apart into multiple new mostly ethnic based nation states at the end of WWI. Modern Turkey too emerged during these times and even put a final nail in the coffin of the old Ottoman Empire when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk conquered Istambul and dethroned the last Sultan, later he also deprived his successor of the title of Khalif of Muslims 

Modern Sick Men

Almost 200 years have passed since Crimea war and more than 100 since final collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The two centuries since their zenith in the 19th century, by 21th century two great powers of 19th century are now themselves Two Sick Men of Europe.

One of them recently gone so senile as to quit European Union, believing it is still as great and powerful as it was in the 19th century. Brexit was a mistake UK will regret if it manages to get back to its senses.

The other sick man is much sicker than UK. Instead of senility it suffers from the terminal cancer of endemic corruption and inflexible vested interests, that pits common people and businesses against police, secret police and bureaucracy. you can read more about how this cancer kills Russia here

 

How badly Russia is sick.

Because of the reasons outlined in the article about siloviki Russian society is completely divided against themselves and almost completely dysfunctional. 

In fact, Russia suffers from all the same problems that killed Ottoman Empire. Corruption, cancerous vested interests. 

All these issues among other things led to a dysfunctional military that is too stuck in the past to be viable on the modern battlefield. 

What Russia and Ottomans have in common

Back in the days Ottoman Empire had a very powerful and effective military that conquered them their empire. Russia too conquered their empire by force of arms and not so much by anything else. Both countries used to be military hegemons whose military might was that much above that of their neighbors. For both this power eventually declined to the point where they could no longer defend themselves.

Both Russia and the Ottomans used to control a lot of territory and rule over diverse groups of people of different ethnicities, skin colors, languages and religious believes. The way they did it (and in case of Russia still do) was different from modern Western multiculturalism, where diversity more or less evenly distributed across the country, everyone lives side by side and there is no at least visible discrimination based on culture. 

In Ottoman Empire millet system provided different rules and treatment based on religion and other factors. Modern Russia is opaquer on this but back in the days they also discriminated based on language and religion.

In both counties ethnic minorities were mostly conquered people who lived compactly in one or the other area of the country where they were majority. That compact living allowed most of them to achieve independence in their local area and create nation states for themselves.

Ottomans eventually collapsed into rather monoethnic and nationalistic modern Republic of Turkey, that discriminates against everyone who is not Turk and do not speak Turkish as native language, such as Kurds for example.

Russia still holds some control over various minority ethnicities within its borders. Some of them want independence more than others. 

Ethnic Russians themselves not always hold much loyalty to the country as they perceive it as working in the interest of Kremlin and the elites and not in the interest of Russian people as whole.

Russia cannot become a nation state.

However, one other issue that plagues Russia is that it is impossible for it to become a nation state in a modern term of the world.

Since most modern states are nation states and all western system states are nation states, the term probably requires further explanation. You can find it here.

Ottoman Empire used to have their military prowess and Islam as their uniting factors, however when their military power declined in the era of nationalism this was not enough to keep various parts of the empire from wishing to secede and form their own nations.

Because of how heterogeneous it was, Ottoman Empire could not become a nation state in a modern term of the world. It can be a state but could not be a nation. Because of lack of such nationhood, it fell apart into several smaller nation state.

Russia is just as heterogeneous as Ottomans were. Lots of ethnic minorities do not feel loyalty to the country.

Ethnic Russians are a lot more concerned with their Indvidual or family needs and do not trust the county or fellow countrymen. Many want to emigrate. They do not hold much loyalty to the country as they perceive it as working in the interest of Kremlin and the elites and not in the interest of Russian people as whole. 

No matter who ends up taking power in Kremlin, they end up using it for personal benefit of themselves and their cronies while pushing everyone else aside.

Aside from that the county is too large and unevenly developed. People in Moscow and some other western areas are as developed and advanced as the west. Hinterlands on the other hand are as backward as Africa or even worse. People overall are not willing to spread development evenly across the country but rather wish to get where it is better.

Country has too large of a territory with too many contradictory interests in different parts of the country. What is good for Moscow is not necessarily good even for Krasnodar or Novgorod. Much less something further away like Vladivostok.

Because of that this country has no future as it is.

Solutions

Solution is the same as for the Ottomans: to split the country into a number of relatively small countries. Lots of modern countries were carved out of old empire and while some of them are rather dysfunctional, others doing relatively well. Those that are struggling often have poorly drawn borders that put groups with conflicting interests in the same country. Overall, the situation is much better that it was back then.

These new countries should be monoethnic and have cohesive geography and economy.

When carving out new countries we should make sure that each of new countries have one primary industry. That is needed to avoid several different interest groups constantly competing for control of the government to divert all the resources towards their needs at expense of everyone else.

Geography is also important, if there are any areas that are too remote geographically from the rest of the country, they are likely to be overlooked by the governments. That is not good so we need to avoid it.

Current Russian oblast borders are poor guidelines for good new country borders as they come across the economic areas to. That was done to make oblast's governors dependent on the central government as current oblasts could not function as viable independent counties.

To create viable new courtiers most of the time several oblasts have to be merged together into a single county. However, it is not always so. 

Some oblasts should be split, and each part should be then merged with different sets of other oblasts.

Ideally new countries should have around 5 to 10 million people each, but that is not essential.

Some ethnic minorities should get their own countries, but only if they are large enough and live homogeneously. In areas where ethnic minorities and Russians are mixed, more nuanced approached is needed. Either there should be land swap to create ethnically homogenous states or they should be merged with neighboring areas with Russian majority.

Areas with more or less equal distribution of Russians and ethnic minorities like Tatarstan, will likely result in ethnic violence similar to Lebanon or Iraq if created independent in current borders.

It is also possible to do it in stages. Carve new countries from some parts of Russia and leave the rest united for the time being. Areas close to western borders are most prime candidates, as they are more exposed to cultural and technological influence of the West and are more likely to become successful nation-states then areas in hinterlands.

I already suggested some such countries in my Veishnoria article, but it is possible to go even better and finer than just that.