How Should the West Respond to the Potential (likely) Collapse of Russia?

[steve_bank]

I am thinking of the book and movie The Mouse That Roared.

The Mouse That Roared (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The minuscule European Duchy of Grand Fenwick is bankrupted when an American company comes up with a cheaper imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Crafty Prime Minister Count Mountjoy (Peter Sellers) devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy. Duchess Gloriana (also Sellers) is hesitant but agrees to the plan. Mild-mannered game warden Tully Bascomb (also Sellers) is charged as Field Marshal to lead the Grand Fenwick troops, aided by Sergeant Will Buckley (William Hartnell).

We should have learned by now that trying to aide countries that can not or will not manage themselves are a sink hole for money.

If Russia collapses it will be more ' the west did it'.

China pulled itself out of Maoism. The Chinese leadership while authoritarian does work to improve the lives of the people. VN recoveredand built an economy. South Korea and Japan.

It just is not in the cards for Russia. They don't have the cultural basis and history to support it.

 

[TomC]

You people have shit put in your heads in your media.
Putin has 80% support, even after Kherson lkeaving to ukro-nazis.
Kherson was not lost, they left it. Even Ukrainian Reich was surprised by the leaving.
Russian forces were successfully destroying amphetamine filled ukro-zombies.
But beyond that, there was no pass forward, so they moved back to more defend-able position until better time.

Front line was never meant to be the way it is/was.

I actually think that Barbos is probably right that Putler has majority support in Russia. If anything, the only dissent that I see is Russians wanting Putler to be more brutal. Fight more. Kill more Ukrainians. Steal more land. For this reason, the west needs to continue flooding Ukraine with as much support as we can possibly muster. We need to find more sanctions against Russia. The goal should be to bankrupt Russia until they decide to stop their war.

Barbos reminds me of my now departed dad.

Back during the Bush II administration, my dad was a solid Bush supporter. He firmly believed that Hussein was an Islamic terrorist, the Iraqi people would welcome the U.S. military as liberators, become a democracy, and the war would be over in a few months at worst.

He believed what he heard on the quasi-official news agency, Fox.

He was a good man. A solid family guy, made a good living for his family, did everything right. At least, by the lights of a conservative Christian dude who spent several years aboard a Navy ship in the 40s defending his country against the Japanese. He was nothing like stupid, gullible, or evil. He was a product of his culture.

And my dad was part of the large bulk of American society in 2005.
Tom

 

[bilby]

Careful--life expectancy isn't the age people live to, your conclusions about their population are wrong.

Life expectancy is exactly "the age people live to".

The use of "life expectancy" to mean "life expectancy at birth" or "life expectancy at five years", with those criteria left unspoken, is quite common, but misleading and erroneous.

If the phrase "life expectancy", without a specified age, has any useful meaning at all, it would be "life expectancy at current age, averaged across the population in question", but such a figure is rarely calculated or used.

Most discussions of population health use life expectancy at birth, unless there's a particular value in excluding infant mortality (eg, infant mortality is high, but the question under consideration is the health of the adult population; such as a study of the impact of smoking on mortality in sub-Saharan Africa).

Google tells me that life expectancy at birth in Russia in 2020 was estimated at 71.34 years (76.43 for women, 66.49 for men).

Life expectancy at older ages is, obviously, always greater than at birth; A quick google suggests that data other than the "at birth" numbers for Russia is very infrequently published.

There is a lot of non-specialist, non-expert reportage of Russian life expectancy declining sharply, but little reason to accept that claim, which in many cases seems to be caused by (possibly deliberate) misunderstanding the difference between "life expectancy at birth" and "male life expectancy at birth", on the part of those repeating it.

Overall, life expectancy at birth has increased slightly in Russia over the decade since 2010, but there's no abnormal or sudden change in either direction until COVID, and figures for the COVID years of 2020-present are far too provisional to be trustworthy, not only for Russia, but for any country.

 

[bilby]

We should have learned by now that trying to aide countries that can not or will not manage themselves are a sink hole for money.

You should have learned from the twentieth century that aid to countries that you defeat in war is FAR cheaper than the inevitable second war that results from demanding reparations to pay for your cost of defeating them the first time around.

But that would depend upon your having made at least some effort to study history, rather than just being aghast to discover that life is an expensive business, and the good life even more so.

Or is your thesis that foreign aid spending such as the Marshall Plan (of which The Mouse that Roared is a satire) is the reason that the USA is today one of the poorest nations on Earth?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I remember back in the GWHBush years " nation building" became a conservative dirty word. So we stopped that except supporting dirty wars such as in Nicaragua, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile etc. Now we are finding that failing nations become our problem. The immigrant problem on our Southern border that makes the GOP conservatives roar with rage for example. Supporting incompetent and vicious military regimes turns out 40 years on to have not been a good idea.

 

[bilby]

I remember back in the GWHBush years " nation building" became a conservative dirty word. So we stopped that except supporting dirty wars such as in Nicaragua, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile etc. Now we are finding that failing nations become our problem. The immigrant problem on our Southern border that makes the GOP conservatives roar with rage for example. Supporting incompetent and vicious military regimes turns out 40 years on to have not been a good idea.

When you are the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, it's almost always to your advantage to improve the stability of other nations.

When those nations are likely to bring forth despotic leaders, because the people are struggling with poverty and desperately looking for both scapegoats and saviours, financial aid can be an extremely good investment. Particularly if it forestalls an expensive war that leaves the nation in question in an even worse condition.

 

[steve_bank]

South Korea, Japan, and Germany had large scale military occupation. In Japan MacArthur had the power of a Roman general over a conquered Roman province. When the emperor publicly went to MacArthur the Japanese people generally acecpted defeat.

No such thing is possible in Rus

Afghanistan and Iraq are faiied attempts at nation building.

Iraq had an election and GWB declared victory.

He infamously declared it was over. Unfortunately they could not nandle democracy. A large faction had boycotted the election. The government was one sided. Fighting broke out between miltia

The neo-cons thought liberating Iraq would be like liberating France in WWII,

 

[laughing dog]

There is a big difference between humanitarian aid and nation building.

 

[steve_bank]

Yemen is said to be a huger grave yard. Ethiopians are inet on slaughtering and staving each other. Saudi Arabia and Iran are perpetualy at each other's throats.

Ethiopia is has become a perpetual welfare state.

It is not in the cards for Russia. It went from an agrarian aristocracy to a communist revolution. The culture had no basis for self rule.

Israel is somewhat stable and was influenced by western immigrants.

Western democracy requires a cultural foundation.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And in their present forms, western democracy definitely poses an existential threat to Putinism. It poses no threat to Russian sovereignty and never has. NATO is western democracy on steroids and it is understandable that Putin and any such state gangster would fear NATO and what it represents.

 

[bilby]

Ethiopia is has become a perpetual welfare state.

This is nonsense. Despite the Tigray War, which is yet another part of Africa's hangover from stupid European colonialism (in which longstanding enemies were told "you're all one country now" because nobody gave a shit about tribal borders or tribal history when carving up the continent for plunder), Ethiopia is thriving.

In 2001, GDP per capita in Ethiopia was US$120.77; In 2021 it was US$943.97 (World Bank figures) - that's 782% growth in two decades.

Ethiopia is beginning to do well. Despite the best efforts of such kindhearted and benevolent benefactors as Benito Mussolini, and despite the ongoing imported religious conflict between Christianity and Islam in the region.

Things have basically been improving since the early 1990s, with the resolution of the Eritrean conflict, and the end of US efforts to keep Ethiopia and Eritrea united against Soviet influences, despite this being like uniting two cats by shoving them into a sack. The majority of Ethiopia's problems in the second half of the twentieth century were caused by US meddling as part of the Cold War, and by well intentioned but counterproductive "aid" from the west (such as Bob Geldof's disastrous 'Band Aid' and 'Live Aid' campaigns in the 1980s) that shored up local warmongers and kleptocrats.

In the last couple of decades, Ethiopia has demonstrated that it's quite able to resolve its own economic problems. It's ethnic and religious problems are more difficult to solve, but then, so are those of the USA.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Careful--life expectancy isn't the age people live to, your conclusions about their population are wrong.

A life expectancy of 59 doesn't mean people will be dropping dead at 59, it means a lot of people didn't make it anywhere near 59. Barring truly horrible problems in an area people typically live to something like 80. What life expectancy actually measures is early deaths, how many people are dying before their time.

Okay, if there are more people above the age of 50 than teenagers and the average life expectancy of a Russian man is 59, how many engineers and scientists can expect to die before their time?

You still don't understand life expectancy. The demographic mix has no bearing on it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Careful--life expectancy isn't the age people live to, your conclusions about their population are wrong.

Life expectancy is exactly "the age people live to".

The use of "life expectancy" to mean "life expectancy at birth" or "life expectancy at five years", with those criteria left unspoken, is quite common, but misleading and erroneous.

If the phrase "life expectancy", without a specified age, has any useful meaning at all, it would be "life expectancy at current age, averaged across the population in question", but such a figure is rarely calculated or used.

Most discussions of population health use life expectancy at birth, unless there's a particular value in excluding infant mortality (eg, infant mortality is high, but the question under consideration is the health of the adult population; such as a study of the impact of smoking on mortality in sub-Saharan Africa).

Agreed--but what's being missed here is that life expectancy is in almost all cases a measure of how many die early, not of the typical age people live to. A life expectancy of 65 for men means a lot of men are dying young, not that the average 65 year old male is approaching death.

 

[barbos]

I looked up that video.

No, you did not. It was a video with swastika painted on a vehicle.
The only interesting part is the fact that it managed to pass to air in Germany, of all countries
It was real swastika, not something resembling it.

Barbos reminds me of my now departed dad.

You don't know shit about Russia. You think you do, your media convinced you they know what they are talking about, but at best, they don't, at worst they are flat out lying.

 

[barbos]

The average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59.

"average life expectancy" is tautology
and it is 67.62 in Russia for men.

What is the lifespan of a 21 year old Russian conscript sent to the Ukranian front by Putin?

There are no russian conscripts in Ukraine.
And once again, ukrainian losses are 10 times higher.

 

[barbos]

You don't happen to have a source for this cute imaginary story?

Of course I do, and you should be able to find it too.

 

[Jayjay]

I looked up that video.

No, you did not. It was a video with swastika painted on a vehicle.

Ok, I was thinking of a more recent video. Found the one you were talking about too, it was from September. And while looking for it, also spotted a video with a Russian tank with a swastika from way back in February.

Both sides have a few nazis and idiots. Russians seem to have it worse though.

 

[Jayjay]

You don't happen to have a source for this cute imaginary story?

Of course I do, and you should be able to find it too.

I should, but I didn't. So it is likely just a fabrication of Russian propaganda as usual. I'm keeping an open mind though, as there have been isolated incidents involving friendly fire with the foreign legion.

 

[barbos]

China and India developed economies from a standing start. Albeit with western investment and technology. Africa, Mid East, Russian Federation not so much.

Russian economics appears to be mafia like.

I think it comes down to culture. Stalin and the commuism that followed killed off the freethinking brain power it would have taken, followed by a mind numbing conformity that stifled initiative.

In the 80s the Russians had a bizarre program. they had school kids listening to western pop music thinking it might stimulate creativity.

Thereare ethnic Russians throughout the Federation that see themselves as Russian, as in Ukraine.

I don'tsee the Russian Federation collapsing. The oligarchs and the military will not let it happen.

The Russian Federation will collapse. The question is whether this result in a break up of the Federation.

Says.... you?

The cold hard fact is, there is no oil or gas in Russia. For convenience, we call it all "Russia", but the oil reserves are in sparsely populated areas far from Moscow. The only reason the Federation can maintain control over their Arctic oil fields is because there is not a native population who could seize the resources for themselves and declare independence. The revenue from the oil fields is controlled by Moscow. It's probably the worst conditions of any place in the world, and it's very expensive to maintain production. How long Russia can maintain production is anyone's guess, but when a pump or a compressor breaks down, they will not be able to replace it.

There are a lot of Oblasts(call them what you will) stretching from Muscovia all the way to the Pacific that are kept in line by the flow of cash from Moscow. Whether Moscow can maintain control when oil revenues slow to a trickle is the real question.

So your logic is following:
Putin does not seat directly on the oil field, hence Russia will collapse.

Got it.

 

[barbos]

I should, but I didn't.

Google is banned in Finland?

So it is likely just a fabrication of Russian propaganda as usual.

No, russian propaganda, unlike western one, does not fabricate things.

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For all those people that find it more convenient to bother you with their question than to google it for themselves.

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