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What should it be then?
A collection of the smaller ethnic states which The Russian Empire conquered and genocided.
Even if they did separate, there would still be a Russia, and it would not lose as much as one might think.
And even so, it is a bad idea. There are so many disputes between the nations, that we would likely see a few wars. Something like what is happening between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Also, many of them are too small to exist in a meaningful was as independent countries, and I honestly don't see the harm in them remaining in Russia.
Since the break up of the USSR, Russia has fought two wars in Chechnya and invaded both Georgia and Ukraine. I’m failing to see how the prospect of perennial future wars is something to worry about when they’re already engaging in what you’re worried about.
Also, Russia is partially to blame for the Armenian-Azeri war as they have failed to uphold their CTSO obligations to Armenia.
Yeah, but it is going to be even worse. Russian Caucasus is going to have a few wars at least, hell, it did happen to an extent when the federal government was weak. There are territorial disputes and conflicts that are only suspended for as long as these republics are a part of Russia.
So my point stands: there are reasons to be opposed to the "balkanisation of Russia" and no reasons to support it, unless you want that because you just want to hurt Russia, but in this case be honest with yourself and do not pretend you are doing it for the ethnic minorities.
Correcting historic injustice is usually pretty messy. I’m not looking for Russia to be hurt, I’m looking for it to be broken up so it can no longer wage the wars of conquest it has consistently engaged in as well as giving the ethnic minorities that imperial Russia and the USSR oppressed the self determination they deserve. There would have been no wars in the caucuses in the 90’s if not for Russian imperialism.
You mentioned the invasion of Georgia, and it seems from the context like you believe it to be an injust invasion. Is this correct? Do you believe Georgia is entitled to the land it lost?
Which time? When the Bolsheviks ousted a democratic government in 1921? When the Red Army crushed protests in 1989?
I get your implied point that Ossetians and Abkhazians did not feel included in the Georgian nationalist government that took over after independence, but I also think that Russia crafted the conditions that created this problem in the first place and intervention from them was not the solution.
But is this not irrelevant? It seems to me that you believe that North Ossetia should be independent, despite the fact that Ossetians do not want independence from Russia, and South Ossetia should not be independent, despite the fact that South Ossetians would rather not be a part of Georgia.
I believe in self determination, so I don’t have a problem with any group deciding they want to be Russian in a free and fair election. That said, I find that Russia’s involvement in the Caucuses has been wholly self serving.
Well, I believe that without Russia, Russian Caucasus will be a worse place overall, and will also have a few wars.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia are also worse off than they would be had they remained in Georgia.
It seems to me that this sort of nationalism is counterproductive.
There are already wars in the Russian caucuses.
I cannot prove or disprove a negative, so I’m not going to touch your second point.
Georgian nationalism was so fervent at the fall of the USSR because of Russian oppression. They haven’t done anything to clean up the mess they created because frozen conflict on their borders is beneficial to Russia.
There are no wars now.
The wars happened when the central government was too weak to deal with them, which supports my point somewhat.
The logical conclusion to your point is that Russia should be allowed to conquer the world to end all wars. The problem with that is that no one wants to live under Russian rule, and Russia fights wars to take control over those countries and then genocides them afterwards. This is not better.
My hope is for Russia to get small and weak enough that they can no longer wage wars on their neighbors.
This is simply not correct. Quite a lot of people would prefer not to separate from Russia.
Then they wouldn't fight a war for independence would they?
Precisely.
And this is why a lot of peoples did not, in fact, fight a war of independence against Russia.
And the Chechens, for instance, wanted independence because they were subjected to a genocide by the USSR when it was ruled by a Georgian, so this is hardly a usual case for the ethnic minorities, since most of them were not genocided.
The main reason the rest don't fight is because they were already too badly genocided.
Exactly. In fact, my nation was genocided so hard by the Russians, we don't even know it happened.
The point is, that there is not necessarily a desire to leave. You are generalising unnecessarily.
Ok then America should be a smaller collection of native states that the white settlers genocided.
I agree in principle. But you can't reverse history to what it SHOULD have been.
Self determination is I assume your point. Which I'm all for. But that is only as good as how well those states can continue to defend their sovereignty. You break up Russia and then it's just a bunch of small defenseless states that the rest of the world with pick apart for resources as they've done with Ukraine.
Balkanized
The Balkans are not exactly doing well, are they?
Serbia is definitely having issues right now with protests for sure. I’d argue that it’s not exactly surprising that a Russian aligned government has significant issues with corruption. In my view, a Balkanized Russia would be less capable of exporting their toxic politics around the world.
Other than that, most of the Balkan nations are on the higher end of the human development index, are all tending upwards for GDP (with PPP factored in), and are improving their infrastructure. Definitely a mixed bag when you look at specific areas, but they’re largely doing objectively better than they were 30 years ago.
I am not sure if you remember but the process of "balkanisation" was accompanied by certain unfortunate events, that included a genocide, the bombing of Belgrade, among others. Corruption is not the biggest problem here.
You said the balkans aren’t doing well; they largely are now. Those wars were a generation ago. Corruption is the biggest problem in the balkans right now as far as I can tell.
As for Russia, they’re already a genocidal state constantly engaged in war.
Well, yes. Maybe I should have phrased it differently: the "balkanisation of Russia", like actual balkanisation, will be associated with a series of conflicts and deaths, if it does occur.
Also, genocidal is an overstatement. I do understand that using strong words like "fascism" and "genocide" when they are unwarranted is somewhat in fashion now, but believe it is best not to do that.
Again, this is already status quo from Russia at the moment.
These are genocidal actions, plain and simple. If you have a problem with me characterizing it as such I really don’t have anything else to say to you.