If Germany chooses preserving alliance with Russia over commitments to Austria-Hungary at all costs, does this make Austria-Hungary more likely or less likely to be a target of Russian-supported aggression over time?
Quite the "go to" in alternate history, Bismarck choosing Russia over Austria-Hungary is a popular theme. A near inevitable occurrence in such threads is a break up of Austria-Hungary including probable territorial claims on some remains of the empire by Germany and/or Russia.
Is that the inevitable outcome in the near or medium term?
Or could a Russo-German alliance actually make Austria-Hungary *safer* and *healthier* by clearly signalling to Vienna that competing with Russia in the Balkans is not an option?
In other words, could it result in a period of mutual peace between the Romanovs, Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns after the 1870s that lasts as long as OTL's period of peace between them from 1780 to 1914?
If supported by Germany, would Russia limit is geopolitical appetites to the Ottoman Balkans and other places in Asia, or would it still come to desire Austro-Hungarian territory for itself or for slavic proxy states?
Russian animosity towards Austria-Hungary was perhaps in some part stimulated by ethnic solidarity with the empire's slavs, but I think it had more to do with Austria-Hungary's attempts between the 1850s and 1870s to limit Russian direct and proxy gains against the Ottomans.
If the latter was the real determining factor, could a Russo-German alliance basically result in a "neutralized" A-H which chooses policies inoffensive to either power and in turn both of them prefer to keep it around in its current format? What do you think?