How Would The World Respond To A Violent Collapse Of The USSR?

If around the end of the Cold War the USSR descends into chaos what will countries do in response? Will some (like Iran and Turkey) invade what territory is out there just to pick up the pieces? Will the US be willing to support opposition groups or not? Could the collapse of the USSR become the biggest (or biggest basketcase) of proxy wars? How will Europe and Asia deal with the worst refugee crisis since WWII? How will the world be affected in general by this?
 
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TFSmith121

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A "Yugoslavia writ large" in the former Soviet Union

If around the end of the Cold War the USSR descends into chaos what will countries do in response? Will some (like Iran and Turkey) invade what territory is out there just to pick up the pieces? Will the US be willing to support opposition groups or not? Could the collapse of the USSR become the biggest (or biggest basketcase) of proxy wars? How will Europe and Asia deal with the worst refugee crisis since WWII? How will the world be affected in general by this?

A "Yugoslavia writ large" in the former Soviet Union was a very real concern in the West at the end of the Cold War; there are reasons the US and NATO funded the decommissioning of the inherited Ukrainian and Kazakh nuclear capabilities, the repatriation of ex-Soviet forces from Germany back to Russia, etc to tune of billions...

The other issue, of course, is the USSR was not the tinderbox of ethnic rivalries the former Yugoslavia was; the Soviets had quite successfully damped that down for a long time, and it takes time to stoke those sorts of politics.

The Russians, after all, were fairly content to see some or all of the SSRs to go in reality, largely because at that point in the '90s, they were correctly seen as drags on the economy.

Best,
 
The Russians might decide to abolish the Soviet Union on ethnical lines instead of SSR lines - big ass Bosnian war!

The difference is that the Russians can threaten to use nuclear weapons if any outsiders dare to get involved in the mess.
 
OTL Back during the late 1980s, Moskovites had already decided that the Muslim Republics along their southern borders were troublesome. Russia swiftly divested those Muslim Republics as soon as the USSR collapsed.
That left former soviet republics like Kazachstan floundering because they no longer had a market for their mono-culture (cotton) agriculture. Adding to their problems was a lack of management expertise. Few Kazacks had been trained in macro-economic management. Meanwhile, all the white, university-trained communist managers returned to their native Russia.
 
If it occurs during the August Coup, then I can envision the US+NATO supporting Gorbis govt. against the Commies with ethnic separatists rising up in various regions. I can envision that Osama and Co. might move north from AFghanistan to "liberate" some of the Muslim SSRs.
 
A key factor would be what factions are fighting this violent breakdown. If there's any form of capitalist incursion I'm sure the US and NATO would back it in some way or another. Nonetheless, the security of the Soviet's nuclear arsenal would be both an objective of the West and the opposite for terrorist groups such as the Taliban.
 
The other issue, of course, is the USSR was not the tinderbox of ethnic rivalries the former Yugoslavia was; the Soviets had quite successfully damped that down for a long time, and it takes time to stoke those sorts of politics.

The USSR may not be an ethnic tinderbox of rivalries but as soon as it broke up it was.
 
Not unless it's way too chaotic to do so.

If it's so chaotic that the Russians can't use their nukes, then it's because things have become so chaotic that they have lost control over their nukes.

I don't think I have to spell out the nightmare that would implies, for both the FSU and the rest of the world.
 
It is quite unlikely that there would be a land grab for Russian territory. A possibility of Soviet Union/Russia undergoing a civil war was the greatest fear of the USA in the early 1990s.

A concern may be a nationalist in Russia trying to stir public support by acting on irredentist claims in republics that broke away. OTL Russia was an economic mess for years and even Yeltsin in 1991/1992 tried to hint that he may support "border adjustments" until he was scorned by the West and abandoned it. Russia in the early nineties needs Western support to salvage its economy and it will remain indebted to West until at least 1995. The West will try to support a strong central government out of fear for civil war, nuclear or other weapons going missing and so on.

There is no chance that opposition groups would be supported since a strong and stable Russia is better than civil war, and everyone expected Russia will eventually turn into a proper liberal capitalist country.

At best, you could see Russia ruled by a crazy nationalist that constantly stirs trouble (kind of done in Pellegrino's Zhironovsky's Empire) or a Russian government being troubled by local ultranationalist leaders that stir trouble in contested regions and neighbouring republics.

The best hope for a Russian civil war is a nasty ideological war between two Russian factions with parity. Even then, expect nearly global pressure for both sides to agree to a compromise and avoid fighting, perhaps ending with a divided Russia.
 
Any sort of civil war/implosion in the USSR would set off a huge debate in the west. Not only nukes but chemicals and bioweapons might be "loose", this causes problems on several levels. First, obviously, is that folks would take advantage of this to sell this stuff to the highest bidder for hard currency or gold. Secondly, this stuff might be used in a civil war, and depending on how much of what gets used, you can have "leakage" of fallout, chemicals, disease outside of the USSR. Finally, even if none of it gets used or is sold right away, the breakdown in control means trying to round it up once the fighting stops is a bitch - and you may see constituent bits, unlike OTL, not so willing to give stuff up. Let's be honest, bet the Ukrainians wish they had a few nukes left - the Russian promise "if you give them up we promise to respect the border" wasn't worth much was it.
 
WI neighbouring empires tried to gobble up soviet republics that were in their old sphere of influence?
Norway reclaims a few arctic islands ....
Finns retake Karelia ...
Poland expands eastwards to a historical border.
Turkey reclaims all of Kurdistan.
Iran expands northwards to regain control of the historical Prrsian sphere of influence.
Mongolia expands westwards into Siberia.
 
Finland, Norway, Turkey etc. as neighbouring empires?

Soviet Union would need to disappear with its entire population for its neighbours to try and reclaim its old borders. Not going to happen.
 
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