The Death of Russia - TL
- Thread starter Sorairo
- Start date
Perhaps - but I still won't underestimate Newt Gingrich and the likes of the John Birch Society.
Among other things, it is not clear to me that the American occupation forces—at least their commanders—actually believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. The most that Iraq could reasonably be charged with was domestic terror, an ill-thought, brutal, and disastrous occupation of a neighbour that got turned back after a year, and an attempt on Bush senior's life.
This cannot be said for Russia. After first falling into a brutal civil war putting classical Stalinists against indigenous fascists who went in to implement innovative new concepts in atrocity like rape camps, the country descended first into the commission of outright genocide before escalating into a nuclear war that devastated Russia but also touched all of Russia's neighbours. All of this occurred in the full view of the international community, with extensive documentation. The nuclear attacks, particularly, seem likely to be classified by the world's leading powers as a central crime in the new world order being built.
Beyond that ... After the Western diasporids were evacuated before 4/10, and after the pre-4/10 refugees made it out, and after the post-4/10 survivors of the fascist genocides were resettled in their new homes, it would be easy for people to conclude that the only people left in Russia are perpetrators of paradigm-shifting atrocity and those complicit with them.
I do not see any reasonable way that Russia would be allowed to have any significant level of autonomy, as much of a smoking ruin that the country might be. The last time that happened, in the Yeltsin era, an unparalleled catastrophe happened that quickly sucked in Russia's neighbours. The people who are responsible for supervising Russia, now absent such potentially West-friendly groups as liberals and ethnic minorities either because they have emigrated or because they have been murdered, are also Russia's victims. The only country that seems halfway friendly to Russians is Ukraine, and that because Ukrainians see Russian migrants as useful while forcing them to abandon their cultural heritage.
Russia, frankly, seems as if it is most likely to be run by its European and North American overseers with an eye towards maximizing reparations, less with an eye towards fixing a country so thoroughly wrecked by its own inhabitants.
Maybe in a generation's time the stigma will be less? We can hope.
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In many ways, Russia would become the world's biggest open-air pit mine, so to speak?
My understanding is that Russia's fuel exports now come mostly from western Siberia, not European Russia. I am not sure whether that was the case in the early 1990s.
Organised crime/waste traders can also have a field day in smuggling waste into a region that almost no one cares for, if only that it will only involve "high-tier and particularly shameful wastes" due to the expensive overland logistics.
That said, if not Ukraine, Circassia can be willing to tolerate their ports being used for this.
Not to mention European Russia is filled with those who sadly didn’t have the fortunate to get out when they can. For them to pay the collective punishment is going to lead to some serious anger in the long run.
I suppose several years later if the occupation turns out of be exploitive Russian diasporas will do their best to end the suffering. They’d be able to utilize the goodwill for their cause for sure.
True, but still, the point remains that, with much of Russia's industry and infrastructure gutted if not outright destroyed, reparations would most likely be paid in the form of resource extraction.
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Really this going to the worst times to cope after 4/10 in Russian community for years to come
World Map 1997
Behold, the aftermath of the Treaty of Hiroshima.
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I am not sure, frankly, that enough people will care about Russian complaints. Compare how, in our timeline, even though Serbs as individuals and groups did suffer legitimately in the Yugoslav wars, international attention and the policies of neighbours do not take account of these. To the extent that some countries might have friendly policies towards Serbia, this seems more a consequence of their own political issues than any liking for Serbia; Spain and Romania do not recognize Kosovo because they fear its UDI could be used against them. No one especially cares that Serbia did badly out of a series of conflicts seen as having been started by Serb nationalists with the most notable crimes perpetrated by one Serb authority or another. Russia did much worse than Serbia to many more countries and peoples.
Beyond this, pro-Russian political movements seem not especially likely. Who will be the demographics in support? I do not think that emigrants from Russia will be notable, given how the ones who are not ethnic minorities resettled before or after genocide attempts are trying to assimilate. Mainstream opinion in most countries, dealing with the damage from the nuclear strikes and the economic depression, is not going to care especially about the country associated with paradigm-setting atrocities. I suppose that political extremists of left and right might be sympathetic to Russia, or to one Russian faction or another, but their support of the cause—shall we say—is not likely to help matters. Other world powers are either short in the resources needed to replace the West or themselves likely to be hostile; the nuclear strikes in the Gulf and Turkey and the genocides of different Russian Muslim peoples are surely going to influence opinion in Muslim countries.
I just do not think good outcomes for Russia proper are likely, given everything that has been described to date. Russia's victims are overwhelmingly likely to want to make Russia pay, and to make sure it will never be able to threaten its neighbours again.
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Only if a full English translation is included
*cough* Current politics in Chat *cough*
Well, that will make it easier to ensure that their is full English translation with each post.
The 'european system' is of course an oversimplified generalization, but there are 'european systems' that could work in the US. Well, there is specifically one- the Swiss healthcare system. It doesn't get much attention- which is obviously due in part to how small Switzerland is- but it achieves universal coverage mostly through regulated private insurance while being the most expensive in Europe (and second in the world). Here's a good but relatively old and biased piece from the New York Times. That's not that much of a change (I mean it is, but this is relative) from America's statistically awful near-universal healthcare regime then, say, a system like Canada or (obviously) the NHS.
Another key thing to think about is that obesity and health care costs in general were less expensive in the 90s, to the degree of less than half the cost adjusted for inflation (Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker- US Spending On Healthcare)
In the mid-1990s OTL, there were actually states with sub-10% obesity rates (HuffPost- Obesity In America- Figure 2), which certainly changes the outlook considering that several countries operate fantastic healthcare systems with rates much higher than that.
In my opinion, Communism and Fascism both hurt the left and the right during and up to 30 years after their 'collapse' (not a term I particularly agree with, but let's say 1991 and 1945 respectively) regardless of how little they actually share in common with them. For instance, between 1945 and 1980 the New Deal Coalition retained supremacy over the political system. Even Republicans had a sizable liberal wing (the "Me Too" Republicans and later the Rockefeller/Nixon types) with many advocating for universal healthcare. A good example from the New York Times archive can be found here.
The right didn't truly come back in full force until 1980, when Ronald Reagan was swept into office.
Over the next thirty years, the right held the cards, with many Democrats advocating for things like tax cuts and deregulation. This famously included Bill Clinton's "the era of big government is over" speech in the late 1990s. I can't go further without getting into current politics but let's just say the more social democratic left has began picking up steam, beginning in full in 2016.
I fully expect this post to be obliterated (probably correctly) by others, but in my opinion America can and has reacted to fascism with backlash, and a genocidal regime doing Nazi-like stuff could well invoke it.