As I mentioned back in September 2022 here The Sorrows of Empire - Redux , Russia is repeating a cycle ingrained in its history…
This failure of imagination on Putin’s part was already foreseen months ago. A piece in The New Yorker (discussed here ) three weeks into the war outlined a repeating pattern of dysfunction in Russian history dating back centuries:
- concentrated wealth requires strong government mechanisms to squelch dissent
- centralized government measures lead to corruption of officials charged with enforcing the controls
- increased corruption further reduces resources provided to the public, tightening the squeeze
- squelched dissent in the short term eliminates corrective feedback, allowing prior mistakes to compound exponentially, further magnifying corruption, further magnifying oppression
- wash, rinse, repeat until collapse
This is the Putin kleptocracy in bullet form. These represent the controlling dynamic in Russia since Putin took power.
With this dynamic in place, there is ZERO possibility of anything remotely resembling a peaceful transfer of power. This dynamic self-selects for the most corrupt, ruthless, paranoid and megalomaniacal behavior in those that make it to the top of the pyramid. Expecting anything better to fill in the vacuum after the inevitable collapse of Putin’s control makes as much sense as our pipe dream of bringing western democracy to Iraq. This isn’t a literal DNA level argument that those in the current footprint of “Russia” are biologically incapable of democracy. It’s a reflection of how much democracy is aided or thwarted by the language and culture of those attempting to implement or maintain it. If all of your great literature and pop culture reflect cynicism, brutality and fatalism, it’s difficult to replace it with ideas of justice and betterment.
In contrast, America’s democratic history didn’t start at a Tea Party in Boston Harbor or a stuffy Hall in Philadelphia in 1776. Settlers of America were given freedoms and refined different approaches for local self government for more than 160 years prior forming a new union. And even with more than 160 years of parallel experimentation in up to 13 separate colonies, even America didn’t nail the first launch. “America v1.0” (Articles of Confederation) was a horribly ineffective “release” and required a complete refactoring for "American v2.0 " (Constitution of 1789).
WTH