A Comment on the New Russian Revolution

I want to state that as with any reporting on Russia, the true facts are initially lost in the fog of war, so we can only comment on what seems to be happening.  And let me add that I am not an expert, so probably I am just showing my ignorance, but since when has that ever stopped Green Eagle?

Early in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, I stated my belief that the real damage that Putin's handling of the war would come not in Ukraine itself, but would be a product of the wasting of Russia's military might in an inept war against what should have been an easily defeated neighbor.

Here is something most people do not realize:  revolutions, at least in the West, have very largely been a product of the wanton waste of military might.  Thirty years of fruitless war between France and England in the 1700's resulted in the success of both the American revolution, and the French destruction of their monarchy.  The mass squandering of military might in World War I resulted in the Russian revolution, the indpendence of Ireland, and the end of monarchic rule in Germany and Italy.  I won't call World War II pointless, because obviously the Nazis had to be defeated, but it resulted in the independence of India, the Chinese revolution, the effective destruction of the monarchy in Japan, and the start of the tumbling of dominoes that ended colonial rule in Africa.  It is very possible that none of these changes might have taken place if the European powers had intact militaries.

Well, here we go.  Prigozhin seems to have gotten to within 120 miles of Moscow with an army that had no more than 20 to 25,000 soldiers.  How could this happen in a world when we are accustomed to think of armies in the hundreds of thousands or millions?  Well, apparently, Putin's squandered attack on Ukraine has left Russia itself with only about 25,000 ready reserves in the entire country*.  I think Prighozhin counted on mass defections of soldiers in the regular army, to join him as he marched on Moscow, the way Napoleon's support grew on his return to Paris from his first exile in Elba.  Well, that didn't happen, but it seems that Russia's regular soldiers, many of whom have been savagely misused by Putin and his generals**, were not particularly interested in stopping Prighozhin either.  So we had a standoff- The first army to make it that close to Moscow since the Wehrmacht, and the aforementioned Napoleon before him, and it was made up not of foreign invaders, but of Russians themselves.  And the first army to emerge from its run on Moscow intact, instead of shattered beyond repair.  Not a good look, I am sure you will agree.

So we have two problems here.  The first and lesser problem is one of perception.  Russia was thought to be one of the strongest military powers on earth.  Now we see them struggling to put down a minor rebellion that any dictator worth his position would, you might have thought, have crushed before breakfast.  From here on out, who is ever going to see Putin as a colossus, striding around the world?  This incident pretty much completes the Ukraine invasion's work of destroying any perception of Putin as an effective military leader, or even as an effective protector of his own country.

But this is really the lesser issue.  Let's look at a map of the ethnic breakup of Russia:

Ethnic Russian areas, as you can see, make up a relatively small area of the entire country, yet they totally dominate the national government. I particularly wonder how Putin's weakness will affect the willingness of the large Muslim majority areas along the Southern flank of Russia.  I suspect it might not take much to incite a situation there much like China has faced with the Uighurs.  I don't want to defend China here, but the fact remains that the Uighurs are intent on breaking off and aligning their territory with adjoining Muslim countries.  How much weaker would Putin have to be for this to happen in Southern Russia?  I also wonder about the whole Eastern half of the country, whose largely Asian population might engage in a kind of "quiet quitting," simply refusing to go along with Moscow's intentions.  As you can see, most of the land in the Eastern half of Russia is only thinly populated, but that does not mean it is unimportant to Putin- a large part of their national resources can be found in these areas. It might not take much opposition to deny these resources to the central government, which would be a blow to an economy already struggling with foreign opposition.

There is also the considerable danger that Russia, if its military weakness continues, to face threats from its neighbors.  Could a country that cannot conquer the far smaller Ukraine, that has virtually expended its troop reserves, really do much if adjoining countries decided to nibble away at its territory?

And I am not even considering here the possibility of a stab in the back from his own oligarchs, tired of having their wealth stripped from them by the rest of the world, in response to Putin's incompetent aggression.

I am not predicting that any one of these things is going to happen, but if history is a guide, I will predict that, pretty soon, some of them will.  And how long can Putin, or the current oligarchic ruling clique, last, when it does?  

*Ready reserves being fully equipped and trained members of the regular army, who have been held back for tactical reasons, as opposed to something like local militias, which are neither equipped nor prepared for a full combat role.

**A longstanding Russian tradition.  See: the Russo-Japanese war, World War I, World War II, the Afghanistan invasion, etc.