Okay, when last we left our hypothetical, the world had NOT ended in a fireball. The US was busily trying to corral nuclear proliferation and both Russia and China had fully collapsed.
Nation-states can multi-task. They aren’t great at it because humans aren’t, but unlike your Supermom, nation-states really do have many people who can be directed to do different things. This is a good thing because the US is gonna be really distracted, as it was in the Nineties, with trying not to let crazies get nukes. However, the US is also going to have to deal with the fallout of two major governmental collapses.
When the Soviet Union went belly up, the UN was still fairly (for it) robust. That’s not true any longer. I’m not interested in doing a dissertation so the short version is the Russians and the Chinese helped undermine the UN over the last four or five decades, with it getting much worse in the last three. The UN isn’t completely useless but it’s probably more work than its worth while the US has bigger fish to fry. That won’t stop the UN from being an oversized pain in the backside but it also means the UN won’t be any real help.
Europe? I dunno. I’m kinda hopeful for the European people but their governments are crap and getting worse. They aren’t (very) close to collapse at present but they are so over dependent on the EU and so badly skewed that its hard to see any of those governments getting their acts fully together fast. There’s a lot to unload with Europe – some are questioning whether our European allies have ulterior motives – but the question for today is what will they do?
Mostly, trip over themselves. That’s not a dig – Europe has no better frame of reference than anyone else for this kind of mess. The problem with ‘muddling through’ as a means of problem solving is that you end up face down in the mud more often than not. We like to think our governments are well thought out engines of progress… Excuse me, had to stop for a giggle break… Anyway, they aren’t. Governments are people trying to figure out big, complex people problems. Good governments try to do that with a minimum of harm. No governments do that perfectly and the idea that ‘experts’ can figure it all out and save the day is just laughable.
Governments are people and people make mistakes. The bigger and more complex the system, the stupider the mistake. We can make it worse – we could turn the whole mess over to an Ai which will promptly decide that every dog pictured near snow is a wolf and nuke the San Diego Zoo. I vote we skip that one. People may be messy, but it’s a messy we know how to handle.
Europe is in a bad position. It has fully developed economies yet declining birth rates. Coal aplenty, not so much oil and gas, which doesn’t matter since Europe is busily trying to save the world by bankrupting itself. This creates an interesting balancing act that we’re already watching them try to rebalance as Russian gas is leaving the station and oil is not far behind. Losing cheap Chinese goods on top will not be fun.
Now, the smart move is to help Eastern Europe fill the gap. Their labor pool is still relatively inexpensive meaning they can take over a lot of manufacturing and assembly work. This will only work for a generation at most but that gives them time to figure things out. Unfortunately, Western Europe isn’t big on ‘figuring things out’ with Eastern Europe because of all that pesky resistance to oppression, communism, socialism and licentiousness masquerading as liberalization. Basically, the East is more ‘conservative’, for want of a better term, than the West. This is not helping the EU at all.
Then we get to the North versus South issue. Frankly, it’s kinda amazing the EU has lasted this long. Europe is a group of independent nation-states acting as a loose confederation under a cobbled together constitution that makes the US Articles of Confederation look absolutely genius. The astute will recall that we dumped the Articles after eleven years of frustration. And this is the mess that is theoretically going to help the US help the rest of the world after Russia and China both exit stage right.
Oh boy.
Still, Europe is stuck with at least some of this. Collapsing governments tend to spawn refugees. In the case of Russia, we only get six months, if we’re lucky, before humanitarian aid becomes essential. Remember, the crappy state of the Russian economy is going to be a major factor in a collapse. Even if it weren’t, without the government funneling money in the public sector, economic disaster isn’t far behind. This is bad in Sri Lanka where they are having difficulty growing enough food but are in a subtropical zone. Russia ain’t even temperate, let alone subtropical. Russia has brutal, deadly winters that will be devastating if the economy can’t keep food and energy supplied.
Hi Europe.
On the bright side, the work supplying Ukraine has developed better West/East supply chains. That stupid Russian rail gage is gonna be a problem getting supplies through Ukraine and into Russia which presumes Ukraine is feeling charitable. That is likely to be fine – Ukrainians and Russians are strongly interrelated so while the Ukrainians aren’t willing to give up their country, they also aren’t going to want their Russian cousins to starve – we hope.
The downside is Russia will need expertise more than supplies. Here again, Ukraine can help but will Russia let them? Russia’s pride got it into this mess and it will be hard to accept managerial and administrative aid, but those are what Russia will need most. Ukraine has the best bridge to the translation gap but having the country that beat you in a war you weren’t supposed to lose help with your restructuring? Ouch…
Enter the self absorbed, stereotypical French diplomat. German engineer? Spanish administrator? British businessman?
Russia is not going to like anything Europe does but the Russian people are going to have to have the help. Europe has the know how, when they aren’t on vacation, and they are right on the border. Russia is going to have a painful lesson in ‘deal with it’.
This is the hard part. Russia needs guidance its culture won’t easily accept. Put too much pressure on them and we’ll be revisiting this mess in a few decades. Let them have too much leeway and we’ll also be revisiting this mess in a few decades. Who said diplomacy was for wimps?
That’s just European Russia. We’re assuming a full government collapse but there’s nothing inherent to that which prevents a breakup. The Russian Federation has more cracks than a dried out lake bed. It also has some strong forces pulling it together, mostly cultural ones. Don’t underestimate culture – it kept the country mostly intact following the fall of the Soviet Union – but this may be the final straw.
In some ways, Balkanization will be easier to deal with. Messy as all get out but lots of little desperate governments are easier to convince than a recalcitrant central government that just lost most of its power. For the US, Balkanization is a pain in the backside – nukes everywhere is a bad thing – but for the UN and Europe, it will be easier to get cooperation and to help them help themselves.
For the Russians, it will be catastrophic. A complete collapse attacks the heart of who the Russians believe themselves to be. Long term, it will be a painful but probably ultimately good lesson. Short term, that’s a lot of grief and pain to deal with while you’re trying to survive and rebuild. Here, Europe is a better choice than the US to help initially.
If the Europeans get their act together, of course. Russia after a collapse is going to be fragile. It’s also going to be temperamental. And in the midst of all that, Russia has to decide what its going to do with itself. No imposed government lasts – the Russians are living proof of that in several ways. It will be up to them to make the final decision of what kind of government they want. Russians have a strong attachment to stability – authoritarian systems always do – and little tolerance of the controlled chaos of an American style democratic republic. But authoritarianism has never served them well and their people are more used to freedom and prosperity than their Soviet predecessors. So where’s the middle ground for them?
And how do we help them find it?
That will be a very big, very messy project that the US will have to have a hand in. Europe is not going to accept Russia into the EU and I don’t even think it should. Russia won’t be ready for decades by which time the EU may not be the same. Here it’s just possible the US will have an advantage. The US is in the middle of a political upheaval. I’m still extremely dubious that it will result in a civil war but it will result in some dramatic party changes. Having a real time controlled chaos do its thing will give us something to point to when the dust settles and the US emerges stronger to show that if we can do it, Russia can too.
Of course, I am assuming that we will emerge stronger. History seems to be on my side here.
Regardless, the days of the authoritarian counter to Western democratic governance are ending. Letting Russia sink back into authoritarianism does it no service and its people no good. The decision has to be theirs, make no mistake, but we need to put up a good case for why going back down the same path that keeps leading to this kind of failure isn’t a good plan and that Russian stoicism can be put to much better use to benefit Russians.
This time, we have to keep our eye on the ball and make sure everyone has an at bat.
