Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Foundation. His new book, Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, has just been published.
We are currently witnessing an unfolding revolution in global security for which Western politicians are clearly unprepared – the imminent collapse of the Russian Federation.
Rather than planning spillover quotas and benefiting from Russia’s de-imperialization, however, Western officials seem stuck in a bygone era and believe they can return to the post-Cold War status quo, with some even offering Moscow security guarantees to be upheld the country intact.
But Russia is a failed state. It has failed to transform itself into a nation-state, a civil state, or even a stable imperial state. It is a federation in name only, as the central government pursues a policy of ethnic and linguistic homogenization, stripping the country’s 83 republics and regions of any powers. However, hypercentralization has exposed the country’s numerous weaknesses, including a shrinking economy weighed down by international sanctions, military defeats in Ukraine that reveal the incompetence and corruption of its ruling elite, and unrest in numerous regions over their shrinking budgets.
Moscow is finally being exposed as a predatory imperial center exhausting its capacity to hold the country together. Still, most Western leaders still don’t see the benefits of Russia’s disintegration.
The breakup of the Russian Federation will be the third phase of the imperial collapse after the dissolution of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. It is fueled by elite power struggles and deepening rivalries between the central government and disaffected regions, which could lead to civil wars and border disputes in some parts of the country. However, it will also encourage the emergence of new states and interregional federations that will control their own resources and will no longer send their men to their deaths for the Moscow empire.
As Moscow turns inward, its capacity for foreign aggression will diminish. And as a remainder, under intense international sanctions and bereft of its resource base in Siberia, it will have severely limited opportunities to attack neighbors. From the Arctic to the Black Sea, NATO’s Eastern Front is becoming safer; while Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova will regain their occupied territories and seek integration into the European Union and NATO without fear of a Russian response.
The countries of Central Asia will also feel increasingly liberated and will be able to turn to the West for energy, security and economic links. China will be in a weaker position to expand its influence as it can no longer cooperate with Moscow and new pro-Western states may emerge from the Russian Federation, increasing stability in several regions of Europe and Eurasia.
Although nuclear weapons will remain a potential threat, Russian leaders will not commit national suicide by using them against the West. Instead, they will seek to salvage their political future and economic fortune – just as the Soviet elite did. And even if some emerging economies acquire such weapons, they have no reason to use them while seeking international recognition and economic support. Post-Russian states will likely seek nuclear disarmament instead — much like Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan did after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The idea that Western leaders are helping President Vladimir Putin only by talking about Russia’s collapse is misleading. The Kremlin claims that the West wants to destroy Russia, regardless of actual policy, and denials from Washington and Brussels only fuel Kremlin conspiracies.
Rather, a much more effective approach would be to clearly specify what the West supports. Open support for pluralism, democracy, federalism, civil rights, and the autonomy of its republics and regions can help encourage Russia’s citizens by showing that they are not globally isolated. They will also need access to the information that Moscow is suppressing, especially when it comes to security, economic development and maintaining peaceful, productive relations with neighbors.
Even after the horrors of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the justifications the country’s leaders and advisers have given for the genocide, Western officials still hope that beneficial ties can be forged with a post-Putin Kremlin, or that the Liberals can democratize empire, hopeful thinking.
The West made a grave mistake in assuming that the collapse of Soviet communism meant the end of Russian imperialism. And since imperial states invariably collapse when they gain the upper hand, and when the centrifugal pressures are fueled by economic hardship, regional resentment and national resurgence, it must now avoid repeating that mistake – this time by falsely assuming that the current empire is permanent.