putinism... without putin?

8 reasons Russia won't survive 2031.

In the last 10 years, Russia and China have shocked the world. Russia recovered from a deep depression and invaded Ukraine, starting Europe’s first major war in 77 years. China rose out of a multi-hundred year depression to become the largest manufacturer in the world, threatening to overtake America’s economy by 2035. Now Russia has decided to integrate its economy with China’s, and so from a military point of view, the two can be viewed increasingly as part of a single alliance.

But no trend lasts forever. Japan was on track to overtake America in the 1990s, until it didn’t. China and Russia each face four major problems.

Russia’s four problems are as follows:

1. Putin is the central point of failure, and is nearing senility in the next seven years;

2. Russia’s corruption problem led to a (failed) military coup, and will continue to fester;

3. Russia’s demographic Balkanization means that ethno-religious conflict will increase;

4. Even if Russia “wins” in Ukraine, it will be threatened by terrorism and a potential NATO base of operations in Kiev.

And because Russia is tied to China, it must also suffer the uncertainty offered by China’s four problems:

1. China cannot compete with western “soft power”;

2. China is not autarkic in food or energy;

3. China still imports more electronics than it exports;

4. China has a historical tendency to erupt in Civil War every 100 years.

Soft power, or the Mythic Structure of Communism.

In 1937, the last free kingdom of Africa was conquered by Italy. In that same year, Japan launched a campaign to conquer China, whose expansion was only halted by America in 1945. Since that time, Japan has been occupied.

In the Second World War, Iran and Iraq were invaded, and in 1951, Tibet was invaded by China. Mongolia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand are some of the few states which can be regarded as having never been colonized or conquered by European powers.

The largest state which was never entirely militarily defeated and occupied by Europeans is China. However, ideologically and economically, China cannot be considered as independent from the west. The ideology of Marxist-Leninism which liberated China from Japanese domination ultimately originated with European or Jewish intellectuals from the west. The ideological conquest of China by Marxism can be viewed as similar to the Christian conquest of northern Europe, which brought with it the civilization of Rome: the Roman alphabet replaced the Futhark, kings went on pilgrimage to Rome, and tithes to the papacy were established.

While China seems foreign and alien to the west, the effect of Marxist ideology has been the rapid industrialization and modernization of China. China’s technological development was once below that of South Africa, and now it has access to the internet and Hollywood movies (in censored form). While censorship may mute certain cultural influences, it is undeniable that the consumption of Star Wars movies, as well as the mass migration of Chinese students back and forth from American universities, must have some kind of effect on the unconscious, mythological structure of Chinese society. In the same way that Japan was culturally imperialized by America, China is now undergoing the same process. This is not to say that China is becoming liberal, but that it is experiencing a massive cultural influx from the west not seen since the adoption of Buddhism.

Autarky.

Proponents of nationalism cite China as a potential “independent actor” in a “multipolar world.” However, as Germany discovered in the First and Second World Wars, political independence only exists to the degree that economic independence can be achieved. If a country derives its wealth, technology, food, or oil from its enemies, its ability to defend itself and its interests is limited. Although the German army fielded 9 million men in January of 1945, due to a lack of food and oil, those men were not able to play an effective part on the battlefield.

China is dependent on American and European export markets to fuel its economic growth. While China could conceivably survive in the event of deglobalization, its growth would be impaired. It might even be left behind by the rest of the world, much in the same way that Japan has been left in the dust.

China's exports have remained above 17% of its economy for 20 years, with no sign of decrease. By contrast, American exports amount to 9% to 13% of GDP since 1990. If we combine imports and exports as a percentage of GDP, America is the most autarkic country in the world after Sudan. Sudan has a total import-export percent of 2.7%, while America has a combined percentage of 25%. China, by comparison, has a combined percentage of 38%.

While countries in the EU have a much higher rate of exports and imports, this is somewhat deceptive in geopolitical terms, since half of all European “exports” and “imports” are internal to the EU. An additional 19% can be attributed to trade with America. If we consider NATO to be an effective economic zone or bloc, then NATO (America and Europe) are extremely autarkic and self-reliant. In comparison, China’s economy depends on its cultural and political rivals, with whom it has nothing in common historically or religiously. This is a fragile state of affairs from the Chinese perspective, but a relatively secure economic position for NATO.

China imports electronics.

Rather than simply look at China’s economic dependence in quantitative terms, we should also investigate the quality of Chinese imports and exports. What is China selling, and what is it receiving in return? In times of peace, gold bars can be traded for bread and bullets. But in a time of war, gold becomes nearly useless, and bread and bullets become the essentials of survival.

The symbolic term “bullets” should not be taken literally in a world of increasingly complex technological warfare. Already in the Second World War, tanks were developed which were impervious to small arms fire, which necessitated the deployment of artillery and anti-tank weaponry. Toward the end of the war, the Germans developed jet aircraft which seemed too fast for bullets to accurately target. Today, Russia and China possess hypersonic missiles, which travel at one mile per second. Even the human soldier is becoming outmoded: autonomous drones, running off complex AI software, are entering the battlefield.

If AI is the future “silver bullet” of modernized warfare, is China a net importer or exporter of AI hardware? While China does export $126 billion dollars of electronics to America, it also imports $500 billion dollars of electronics. While China is competitive in selling low-grade electronics, the high-grade electronics which are necessary for the operation of AI are imported from the west. The Dutch company, ASML Holding, is the only company in the world which produces the EUV machines required for the best computer chips. In 2023, due to pressure from America, the Netherlands was forced to restrict sales to China.

China is “maxed out.” America hasn’t even started.

While China mostly exports manufactured goods, America exports raw materials, vehicles, and aircraft. In the event of a war, America could theoretically redirect some of its “luxury” industry toward manufacturing. For example, 4% of America’s GDP is dedicated to the restaurant industry, which employs 14 million workers. America has the ability to “switch” from a luxury economy to an industrial economy, because it has a surplus of raw materials. However, China, which has already maximized its manufacturing capacity, cannot obtain greater natural resources autarkically.

This was seen during WWII: the Germans maximized their productive capacity, but even thought their tanks, planes, and V2 rockets were more advanced, and even though each individual German soldier was better trained and performed better per capita than the allied soldiers, the Germans did not have the raw materials necessary to fuel their vehicles. Although China has access to coal, potential nuclear energy, solar, wind, and hydroelectric, none of these energy sources can be as easily converted into fuel for transportation as easily as oil. Converting these sources of energy into jet fuel, or fuel for tanks and ships, is expensive.

The relationship between China and the west is one sided. Chinese culture is influenced by the west: Chinese children learn Bach on the violin, watch Hollywood movies, and learn English. While 3% of Chinese people speak English, less than 0.1% of Americans learn Chinese. The influence is not “multipolar,” but monodirectional.

Economically, while America does obtain cheap refrigerators and microwave ovens from China, in the event of a war, only two things matter: bread and bullets. America is a net exporter of food, while China is an importer. America is a net exporter of energy, while China is an importer. Both culturally and economically, China is not “interdependent” with the west, let alone autarkic. It is one-sidedly dependent. If America cut off China tomorrow, the effects in America might be drastic, even as bad as the 1929 Great Depression. The effects in China, however, would be a total collapse of the economy.

The Role of Russia

China seems unique among all states in the world in that it avoided much of the worst of European colonization and is today a superpower. China’s economic influence on Russia is growing. Can Russia’s natural resources, such as oil and wheat, solve China’s lack of autarky? Even if Moscow could be relied on to deliver China essential goods, most of Russia’s food and oil production occurs in south-eastern Russia, around the Black and Caspian Sea, which is a politically contentious area.

Russia, like Sweden, Britain, France, and Germany, is expected to become a Muslim majority country within this century. However, Russia’s Muslim majority is not evenly distributed throughout the country: it is concentrated in the southeast, on the eastern and western banks of the Caspian Sea. While Muslim immigration into western Europe diffuses throughout a series of “city states” (Paris, Berlin, London, Malmö), Russian Islamification is Balkanized — it is regionally and geographically confined. From a Russian point of view, this makes the danger of a secessionist movement much more pressing.

In the last 20 years, Putin defeated the Chechens, and managed to ally himself with a political dynasty friendly to Moscow. However, Putin’s personal loyalty between himself and the current Chechen dynasty is not institutional or ideological. When Putin dies in the next 20 years, it is not clear that his successor in Moscow, or the new class of Chechen leadership, will respect or honor agreements made on the force of personality.

Although Putin has been very successful in integrating Chechnya into the wider Russian military, he has not integrated Chechnya culturally or religiously. In fact, the reverse has occurred. Putin isn’t making Chechnya Christian; he’s making Russia Muslim, by sponsoring state-funded Mosques, and inviting in mass immigration from the Muslim world. While this may placate Russia’s Muslims in the short term, it would be foolish to believe that Muslims will become less demanding of power and influence as they become more numerous. Most of the countries which are between 20% and 49% Muslim have some kind of active insurgency, Civil War, or Islamic Jihad operating in the country.¹

The questions are as follows:

• In seven years, Putin will be the same age as Biden on his first day in office. Can Russia survive a senile Putin in 2031?

• Can Putin find a suitable replacement, who can maintain the careful balance he has crafted between Islamists, Russian nationalists, the Orthodox Church, Communists, and the military?

• Can such a replacement successfully defend Russia against the long-standing Ukrainian threat? Ukraine has been at war with Russian proxies for ten years, and some form of conflict might persist in the form of terrorism even if a ceasefire is achieved.

• Can the Russian state reduce corruption, or will it risk another Wagner rebellion?

If Putin can appoint a successor, that in itself would be miraculous, given Russia’s track record (Lenin failed to appoint a successor, leading to Stalin seizing power; Stalin failed to appoint a successor, leading to the disaster of Khrushchev). If he could also hold back the internal divisions within Russia, that would be even more miraculous. But to expect such a leader to also manage Ukraine, and at the same time reduce corruption, seems beyond reason.

Russia’s political system in the 1990s was entirely dysfunctional, leading to mass suicide by alcoholism, child prostitution, and neo-Naziism. Putin allied with oligarchs, the military, and the church. He destroyed Chechnya, brought the white nationalists under control, and has constantly juggled these factions as they have risen and fallen in loyalty to his project. Some oligarchs, former allies of Putin, have been killed or fled the country.

The political shift in Russia, as in most of the western world, has slanted in favor of open borders and LGBTQ among the youth. While not a majority, this left-wing shift may eventually foreshadow a coming “woke movement” within Russia in the coming decades. However, as much as Russia faces a challenge from the left, the right-wing and xenophobic attitudes of Navalny, and the right-wing challenge of the Wagner rebellion, shows that Putinism is a form of centrism which must defend itself from all sides.

In the next 15 years, Putin may come to resemble Paul von Hindenburg: an old centrist conservative, riding the line between monarchy and democracy, beset from the left by communists and from the right by Islamists and Nazis. Although Russia seems united and more patriotic than most of the western world, massive shifts in demographics and ideological affiliation in the coming decades will pose as much of an existential risk to Russia as they do in the west.

The west has the benefit of a largely pacified population, completely incapable of mass resistance. BLM, the Canadian truckers, and January 6th were essentially distractions and amounted to nothing. The Wagner rebellion, on the other hand, represents the willingness of fighting men to march on Moscow. As much as the west seems to be polarizing and disintegrating, it is nowhere near columns of Blackwater jeeps led by Erik Prince riding to DC.

America stations 10% of its troops abroad: 228,000 troops are spread out over 4,790 foreign military bases. If you added up the land area of every single foreign military base, it would constitute a 51st state as large as Virginia. Russia, meanwhile, has only 5,000 troops in all of Africa, which is their main site of deployment. During the Syrian Civil War, Russia deployed only 20,000 troops to the Middle East. The vast size and complexity of the American military, spread out over the entire globe, makes it more difficult for a military coup to succeed. This is because the American military command structure is centralized under the generals, and even if Erik Prince was able to seize Washington DC, he would have to contend with 228,000 troops being called in from foreign bases to oppose him. Russia doesn’t have any such reserves in wait.

To illustrate this principle, examine the fall of France in WWII. Although Paris fell, the colonial governments hosted the Free French Forces. This was especially important in the Congo, where the French helped supply Americans with the uranium they would need for the atomic bomb. Even if Washington DC was captured, 10% of the American military would be outside of its immediate authority, free to adhere to the previous command structure.

Unlike Wagner, which was under the authority of a uniquely eccentric and colorful figure, the United States military deliberately undercuts anyone with personality and hires based on adherence to the reigning ideology (perhaps this was a lesson learned from Patton). This is bad for inspiring fanatical loyalty, but it is also good for reducing the risk of coups. This may be why the Byzantine emperor promoted eunuchs to the rank of general.

conclusion.

Given that Russia is almost entirely dependent on China, and China is ultimately dependent on the west, a war in Taiwan would cause a chain reaction resulting in the fall of both China and Russia. Although Ukraine is currently floundering under Zelensky, as long as Ukraine can maintain its grip over Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Odessa, then it can act as effective springboard to cut across the Russian heartland of food and oil, capturing Volgograd and the Caspian Sea basin. Ukraine is losing the battle, but the war has not even yet begun.

China is not invincible, or any more politically stable than Russia. The Manchu conquest of China from 1618 to 1683 killed 25 million people. The Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864 killed up to 30 million people. The Chinese Civil War of 1927 to 1949 killed up to 13 million people. It seems reasonable to expect that, based on historical trends, the Chinese will engage in civil war which will kill off over 10% of their population. The next civil war should be due to come in the next three decades.

By contrast, America has had one single civil war since 1776, which represents nearly 160 years of uninterrupted peace. Britain, America’s more stable ancestor, has not experienced a civil war since 1651.

In the short term, America looks like a collapsing civilization, and Russia and China look like the rising powers. However, the Chinese economy is still dependent on the west. Even if China survives on for several more decades, its internal clock is ticking toward Civil War. Russia’s decision to reject liberalism in favor of the paper tiger is a risky gamble, and may end with Russia being partitioned by NATO, similar to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Until Taiwan is invaded, Ukraine will flounder in the short term, but if it can hold only the three key cities of the front (Odessa, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv) then it can remain a forward base of operations for a future war with Russia. The war in Ukraine should not be viewed from the point of the next 10 years, but of the next 40 years, when Russia will be exposed to extreme Balkanizing tensions, and China will reap the fruits of its cyclical nature.

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1. These countries are Liberia, Malawi, South Sudan, Togo, Cyprus, Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, North Macedonia, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, and Nigeria. After the 50% mark, all of these countries have some form of established Sharia law that governs the country.