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Topic:

Russian Imperialism

Country:

Russia

Issue:

Article ID:

22

Title:

The Kremlin fears that the West is trying to break Russia apart. If only!

Author:

Alexander J. Motyl

Date:

October 8, 2024

Source:

The Hill

Reference:

Summary:

Quotes:

Russia’s stony-faced foreign minister is getting paranoid. Sergei Lavrov believes that “at present, about 50 countries are trying to break up Russia.”..As veteran Russia-watcher Paul Goble notes, “the paranoia Lavrov manifests in making such a statement is noteworthy because of what it says about the thinking in the Kremlin concerning the fragility of the world’s last remaining empire.”... I can think of no country, in the West or elsewhere, that actively aspires to Russia’s break up. They may want a weaker, kinder or more gentle Russia, but the same reluctance to countenance the USSR’s break up in the late 1980s — as evidenced by President George H.W. Bush’s infamous “Chicken Kiev” speech in 1991 — is still alive and well today. Dismemberment conjures up images of refugee waves, civil war and “loose nukes,” tempering whatever enthusiasm policymakers might otherwise have for the break-up scenario... Which is too bad, inasmuch as Armageddon is the least likely of the outcomes of Russia’s dismemberment. The non-Russian regions have administrations, boundaries and traditions of self-rule. The expectation that they would resort to violence is rooted only in racism. A rump Russia, rid of its non-Russian colonies and imperial mindset, would be far more inclined to become democratic and open to the West. And whoever succeeds Vladimir Putin is no more likely than he to engage in irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling... No, Miss Välbe, it’s not your strength that irritates the world. It’s your casual willingness to drop a bomb on London and kill millions. Why worry about future loose nukes when the likes of Putin, Dmitry Medvedev and scores of other highly placed Russians are willing to compensate for their sense of inferiority by lobbing serious bombs today?

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