Election Day announcement and proposed voting options for Russians
We’ve broached extensively the potential scenarios of Vladimir Putin’s ouster and the ensuing ending of this war.
Today, we’ll discuss the questions people fearfully ask.
Won’t things get even worse?
What if he is succeeded by a really hardcore junta?
Won’t Russia be locked into North Korea’s course?
What if a civil war erupts or a military dictatorship is installed?
What will post-Putin Russia be like?
The short answer is: it won’t look good.
But the longer his tenure, the uglier things will get.
If Putin is gone for whatever reason, there is no added risk.
The current problems are entirely of his making.
However, his further stay at the helm will pose more threats.
Let’s start with bad news.
According to rough estimates,
the war has so far embroiled at least 600,000 Russians.
The initial force at the start of the invasion
was in the ballpark of 150,000 and 200,000 personnel plus army reserves.
Add to this number at least 50,000 inmates recruited both by PMC Wagner and the Defense Ministry
and also no fewer than 300,000 mobilized draftees.
Plus countless volunteers and mercenaries.
This is indeed a modest estimate, but we’ll use it for the sake of the argument.
Over the past 18 months, this war has activated almost as many people
as the entire 10-year war in Afghanistan, the last military campaign of the Soviet Union.
Russia’s death toll in the current war may be north of 60,000.
Some will be constrained by disabilities for the rest of their lives.
When they run out of compensation money that’s only good for a couple of drinks,
they’ll join the numerous ranks of homeless folks or wind up on psych wards.
Either way, they’re likely to die early and miserable deaths.
Add to these two categories those 100s of thousands who will return in one piece,
with combat experience and unprosecuted violence under their belts,
but without any social bonds or skills.
Job posting websites aren’t exactly teeming with ads for snipers with combat experience or full-time expert mortar gunners.
100s of thousands of soldiers who know how to kill
and whose only social network will be that of their former brothers-in-arms
will make perfect recruitment material for organized crime.
This antisocial cohort will be a breeding ground for deadly gangs and crime syndicates.
Worse, it won’t take long for currently active crime groups
to take advantage of these free-roaming candidates with such impressive resumes.
Hatred will be these soldiers’ biggest takeaway from this war.
We already see pro-war blogs harboring a visceral disdain for posh Moscow IT crowds
enjoying themselves while “our guys are mired neck-deep in s__t.”
Once they are discharged, they’ll sure need to vent.
The former soldiers of the occupation army will be seeking to “return their own”
from those who were living large while they were dodging drone strikes.
The Roaring ‘20s
In the 1990s, all of Eastern Europe went through a period of painful transformation, poverty, and rising crime rates.
But the worst kind of trouble hit the former Soviet republics, more notably, Russia.
Crime syndicates were the size of military groups, and their dustups looked more like battlefield hostilities.
Firearms inundated the country.
In Russia, the 1990s are traditionally nicknamed “the roaring ‘90s.”
Back then, organized crime fed off of Afghanistan vets.
Those were 100s of thousands of men roaming aimlessly around the country
who had a hard time reintegrating into society
but who could easily reach out to a fellow vet whose back they once had
and ask him for anything ranging from a hand grenade to a howitzer.
Now, we’re headed for the same mess on a larger scale.
So, we’re headed for the same post-Afghanistan scenario on a larger scale.
There are more vets, more hatred, and more victims.
Communication is no longer a big deal.
For these vets, regardless of where they may physically be based,
setting up anything from support groups to crime syndicates
right in a chatroom is always two taps away.
Free-floating weapons are beyond any reasonable calculation.
Literally anyone can get their hands on firearms.
Besides, it didn’t occur to Soviet authorities that they could replenish an active army with 10s of thousands of convicts,
thus forging firm bonds between the criminals and the military.
Crime syndicates of the 1990s sprang up once those soldiers got back home.
On the contrary, the current army config is conducive to new crime syndicates forming right on the battlefield.
Criminal behavior is running wild among the active-duty personnel.
Once these people return home, it won’t take long for them to strike.
The newly formed tight-knit gangs will no longer be facing armed enemies
but civilians with plenty of money and property and no violent leanings.
They sure will jump at the opportunity to cash in on it.
It won’t stop there, though.
Those who were killed, maimed, or traumatized by the regime have families and, more importantly, kids.
As a result of Putin’s actions, some dads will come home in body bags and others with disabilities.
You used to be a full-time locksmith. Now you’re a full-time barfly or a full-time felon.
These fathers’ kids will be nursing a tremendous grudge toward the Russian government that screwed their families.
Not just Putin who will by then be ancient history but the government.
The result will be an off-the-charts surge in organized crime for decades to come.
Putin’s regime has spawned a demographic for whom a hand grenade is the only bargaining chip.
Those who will die trying to wrestle control of a local factory will be taken over by their hate-fueled kids raised in violence.
Violence is a genie that takes decades to get bridled once let out of the bottle.
This problem will only be solved generations later.
We’ll have to live in a war-mangled society where 100s of thousands won’t be just self-destructing.
They’ll be reproducing, too.
The criminals’ kids will become criminals, too.
Organized crime will be a multi-generational thing.
This war will keep reverberating even a couple of generations down the stretch.
Those whose only skill is killing people will raise their children accordingly.
Groundless Fears
The criminalization of society will be inevitable.
We'll face a country that's fresh off the back of the war.
We won't like it.
But it has nothing to do with Putin's ouster.
Let's move on to good news.
The thing is, all of the repercussions of Putin's ouster are positive.
The worst part has already happened to us.
The first one stems from what we've just discussed.
Once Putin is gone, the war that keeps spawning victims and survivors will be over.
His ouster won't erase that hurtful combat experience for 100s of thousands or eliminate this social problem.
But his ouster will help limit the damage.
There are at least 600,000 such people right now.
In a year, this figure will soar to 1 million.
By March 2030, once his presidential term is over, it will be several million.
And they will longer be a pain in the neck for law enforcement or those running late from work.
They'll be a big problem for the entire political system.
They'll be a force capable of supporting a new influential political party
and a force to reckon with.
Issues such as economic woes will be dwarfed by this fact alone.
The demographic mess where 10% of working-age men will be killing
and getting killed for several more years will be too hard to grasp.
Imagine a country where every apartment block is home to war veterans with a grudge
and every classroom is home to their kids.
Without a shadow of a doubt, we'll have to do our utmost to help these people regardless of whether we like them.
We'll have to avoid stigmatizing them,
switching them off from social life, or calling them names.
Far from it, we'll need to set up expensive rehab programs and spend fortunes paying their families compensation and benefits.
We'll need to invest a lot in training courses and employment opportunities for them.
Ideally, in the wake of an unjust war of aggression, shrinks and social workers
will be the most in-demand jobs eclipsing those of an Uber driver, delivery driver, and security guard.
This will be both expensive and hard.
Just look at a litany of problems the U.S. has been facing after the war in Iraq
despite a far smaller scale of trouble and far more resources.
With this in mind, one may presume the odds of our success are slim.
But this isn't reason enough to deny people the assistance they need.
The worst thing we can do is turn a blind eye to those our government sent to their deaths,
leave them to their own devices, and let them exchange their grudges and grievances.
The problem caused by Putin won't have a quick fix with a 100% success rate.
But we can help some of those affected.
From society's health standpoint, it's worth every effort and every dime spent.
The earlier Putin is gone, the earlier it is that we'll start working with those who trusted and served him.
The higher our chances at a successful fix, however limited.
The same is true of any other aspect.
Putin's ouster won't miraculously rectify the damage done.
It won't rebuild the cities razed to the ground, curb international isolation,
resurrect 10s of thousands of dead, or rekindle millions of lives directly affected by the tragedy.
But what Putin's ouster will do is stop that regression,
which will be the first step to recovery.
That's not it.
The good news is that none of the influential countries is interested in hurting Russia.
There won't be any Treaty of Versailles or celebration of Russia's defeat.
The only thing both the U.S. and the E.U. are interested in is Russia withdrawing its troops.
This is the aspiration of the governments whose economies are buffeted on a macro level due to the war in Ukraine.
This is the aspiration of global corporations
who'll be delighted to resume their investments once it's safe for their businesses and reputations.
Both the governments and the corporations are interested in
Russia being a boring and predictable neighbor with a developing economy,
a country that'll be getting richer
and buying more iPhones and luxury cars while selling its natural resources.
A Balkanization of Russia and an ensuing civil war would be a night terror for any Western government.
Far from it, once we have even a remotely decent government in place,
all political and economic ties will be rebuilt at breakneck speed as if nothing had ever happened.
The outside world is interested in Russia stopping the war effort, limiting the damage,
and reviving its statehood, legal institutions, and economy.
The outside world keeps saying,
Stop hurting yourselves.
We seek cooperation and new trade contracts.
We have no intention to fight you.
Just stop preventing our money from reaching your pockets.
Essentially, there are no domestic prerequisites for Putin's ouster to spur terrible consequences.
Our society is extremely apathetic.
Most people just want to be left alone.
They don't give a rat's a_s about Kherson or Donetsk.
Discussing the war is a social taboo.
Drunk people can blather on about anything, including marital infidelity.
Anything but the war.
20% of Russians vehemently oppose this war, while another 20% fully support it.
But 60% of Russians are living their own lives.
They didn't flee the country but inhabit their own mental oasis.
Do you know the one thing this kind of people will never do?
Start a civil war.
Do you know what kind of future is hard to imagine with people like these?
One of revanchism and totalitarian rule.
Both catastrophic scenarios are unfeasible when you have a society like this.
It won't be a new Somalia with everyone pitted against everyone else.
It won't be a new North Korea
with a post-war revolutionary leader making everyone march in unison.
No one will leave the comfort of their armchairs for a good old totalitarian march.
Revolutionary leaders don't emerge out of the blue.
To foment a rebellion, you need disgruntled masses
seeking to settle the scores whose motivation can be channeled the way you want.
But people burdened with mortgage payments aren't good revolution material.
The only thing Russian society is looking for is getting back to normal.
Those with a proactive itch to stir a lethal potload of crazy s__t against a jingoist backdrop
have already been manhandled or whacked by Putin.
There's the overwhelming majority of people
who'll be excited to chuck the word "mobilization" out of their daily vocab
and to stop fretting about their sons' medical records making them good candidates for cannon fodder.
People will be happy to just be able to live decent lives.
It's understandable, though, that many are worried by the prospect of Putin getting out of the picture.
Putin has stood for status quo for almost a quarter of a century.
Most of the cars produced before his rise to power have already left the junkyards and been recycled.
Most people would struggle to recall the way things were before he assumed office.
Life as we know it is firmly associated with him.
His ouster would connote uncertainty. Uncertainty triggers fear.
Counterintuitively, though, we need to fear certainty, that is,
the ongoing war, the involvement of more and more people,
and the daily risk of things getting hand out of hand and escalating to a new rebellion — or worse.
Putin's stay at the helm spells massive trouble for everyone.
With Putin out of the equation, things will make a U-turn and start getting back to normal,
no matter the way he leaves.
No downsides the road to normalcy may imply can outweigh the exacerbation and escalation of daily terror.
See you tomorrow!