A Stratfor analysis emailed to me thinks that Russia is not as vulnerable as their economic crisis makes it seem. Russia, relying on unique pillars of power, will concentrate on regime survival even if the Russians themselves must suffer terribly. And this strategy will work for Russia as it has in the past. One part stuck out:
As a consequence of Moscow’s political control and the economic situation, the Russian system is socially crushing, and has had long-term effects on the Russian psyche. As mentioned above, during the Soviet-era process of industrialization and militarization, workers operated under the direst of conditions for the good of the state. The Russian state has made it very clear that the productivity and survival of the state is far more important than the welfare of the people. This made Russia politically and economically strong, not in the sense that the people have had a voice, but in that they have not challenged the state since the beginning of the Soviet period. The Russian people, regardless of whether they admit it, continue to work to keep the state intact even when it does not benefit them. When the Soviet Uni on collapsed in 1991, Russia kept operating — though a bit haphazardly. Russians still went to work, even if they were not being paid.
But what if the elites are fighting amongst themselves for control of the regime? Revolution may be unlikely given Russian history, but is civil war unlikely?
And if there is civil war, what does regime survival mean? Mark Steyn has written of the Moslem demographic bomb within Russia, and the Finns have certainly noticed:
If demographic trends continue in the same way, by 2015 the majority of Russian army conscripts will be Muslims. By 2020 20 per cent of all Russians will be Muslims. And three decades later they will be the largest part of the Russian population.
Can the regime survive in these demographic circumstances under its current geographic expanse? Russia shed territory with the Brest-Livosk treaty to secure the new communist regime at the birth of the Soviet Union. Would Moscow shed Asian Russia in a crisis to maintain the regime? Or would the Russian elite give in to opposition forces so as to avoid a destructive civil war in order to maintain the current borders?
Russia's government may very well be immune to regime collapse even under the current financial crisis, as Stratfor writes. But if regime survival is truly the one and only goal of the Moscow elites, it may be a mistake to equate regime survival with current border survival.
