@Solar Sun

But it does not factor in things like conversion rate of ethnic Russians to Islam, Muslim population in Russia's main cities Moscow and St Petersburg (Moscow estimated at 2 million and growing) there predominance of organised crime especially the Chechens and demands of future representation in Russian society in media, government, academia, “human rights”, etc.

Human rights are not so important in Russia either.
There is large distrust to the very concept of "human rights" there as well.
They are perceived by large proportion of Russian population as Western imperialistic tool.
Me think, Russians are happy to live without much of these.

Then there is also western funding and support of subversive alternative media and political activist groups in Russia.

@T. Greer [edited to address the source of the quote; not me who said that <img src="http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/forum/my-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_wink.gif" title=";)" class="bb_smilies" /> ]

I am not a great believer of disintegrating states; if India can keep itself together, than the rest of 'em should be able to do so.

Financial disintegration of largely understood Western world, Peak Oil and few peaks of some technologically important metals (silver, indium, gallium, platinides, uranium and few other comes to mind), also peak phosphate (fertilizer), shortages of drinking water, climate related problems and other factors related to reaching ultimate limits of growth are going to change all of that.
Mentioned factors are real game changers.
You are going to see plenty of disintegrating states by 2030 at the latest and possibly much faster.
Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria or EU (if you consider it to be a sort of "state") are good candidates to begin with but many others will join in pretty soon.

I am not a great believer of disintegrating states; if India can keep itself together, than the rest of 'em should be able to do so.

With that said, I think there is something in the idea of national resiliency. When left to their own devices few states are in danger of collapse any time in the near* future. Yet states do not operate in a vacuum; there are plenty of possible and unpredictable "discontinuities" (i.e. ecological disasters, major war or terrorist strike, large-scale social unrest, ect.) that could destabilize a country. The probability of one of these events happening in any one country sometime in the next 30 years is quite small; the probability of one of these events happening somewhere in the world sometime in the next 30 years is not.

I suggest that we have been looking at the question of collapse in the wrong way. We should not be asking, "Which country has the highest probability of collapsing in the future", but "Which country has the highest probability of rebounding after a collapse?"

There are a few examples of Russian resiliency (or lackthereof) to be found throughout the history.

The first prominent one is the 1812 invasion of Russia by Napoleon and his army. I do not know enough of this period to provide any insightful commentary, and I would welcome an assessment by somebody more familiar with the times. However, I think it is fair to say that the Russia did surprisingly well over the next decade, considering the destruction brought upon the agricultural base of Eastern Russia and the burning of its largest city.

Second example of collapse can be found in the February Revolution of 1917. Following the abdication of the Tsar was one of the bloodiest episodes of Russian history, a greater splintering that divided Imperial Russia into some 15 states. Eventually the Red Army snuffed out most of these states (they didn't get Finland back for 30 years), but the cost was high: 13 million dead, at least, and another one million who emigrated out of the region permanently.

The third episode followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the extreme economic pressures being placed on the Soviet Union circa 1988-1991. Here too is another narrative of collapse, albeit much less violent than the first. The United Soviet Socialist Republics broke into 15 separate republics - states that remain separate to this day.

I am not entirely sure what these three examples say about the future of Russian resiliency. Not being very familiar with modern Russia or her antecedents, I am unable to tell you if these scenarios are in anyway applicable to the Russia of the next thirty years. Yet I do have a few off the cuff reactions that are worthy of the discussion.

The first is that any future collapse is unlikely to be caused directly by the intervention of outside powers. While the majority of Russians do not strike me as intensely nationalistic, Russians do seem to have the provincial attitude that makes the Slavic region extremely hostile to foreign expansion.

This provincial frame of thought also seems to be one of the largest threats to greater Russia. Russians will stand solidly behind their government when faced with foreign encroachment. Absent this fear of the outsider, distrust is aimed straight at Moscow (or St. Petersburg, depending the date). If the source of disruption is internal, as it was in 1918 and 1991, Russia's national cohesion quickly falls apart.

What strikes me most about these latter two examples of collapse is how quickly they happened. In both cases, the independence movements of Ukraine, Estonia, ect. seemed to rise out of the Earth the minute central authority weakened. Theirs was not the hard-earned fruits of a lengthy insurgency or nationalist movement. Twice in the last century has Russia collapsed in nothing more than a flash.

*Near future = next 30 years, <2040.

@Anatoly Karlin

But it does not factor in things like conversion rate of ethnic Russians to Islam, Muslim population in Russia's main cities Moscow and St Petersburg (Moscow estimated at 2 million and growing) there predominance of organised crime especially the Chechens and demands of future representation in Russian society in media, government, academia, “human rights”, etc.

Then there is also western funding and support of subversive alternative media and political activist groups in Russia.

Much like what happened to Ethnic Russians after the formation of the first Soviet government after 1917 were they became the disposed majority.

I see many parallels between pre-revolutionary Russia 1888- 1917 to what is happening today.

I think you grossly underestimate the threat posed by Chechen lead terrorism it is NOT how it is portrayed as a localised regional conflict.

I will probably do a thread outlining the parallels I think are pretty striking if you factor in the fact the Communism and Islamism are just front ideologies to achieve a geo-political agenda . But I will have to touch on some rather un-PC issues.

Political Correctness itself was a Marxist social construct developed in Germany at the Frankfurt school until Hitler’s rise to power in Germany when the political professors immigrated to the US.

@T. Greer

Good websites know anymore that might project the future possible destabilisation of Russia and/or highlight potential flash points Caucasus region being an obvious example historically.

@solar sun,

1. I do not think Russia is likely to "collapse", if by that you mean as political disintegration. Nor do I think it at all likely for the US. Depression, loss of national morale, crime, "poshlost", etc? Yes. These things occur at least once a century. But almost all the modern nation-states have survived in more or less their present form to today.

2. Re-some of your points about Russia.

Bureaucracy & corruption? - though nasty, bureaucracies are essential elements in cementing nations.

Skilled labor shortage? - if anything, Russia is overeducated and has a surfeit of technically-educated people doing work like laying parquet floors for rich people's homes (real life story of one of my dad's acquaintances from
Phystech).

Dilapidated infrastructure? - dilapidated because the Soviets overbuilt it well beyond their nation's real level of economic development. Not much point in having lots of good inter-city roads when automobile ownership is low and everyone travels by railway between cities (or flies).

Re-Islam. See the "Myth of Dhimmitude" section of this article on Russia's demography.

Second, even this is a pointless exercise, of course, as a quick look at current regional TFR proves. The two biggest ethnic Muslim groups, the Tatars (3.8% of the population) and the Bashkirs (1.2%) transitioned to sub-replacement fertility rates at about the same time as ethnic Russians. Today, Tatarstan has a TFR of 1.4 and Bashkortostan has a TFR of 1.6, which is not significantly different from that of majority Russian regions.

Even the current rapid population growth seen in the Caucasian Muslim republics conceals a major demographic transition during the 1990's. Although a huge youth bulge contributes to current high birth rates, it should be noted that all the Caucasian republics now have sub-replacement fertility rates, with the sole exception of Chechnya where the TFR was 3.1 in 2007. Incidentally, I suspect it is no coincidence that it is Chechnya which also had by far the bloodiest recent history - when you have just one son to lose instead of several, it is that much harder to send him off in the service of violent separatism or radical Islam.

Re-Chinese takeover. See The Myth of the Yellow Peril: Overhyping Chinese Migration into Russia. Ordinary Chinese have no incentive to settle Siberia and have hordes of children while hiding from Russian authorities. It's fantasy.

The other points are simply far too broad (e.g. size has advantages like strategic depth) and too general (many other countries have organized crime, terrorism, etc).

@T. Greeg,

Really, don't be shy and join the party. <img src="http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/forum/my-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_smile.gif" title=":-)" class="bb_smilies" />

Russia tends to break up when the central government fails, meaning that it becomes more effective for regions to manage themselves. That said, all the ethnic-Russian regions automatically retain their national loyalties, which makes gathering them again very easy. More problematic are peoples with some sense of their own, unique national identity, ranging from weak (e.g. Belarus) to strong (e.g. Georgia). These tend to be brought back within a recovering Eurasian empire - Russia always recovers, eventually - through a mixture of cajoling, persuasion, pressure, threats, and force.

IMO, these scenarios of Russia - or the US, for that matter - breaking up into many warring states are unrealistic in the extreme, barring global-level discontinuities like nuclear war or the collapse of industrial civilization.

I do not favor getting between you and Antoly on this one. However, I would like to forward a set of maps that will be of interest to those reading this discussion.

Russia Fractures, Part 1: The Political Geography of the Russian Revolution
"Curzon." ComingAnarchy.com. 2 June 2009.

Russia Fractures, Part 2: The Political Geography of the Soviet Breakup
"Curzon." ComingAnarchy.com. 8 July 2009.

Curzon has not published the third part of the series, which I will assume will outline possible scenarios for a schismatic Russia in the future.

While Russia is not my area of expertise, it does not seem crazy to state that Russia is a state lacking a long history of national cohesion.

EDIT: Following this line of thought, I would be very interested in reading a Russian version of Garreu's Nine Nations.

Russia is far more likely to collapse more than the US due to several factors in fact it is most likely a probability.

Form of government and it's inherent problems bureaucracy, corruption, etc.

Skilled labour shortage in key sectors.

Dilapidated 70's Soviet era infrastructure

Demographic shift as I referenced before The Finnish Department of Defence report on Russia back in February called “Islam – From Russia of Challenges”.

Another striking statistic is related to the growth of Russia’s Muslim population. Russia is about to face big demographic challenges. Russia’s population is diminishing by approximately 400 000 persons per year; yet, the population in 15 Russian regions increased in 2005. Each of them, such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetya in the North Caucasus has sizeable Muslim populations. The life expectancy among Muslim males is far greater than that of ethnic Russians.33 Paul Goble, an expert of Islam and the Muslim population in Russia, estimates that the majority of Russian military recruits will be Muslims in 2015. In 2020 twenty per cent of the citizens will be Muslims, provided that the current demographic trends continue. If no changes occur, within three decades the majority of the citizens of the Russian Federation will be Muslims.

As well as Chinese immigration into Siberia.

Fully supported by western policy makers.

In fact I think this has been part of western political strategy since the collapse of the USSR. AEI brags about this projection of Russia's future.

Geographical location bordering the Caucasus, China and Central Asia which a serious potential of China and or one of the Central Asian Republics destabilising into civil warfare causing a mass influx of refugees into Russia.

Size of the country and sparse border

Organised crime and terrorism

Economic sabotage holding back loans, sanctions on Russian companies, freezing of foreign banks, etc.

I can't say Russia's future is looking to promising if it follows it's current course.

It can turn it around where Russia changes it's strategy and perspectives forming new alliances and economic ties and strengthen historic alliances in key strategic locations.

I'll comment later on what I would do if I were the President of Russia.