Countdown to After America: Putin's Influence and the Threat to America's Democracy with Dr. Alexander Motyl

As we count down to the release of the limited series After America, we are revisiting some past episodes of Deep Dive to help lay the groundwork for this important project that will attempt to answer the question - What would it actually look like if American democracy were to fail?

Dark Tales: Music by Rahul Bhardwaj from Pixabay
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Is America on the brink of democratic backsliding? As the 2024 election draws near, we explore alarming parallels between the authoritarian tactics of Vladimir Putin in Russia and those emerging in the U.S. This episode features the profound insights of Dr. Alexander Motyl, an expert on Russian affairs. We revisit our discussion about the ongoing war in Ukraine and critically analyze Putin's historical justifications for Russia's actions. Highlighting the unexpected resilience of Ukraine, we reflect on the broader global implications of the conflict.

Vladimir Putin's logic and rhetoric serve as the focus of our next segment, where we scrutinize the extreme consequences of his historical narratives. Dr. Motyl helps us question Putin's rationality and understand the potential for regions within Russia, like Buryatia and Tatarstan, to assert their historical claims for independence. Our conversation also delves into how Putin's grand historical narrative, despite its flaws, aims to legitimize his rule and maintain his grip on power. We consider the future shape of Russia if it faces defeat in Ukraine and the broader repercussions of such a scenario.

The possibility of Russia becoming a failed state is not far-fetched, as we discuss in our final segment. We consider potential outcomes for Russia, including internal power struggles and civil conflict reminiscent of its past. The conversation stresses the importance of preparedness and understanding the regions within the Russian Federation to mitigate instability. Finally, we contemplate scenarios of peaceful dissolution versus chaotic fragmentation, emphasizing the crucial need for ongoing support to neighboring states to contain any potential spillover effects. 

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Transcript

Shawn: 2:13

Hey folks, this is Shawn C Fettig, host of Deep Dive. You've heard our teaser trailer, so you know we've got something special in the works. Our new limited series After America premieres in late June and is dedicated to addressing a critical question that becomes ever more urgent as we approach the 2024 election. Ever more urgent as we approach the 2024 election what would democratic backsliding, or worse, a rise of authoritarianism, look like in today's United States if it were to happen? In the lead-up to this series and to set the stage, we're re-releasing pivotal deep-dive episodes every Sunday, each shedding light on the vulnerabilities of our democracy and highlighting some of the issues and challenges threatening our nation and the global order. Democracy and highlighting some of the issues and challenges threatening our nation and the global order. This week, we revisit my conversation with Dr Alexander Motyl, an expert on Russia, discussing the war in Ukraine and how Putin's warped vision of Russian history has contributed to the conflict. This episode's particularly important to the moment, to the crisis that the United States might be facing, highlighting democracy under siege globally and hinting at the potential future for the United States under a second Trump presidency.

Shawn: 3:18

In recent years, we've witnessed a disturbing trend Significant elements of the Republican Party are increasingly embracing Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders around the world. People like Viktor Orban in Hungary, xi Jinping in China and Narendra Modi in India. Gop figures like Tucker Carlson, steve Bannon and even Donald Trump himself have praised Putin's leadership and far-right ideology. Many experts see parallels between democratic backsliding in the United States and the authoritarian playbook Putin has used to consolidate power in Russia, a playbook that relies on election manipulation, undermining independent institutions, spreading disinformation and stoking cultural grievances and polarization. And we're already seeing many of the same things here in the United States.

Shawn: 4:06

Voting rights are under attack through partisan gerrymandering, strict voter ID laws and restrictions on mail-in voting. The independence of the courts is being threatened. Norms around the peaceful transfer of power are being shattered, most shockingly in the January 6th insurrection that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Immigrants and queer folks and women and people of color have been the target of malicious legislation intended to other and demonize, and misinformation proliferates unchecked on social media, in houses of worship and on media outlets like Fox News, newsmax, one American News Network, etc. Is Russia a template for where we in the United States are headed? Follow and like Deep Dive to stay updated on all developments related to After America. The clock is ticking. Democracy is at a crossroads and the time to act is now.

Dr. Motyl: 5:07

Just recently as a matter of fact, it was three, four days ago the Atlantic Council published the results of a survey they did. They questioned 167 Russia experts, more or less evenly divided from the private sector, business sector and academe, both Americans and Europeans, and of that number, 47% believe that Russia could collapse within the next 10 years and 20% believe that Russia could collapse within the next 10 years, and 20% believe that Russia was on the way to becoming a failed state, and only 10% believe that Afghanistan was on the way to becoming a failed state. There's also a whole bunch of Ukrainian analysts, that goes without saying, but also Russian analysts, opposition analysts, who say that this scenario of a collapsed Russia is perfectly plausible and becomes increasingly plausible as we go.

Shawn: 6:03

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, the general consensus was that Ukraine was outgunned, disorganized and unable to mount any type of meaningful resistance. The expectation was that Ukraine would fall quickly, maybe even within days of the assault, but that didn't happen. And it's not like Russia just struggled. Ukraine took the fight directly to Russia, denying a quick win, holding territory that experts expected to fall effortlessly and even reclaiming territory that Russia had taken. Ukraine's allies in Europe, the United States and Canada, provided an unexpected level of support. That has been maintained, and Russia has become a pariah on the global stage. That has been maintained, and Russia has become a pariah on the global stage.

Shawn: 6:57

Nothing is certain at this point, and there are signs that Russia may be regrouping and preparing for another overwhelming assault on Ukraine in the next couple of months. But the debate has shifted from one that focuses on when Ukraine falls and how the rest of the world would react in that scenario to a debate that is focused on the strong possibility that Russia might actually lose the war, and if that happens, I wonder what that looks like. So today I'm talking to Dr Alexander Motto, professor of political science at Rutgers University and a widely regarded and respected expert on Soviet and post-Soviet politics. He's published extensively academically, as well as fiction and nonfiction books. One of his recent works in foreign policy, an article titled it's High Time to Prepare for Russia's Collapse, is the catalyst for today's discussion. We talk about the possibility that Ukraine wins this war, what that might look like for Russia and how the rest of the world should be preparing for this outcome.

Shawn: 7:57

If you like this episode, or any episode, please feel free to give it a like on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive, dr Modal. Thanks for being here. How are you?

Dr. Motyl: 8:24

Very well, thank you for having me.

Shawn: 8:26

So there's been a lot of attention paid to what the world looks like and specifically what Ukraine might look like if Russia wins the war it started in February of last year, and as the war is dragged on and Ukrainians have shown incredible resilience and ability to not just defend territory but also to go on the offense, a lot of great minds have started to map out what a stalemate might look like, and there's even some suggestion that you know that there's a world in which Russia outright loses this war.

Shawn: 8:55

But I haven't heard any interesting narrative or seen some storyboard that outlines what a Russian loss might look like, until I read your recent article in Foreign Policy entitled it's High Time to Prepare for Russia's Collapse, and can I just say that it seems short-sighted at best that nobody involved in the geopolitical game at a high level and with consequential influence in how that game is played, seems to be not just imagining this outcome but preparing for it. And you get right to it in your article, and so I'm excited to have you here to talk about it. But to get there, I think we need a bit of a history lesson, if you don't mind, because Putin has cornered a narrative and he's expended a lot of energy in weaving a Ukrainian history that ties Ukraine and its fate to Russia, that Ukraine cannot be separated from Russia because of historical bonds and events that are being ignored by the Western world. So I guess the question is what is the actual history here and how does it, if at all, advance Putin's objective?

Dr. Motyl: 9:55

Until the second half of the 18th century, most of Ukraine, or indeed all of Ukraine, was actually under the influence of Lithuania, poland to some degree, the Holy Roman Empire, to a very large degree the Byzantine Empire and then eventually the Ottomans. So the territory that we now refer to as Ukraine and that was already referred to as Ukraine in the 17th century, only came under the Russian sphere of influence or into the Russian sphere of influence during the second half of the 17th and then 18th centuries. So the Russian impact on Ukrainian history and the degree to which Ukraine has been dependent on Russia is only confined to the last several hundred years. Then one goes deeper into the historical record. Then one finds that the territory that again that we call Ukraine today, and one finds that the territory that again that we call Ukraine today actually evolved in ways that were very different from those of what was then Muscovy by the way, it wasn't even Russia, it was simply known as the Muscovite state.

Dr. Motyl: 11:02

What Putin does or has done, and what Soviet ideologists as well as imperial Russian ideologists have done before him, they've essentially extended Russian history from well, from the present into the deep past, thereby providing it with a sort of a historical length that it doesn't really have in reality.

Dr. Motyl: 11:28

And, at the same time, what's the coda to that is that Ukrainian history, or Ukraine more generally, as well as Belarus, by the way, become simply appendages of the Russian historical narrative.

Dr. Motyl: 11:42

But, as I said, if you look at the historical record objectively and Putin, as you know, has devoted a lot of attention I mean last summer, well, two summers ago he devoted a long article to the emergence of Ukraine and Russia a thousand years ago.

Dr. Motyl: 11:59

Well, that particular state, which was known as Rus R-U-S, was a name that was given to that area by the Vikings, who happened to go down the Dnipro River from Scandinavia on the way to Constantinople, and they established a state incorporating a variety of Slavic or proto-Ukrainian tribes in the area of Kiev. At that point in time, moscow was at best a small fishing village, and it was only in the 13th and 14th centuries that Moscow began coming into its own, but only as a legitimate Bill. Russian history that is separate from and arguably predates whatever historical narrative that Russia might come up with, and the important thing is that Putin denies this, but so did the Soviets and so did the imperial Russian historians of the 18th and 19th centuries. So, in that sense, what Putin is doing and has done is essentially follow in the footsteps of imperial Russians and Soviets, who made a point of denying well Ukrainians and Bill Russians as having a separate identity from that of the Russians.

Shawn: 13:29

It seems like Putin has cherry-picked very discreet and deliberate things from the past to create a history that gives a sheen of legitimacy to what he's doing in Ukraine, and one thing that strikes me is that I'm not even sure that that's ultimately necessary to the public he's trying to persuade. That would be Russian folks, the Russian public and I guess further. This is a logic that could be crafted in any direction, toward any end, depending on the goal. So, for example, couldn't a similar narrative be cobbled together and applied to Alaska? If that's what you know, putin was after the Alaskan territory.

Dr. Motyl: 14:04

I mean, in a way he could. But of course, if one follows his logic to its logical absurd conclusion, then essentially Russia would have to be truncated and reduced by about 90%, because it was in the 14th and 15th century that Muscovy again I note by the way, it's Muscovy, not Russia, russia didn't yet exist Muscovy starts expanding into Siberia by means of violence and the destruction of the local indigenous population. So, technically, you know places like Buryatia, yakutia, Tatarstan, bashkortostan, which are all part of the Russian Federation. They were where they are today centuries before the Russians arrived, as were the Ukrainians and arguably, as were the Bill of Russians and the Vikings and many others. So if one follows this to its logical conclusion, you're left with a relatively small country centered on today's Moscow.

Shawn: 14:58

You know, ironically enough, Right, and that's another question. I had that using the same logic, couldn't we flip the script?

Dr. Motyl: 15:04

And in that case there are a lot of other countries and territories that could legitimately lay claim to some existing Russian land that could legitimately lay claim to some existing Russian land, yes, not the least of which would be Ukraine, because most of the population that currently, of the territories that border on eastern Ukraine, there are a number of provinces, there are three or four as well as the area in the south, just north of the Caucasus Mountains, it's called the Kuban. Until the 1920s and 30s, the majority population in these areas were Ukrainian, you know, anywhere from 50 to 60 to 70 percent, and there were all sorts of historical reasons for this, obviously, but they were technically Ukrainian, and there are some Ukrainians I mean again sort of, you know, hyper-nationalists who say well, wait a second, why don't we claim what is ours as well? Historically, by using Putin's logic, then this should be our territory. And, of course, once you start going down that path, then every boundary in the entire world has to be renegotiated or fought over, which is just nonsense.

Dr. Motyl: 16:09

So Putin, essentially, has opened up a can of worms and, as you say, the argument isn't really necessary for whatever it is that he has in mind, but it's necessary in as much as it's a way of legitimating his own rule right. So in terms of attacking Ukraine and possibly annexing parts, you can make the case simply going back to the 19th century. You don't need to go back a thousand years. But of course, going back a thousand years is a way of adding to his own legitimacy. It enables him to present himself as the ingatherer of ancient lands, places him in the long line of Russian Tsars. So I think he needs to do that more for his own reasons than he does for whatever purposes he has vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Shawn: 16:57

Yeah, and there's this other part. I do this I know other people have been doing this picking at Putin's logic, picking it apart to try to understand his endgame, but I guess I'm wondering what percentage of this is on his part just delusional.

Dr. Motyl: 17:12

Ah, very good point. You know, before the war began, I was personally of the opinion that there would be no war. And the reason for that was that if and my reasoning was as follows that if a war were to emerge, erupt rather, it would be bloody, it would be a slog Russia would probably not be able to win, there would be very painful sanctions, russia would become a rogue state, by the way. And all of these things have happened right, and my reasoning was that only a crazy person, someone who is utterly delusional, would embark on a war, given the fact that it would have exclusively deleterious consequences for Russia, not to mention Ukraine, of course. And so Putin does it.

Dr. Motyl: 17:57

So I'm, you know, I've been forced to argue by virtue of my own logic and the way events have evolved, to believe that Putin must in some sense be delusional, not just in terms of his calculations about the war and its likely outcome, but also in terms of his views about Ukraine. I mean, the guy seems to have been persuaded, along with a good number of the Russian elite, that the Ukrainians would welcome his armies within a day or two in Kiev with bread and salt. And they wouldn't be doing this because they had to, but because they genuinely wanted to be invaded, he didn't expect any kind of resistance. I mean, this bespeaks some kind of bizarre lack of knowledge, because you got to figure, all they needed to do was read some Ukrainian newspapers, for Christ's sake, to know that there was certainly a, you know, a resentful mood amongst the Ukrainian population and that the Ukrainians maybe not all of them, but certainly a good number would indeed fight, which is exactly what they did.

Dr. Motyl: 18:59

And then you extend the delusional aspect from that, from his lack, his complete incapacity to understand Ukraine and again, that has partly to do with the point about history, inasmuch as he truly seems to believe Ukrainians don't exist, and to the degree that they do exist, it's only because they've been goaded into existence by the CIA, the Nazis and all sorts of other nefarious forces in the world, forces in the world.

Dr. Motyl: 19:33

And as much as they don't exist, there's no possible reason for them not to welcome Russia, not to welcome annexation, not to welcome the kind of invasion that he embarked on on February 24th, and of course that too is delusional. But that obviously also ties into this argument about Ukraine not having a history of its own. Ukraine not having an identity of its own, didn't have one a thousand years ago, didn't have one 500 years ago, didn't have one 50 years ago, doesn't have one five months ago. So he still seems to believe, as do many of his people, as he says, that this is all a neo-Nazi plot Again, part of that is propaganda, of course, but I do believe that part of this genuinely, it's a genuine belief.

Shawn: 20:16

I want to dig into some of these potential outcomes or potential shapes of Russia should it lose in Ukraine, as you've discussed recently. But before we get there, you know Putin's been making overtures for quite a while, at least as far back as 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, when he talked about a Russian future. That was really post-current global order and very confrontational. And then the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and that does make me wonder. You know why now, or, I guess, why February of 2022? Why did Putin wait? Or was there something specific happening in early 2022 that made the conditions right?

Dr. Motyl: 20:55

Remember that 2014 was actually the invasion. I mean, that's when the war technically began. You know, one could easily argue, as many people have done, that the war was going on these last eight years, between 2014 and 2022, but it was just a kind of low-intensity war focused exclusively on the Donbass and the Donbass. So, from that point of view, and if you accept that argument, then the answer is that the war began because of the Maidan revolution of 2013-14. And, in a way, it's just been going on as a result of the after effects, or the aftershocks, of that particular revolution. That said, I do get your question. I think Putin had an opportunity to invade in 2014, march, april and had he done so, he could probably have captured most of Ukraine within a week or two. The country was, I mean, it had just experienced a revolution, the institutions were in chaos. I mean, the elites were triumphant, the democratic elites were triumphant, but, that said, no one really knew what to do and at that point in time, the Ukrainian army, the battle-hardened troops within the Ukrainian army, consisted of exactly 7,000 soldiers. These people managed to fend off the secessionists, but they, as you know, when the Russian army eventually intervened, they were creamed fairly quickly.

Dr. Motyl: 22:21

I think Putin didn't decide to go any further because he believed that whatever transpired in Ukraine would lead to a failed state. It wouldn't be effective. I mean the people really. I mean, again, given his delusions about Ukrainians, the Poroshenko government would be in power for a certain number of years but nothing radically different would be accomplished, in as much as a state would probably collapse on its own. Why get involved in a possibly extended confrontation, military confrontation? Let the Ukrainians do the job for them Now. That didn't happen under Poroshenko. But then, of course, as you know, he loses the election to a man who's, you know, professionally, a comedian, no experience.

Dr. Motyl: 23:07

And Putin's expectation again, I suspect, at that point in time, with the election of Zelensky, was that Zelensky, first of all, would likely be a pushover. Secondly, he seemed to be saying all sorts of conciliatory things about Russia. So again, why not just wait for this crazy government, led by a comedian, to collapse? Let's wait for the government, for the state to collapse and, you know, things would then take their own course, as it were. So that, I think, explains a lot. But Zelensky began to disappoint him. I mean, in the first year of Zelensky he was. I think Putin was heartened by the fact that Zelensky was saying things that were supportive of Putin's position Again, not openly supportive, but at least implicitly supportive.

Dr. Motyl: 23:57

Then, about a year, a year and a half into his tenure in office, zelensky began singing a different tune. He began adopting a lot of the rhetoric, a lot of the language and indeed, some of the policies of the previous governments. He began talking and sounding like a Ukrainian who wants to maintain a Ukrainian state. That's roughly a year and a half ago. And I think at that point, well, a year and a half and a half ago, and I think at that point, well, a year and a half to two years ago, and I think at that point Putin and his minions began to realize that perhaps this wasn't working out the way it was supposed to.

Dr. Motyl: 24:31

From what I've read, the plans to invade were already being crafted about two years ago, in other words, roughly a year before the actual invasion took place, and at that point in time they were probably just, you know, they were sort of in the planning stage, sort of the contingency kind of planning that governments do all the time.

Dr. Motyl: 24:55

But then, of course, the major military exercises took place in mid-2021.

Dr. Motyl: 25:04

And, as you know, the troops were not withdrawn from the Ukrainian boundaries and I think at that point in time, roughly again, putin and his minions were beginning to consider the possibility of a genuine invasion.

Dr. Motyl: 25:16

What accelerated things and suggested that now might be the time to strike was, of course, on the one hand, zelensky's continued drift towards a kind of Ukrainian patriotic, national, almost nationalist position, which suggested that waiting too long wasn't going to change things, I mean, and indeed quite the opposite If one waits, the Ukrainians are likely to consolidate around him. But I think the American withdrawal from Afghanistan suggested that there was going to be an opening. In other words, the United States was withdrawing in a humiliating fashion, unlikely to intervene and support Ukraine, and that suggested that the timeframe was approaching, you know, roughly towards the end of last year, the beginning of this year, when something resembling an actual invasion might indeed be plausible. And then, of course, as to the exact timing why the 24th of February as opposed to the 21st, I can't say. One would have to look at Putin's diary to figure out why it would be the case.

Shawn: 26:26

If that man keeps a diary. The world is clamoring for that.

Dr. Motyl: 26:30

Yes, I can well imagine.

Shawn: 26:32

So let's talk about potential outcomes for Russia. You know, I mentioned in the introduction many people talk about an end to the war in Ukraine. That's in some way about concessions on the part of Ukraine that, depending on their assessment, includes things like total capitulation or cession of territory to Russia or some type of a slog or stalemate that you know simmers. But there is another possibility, and that's one that you suggest that Russia ceases to exist in its current form and shape. So I'm wondering what are the potential outcomes here other than the ones I've just listed? So all bad for Russia, and are these outcomes a possibility, or are we talking about a likelihood at this point?

Dr. Motyl: 27:13

Good questions. Let me preface my answer with the following. I'm not the only one who's been making this argument. There is a scholar of Polish background called Janusz Bugajski, who's actually written a book. It appeared, I believe, in early 2022, called Failed State, focusing on the fact that Russia was becoming a failed state. Just recently as a matter of fact, it was three, four days ago the Atlantic Council published the results of a survey they did. They questioned 167 Russia experts, more or less evenly divided from the private sector, business sector and academe, both Americans and Europeans, and of that number, 47% believe that Russia could collapse within the next 10 years and 20% believe that Russia was on the way to becoming a failed state, and only 10% believe that Afghanistan was on the way to becoming a failed state. There's also a whole bunch of Ukrainian analysts, that goes without saying, but also Russian analysts opposition analysts who say that this scenario of a collapsed Russia is perfectly plausible and becomes increasingly plausible as we go Now. The fact that a whole bunch of people believe this doesn't mean that this is obviously going to happen, but I think it's interesting to keep in mind that this is obviously a concern that serious analysts are now debating. It's no longer just a theoretical possibility. It seems to be becoming an empirical likelihood as the days progress. So let me first give you the argument for why this is likely and then, secondly, why it's more than just a likelihood, but indeed a very likely outcome.

Dr. Motyl: 28:56

There are several potential scenarios here, or at least two that I wanted to focus on. One, of course, is the extreme scenario that the Russian Federation might fall apart, but short of that, we need to keep in mind that the you like, but it's obviously a hyper-centralized regime, one of which is a man who's constructed a cult of personality around his infallibility and his eternal vitality and youth. That regime is now in very serious trouble, precisely because Putin is now in very serious trouble. All you need to do is take a look at a recent photograph to see that he's no longer brimming with vitality, and all we need to do is look at the disastrous war to realize that he's no longer infallible, and Russian elites know this. So there is a whole bunch of infighting taking place within the elites, certainly within the economic elites, but especially within the political elites and again, many Russians, as well as many people in the West, including myself, have suggested that it's quite possible that Putin might actually be overthrown, possibly even killed. I mean, there's a long tradition of these kinds of coups in Russian imperial history as well as in Soviet history, and indeed, arguably, putin came to power as a result of a kind of silent coup, when Yeltsin was forced, was encouraged, to leave office, so let's put it that way. So this is perfectly plausible, given Russian history move.

Dr. Motyl: 30:56

Putin dies and of course there's this entire debate concerning Putin's health, then the Putin regime will not be sustainable, because that regime depends on him. He is the core, he is the linchpin. You remove the core, the regime will implode, perhaps not immediately, but certainly within a few months or years. Which means that this hyper-centralized, authoritarian, quasi-fascist, pseudo-fascist call it, whatever you like regime can only exist as long as Putin is able to maintain his legitimacy, his authority and, of course, his own physical presence within the presidency of the Russian Federation. So the weaker he becomes, the weaker the regime.

Dr. Motyl: 31:40

If and when the regime goes, or if and when Putin goes, before even the regime goes, we're likely to see a vicious power struggle erupting between the hyper-Russian, imperialist nationalists on the one hand, the let's call them the kind of the system you know, the conservative sort of pro-system individuals who don't necessarily want to sustain the war any longer, on the other hand. And then a third force is likely to emerge, namely the quasi-Democrats or Democrats, who are currently either in jail or in immigration, or perhaps keeping their heads low within the government. That power struggle, like all Russian power struggles historically, will be vicious and it will create an opportunity for well, first of all for the Ukrainians. It's unlikely that the Russians will be able to pursue the war given those sorts of circumstances, certainly not with the same kind of vigor, but it would also, it is likely to lead to a variety of very serious tensions within the Russian, within Russia itself, within rump Russia itself, between all of these forces and the popular elements and the elements within the population that happen to support them. I would not exclude, under these sorts of conditions, a mass mobilization, demonstrations, possibly violence, and of course, the extreme form of that would be civil war, again confined only to the Russian areas.

Dr. Motyl: 33:13

But all of this is perfectly plausible. Again, it's not the sort of thing that requires a fundamental, you know, a major leap in imagination. You can draw these things out from current conditions, from current assumptions and, as I said, there's lots of evidence in Russian history, as well as in global history, to suggest that when you have weak regimes with weak leaders who suffer humiliating defeats in battle, that they tend to experience degradation and possibly even collapse. So imagine that the regime is under fire internally and externally. Imagine that there's something resembling, if not civil war, then civil conflict, with continued economic decline. All of this begins to resemble very closely Russia in 1917, 1918. It begins to resemble the Soviet Union in the last few years of Mikhail Gorbachev's reign. It becomes, in other words, a chaotic political and economic system within which the Russian Federation's constituent units and remember, there's something like 20 plus units that are affiliated with and representative of various non-Russian nationalities. Under such conditions of chaos, it becomes in their interest to preserve their power and to preserve their own selves by means of claiming greater degrees of autonomy, either formally or informally, insisting on greater degrees of sovereignty and, at the extreme, possibly even opting for secession and independence.

Dr. Motyl: 34:55

Many people argue that you know there are very few people, that there are very few individuals within the non-Russian republics who, at this point in time, are nationalists, who want separate independent states for their nations. That was also the case in the Soviet Union in 1990-1991. The vast majority of the Soviet populations, except for the Balts, couldn't really imagine the breakup of the Soviet Union. But once the putsch occurred in midsummer 1991, all of the non-Russian republics declared independence. And they did so not because they suddenly become nationalists After all, these were communists who were doing this but because they realized that independence was the only way that they could preserve their own republics as well as themselves.

Dr. Motyl: 35:43

And I can easily see a similar logic playing itself out in the Russian Federation. It need not encompass every single unit. All you need is for the Bashkirs, the Tatars, the Yakuts, the Chechens, the Dagestanis and the Buryats those, I think, would be the most likely candidates to opt for this kind of move. And once they do, they will then set an example for the others. And of course, they will also accelerate the degradation of the Russian Federation, thereby making it even more likely that other regions, other non-Russian regions, will get on the bandwagon in order to try to survive. Now, how likely is this? Again, I think it's theoretically plausible. It sounds like a persuasive narrative, as I.

Dr. Motyl: 36:41

The weakness of the Russian state weakness, the corruption, the inefficiency of the Russian state. I think that's a given. Two is on the increasing weakness of the supreme leader, namely Putin. We have all sorts of evidence suggesting that there is major discontent within all of the elites and that his authority is in fact decaying. And the third point is the Ukrainian war, the war with Ukraine, that's the accelerator, that's the trigger, that's the spark that could set off this particular conflagration.

Dr. Motyl: 37:19

So you add these elements plus a bunch of others, and you come to the conclusion or at least I come to the conclusion that the longer the war takes, the last, rather, the weaker Putin will be. The weaker Putin will be, the more like we will Putin's regime collapse, and hence all the consequences that I outlined will become not just plausible but indeed quite likely. So it all depends on the war. Ultimately, had there been no war, I would have argued that Russia was likely to decay, but it would have been a process that would have taken more time. But the war has served as a trigger, as it's served as a trigger in so many other instances in world history. When you lose wars, you strain societies, you strain economies, you undermine legitimacy, you do all sorts of things that lead to instability. And that's precisely what Putin has done. He himself has created the trigger, the spark that is likely to lead to the end of the Russian Federation.

Shawn: 38:25

So one scenario you've mentioned here is, quote unquote, civil war driven by, you know, a regional resistance, and there are very specific identities associated with each region Chechens that identify as Chechen before Russian, but also Tatars and Buryats that have a very strong cultural, maybe ethnic identity that maybe predominates over any Russian identity that they might also hold. So one possibility is cooperation across groups in pursuit of a common goal, so something like secession from Russian rule or some you know form of self-determination. But then there's another possibility and argument that there is a unified Russian identity across regions, cultures and ethnicities that could rise up against the regime as Russians. And so I'm wondering to your mind, which is more likely?

Dr. Motyl: 39:14

Well, I think you're. You know, you ask a good question and you provide a good answer. I think you're right that the Russians shouldn't be just regard, shouldn't just be regarded as a passive element. There are a whole bunch of highly developed regional identities within the Russian Federation. I mean, remember, it's an enormous country that spans 11 time zones, 11 time zones, and people in the Far East have their own identity. That's not to say that they don't consider themselves Russian, but they do have their own regional identity.

Dr. Motyl: 39:44

And remember, one or two years ago there were a whole series of demonstrations in the city of Khabarovsk, way out in the Far East, on the Pacific Ocean. So clearly people there have manifested their discontent, are willing to take to the streets, and the trigger for those demonstrations was the appointment of governor by Moscow that people didn't like, or rather it was the reverse, it was his demotion, but the whole point was that there was a certain kind of anti-Moscow feeling. Now that may or may not translate into uprisings and dependence and secessionism, but it obviously could, depending on circumstances. Keep in mind that in 1990, 91, 92, and 93, so for the last two years of Gorbachev's reign, but especially the first two years of Yeltsin's reign, there was a whole series of declarations of sovereignty. They were actually known as quote the parade of sovereignties in the Russian Federation. That encompassed not just the non-Russian regions but the Russian regions. They too were declaring sovereignty, and they were doing so not because they were nationalists or because they necessarily wanted independence for the good and glory of their cultures, but they were doing so because they perceived chaos within Moscow. Remember, these were the years when the left and the right and Yeltsin were struggling for power and it was unclear that he'd be able to maintain power and maintain control. So it was a purely defensive mechanism.

Dr. Motyl: 41:19

So we already have that on record and these people certainly remember this, and if they don't, they can certainly read about it. And there's no reason to expect, not to expect them to engage in similar kinds of behaviors, again, assuming that the regime starts breaking up and that there are, assuming that the regime starts breaking up and that there are massive outbreaks of discontent within European Russia per se. But it's there as well, as you've suggested and as I suggested before, that we can expect Russians to participate in some form of rebellion. Certainly demonstrations, rebellion, certainly demonstrations. And there again, I mean we've experienced those Russians engaged in massive demonstrations in the latter years of Gorbachev, in the 1980s, in the early 1990s, they demonstrated massively, especially in Petersburg and Moscow.

Dr. Motyl: 42:12

In 2011, after the falsified elections that Putin conducted, there were a whole series of demonstrations that encompassed Russia a few years ago, organized by Navalny. There were some demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of the declaration of rather, the declaration of the special military operation on February 24th. So the Russians have resisted, they have manifested their discontent. They haven't been terribly active in the last 10 years. Some people argue that's due to their political culture. I think there's an argument to be made for that, but it's also due to the fact that Putin has made it very clear that if you express your discontent, you'll be thrown into jail, and few people obviously want to do that.

Dr. Motyl: 42:59

But if the regime weakens this is precisely the point If the regime weakens, that means that the FSB, the secret police, will weaken, the National Guard will weaken, the police forces will weaken and again, think of the middle to late 80s in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev.

Dr. Motyl: 43:20

Once the regime weakens and the forces of coercion weakens, then the major obstacle, the main obstacle to any kind of demonstrations, will fall away. I wouldn't expect millions to take the streets immediately. But you know, the hotheads will certainly do so, and if they can demonstrate that they can get away with demonstrating, that will lead others to participate and then lead to a certain kind of cascading effect. So I wouldn't exclude that at all. Now, some of them will be supportive of Putin, some of them will be supportive of the extreme right, some of them will be supportive of the Democrats. We don't know exactly how that will break out, but certainly we can imagine that the demonstrations won't be directed exclusively at the Kremlin. They may be directed at other Russians and other political parties, and hence my suspicion that a lot of this civil conflict could more or less easily translate into civil war, and there again, there are lots of historical examples from Russian history suggesting that this kind of outcome is perfectly possible.

Shawn: 44:30

So there's an assumption maybe a blind assumption that regime change in Russia would be all for the good or all for the better anyway in the end. But that's not necessarily guaranteed, and I think that's inherent in some of the tensions that you're highlighting and the directions that some of the resistance might be coming from in Russia, and I think that's why you suggest in some of your work that other countries, particularly Western countries that have some type of direct or indirect investment in the outcome of the war, need to be more creative in planning for a Russian collapse. So I'm wondering what that looks like tangibly in policy and international geopolitics.

Dr. Motyl: 45:09

Well, for starters I mean this is going to be a trivial and a banal point, but for starters we need to talk about it in a serious fashion and, as you suggested in your preamble, I mean that hasn't really been done. So governments need to talk about this, journalists need to talk about this. Obviously, intelligence agencies, academics and others need to talk about this. Partly, they need to consider, you know, what the likelihood of such a scenario is. But to a certain degree, that's just a, it's almost a fruitless endeavor. I mean, the thing to do is to assume that such a scenario is likely and then to play out the consequences and how to forestall the bad ones and how to promote the good ones. So I think one needs to begin from that. So that's step number one, and arguably, I mean certainly the Russians are thinking about this, but, as you suggested, certainly it's high time for Americans and Europeans and, for that matter, the Chinese and many others, to start thinking about this as well. One needs to become more familiar with the individual regions that comprise the Russian Federation, individual regions that comprise the Russian Federation. For the sake of simplicity, let's just consider the Yakuts, the Tatars, the Bashkirs, the Chechens and the Dagestanis. How many specialists on these countries do we have in the West? I can name a few, but we probably need a few more. We need people to be studying their languages, we need people to be studying their histories and cultures. In other words, there should be a certain preparation that would be taking place so that, if and when these countries do emerge as states, or at least try to emerge as independent states, we won't be caught flat-footed. We won't be sending a Ukrainian specialist or a Russian specialist to Dagestan or Tatarstan. No, it should be someone who does Tatarstan or Dagestan. So that would be another very important point to keep in mind. In other words, to prepare the analytical cadre, but also to prepare the potential diplomatic cadre for this. Finally well, not finally third step would be to start talking to some of these people directly. That's obviously very difficult because they, you know. You simply you can't just organize a conference of potential secession in Chechnya, but certainly diplomats based in those regions, possibly intelligence agencies, possibly academics, could start sounding out these regions, could start talking to elites and trying to get a sense of what they feel, what they believe, what their aspirations are. That obviously goes hand in hand with the need to build up a cadre that would be capable of studying these regions on their own terms.

Dr. Motyl: 48:01

A lot of these places have emigres, have refugees. Just a few months ago there was a congress taking place, I forget exactly where, in Europe of the. I believe it was called the Congress of Free Peoples of Russia, and these were individuals who had emigrated from or fled from many of these non-Russian regions. Now one needs to be careful with emigres, because they generally lose touch with their homelands, although nowadays, with the internet, that may not be quite as problematic a case as it was in the past. But that said, they obviously have their own agendas, but on the other hand, they are who they are. They do have contacts of some kind. One shouldn't perhaps consider them to be kingmakers or potential kings, but certainly they can provide additional sources of information, provide about the constituent regions.

Dr. Motyl: 48:53

And then, finally, one needs to keep in mind that this kind of scenario, sort of the implosion of the Russian Federation will, under any kind of circumstances, will generate some kind of instability, whether it's civil conflict, civil war, whether it's ethnic cleansing or whether it's just simply confusion amongst elites as they try to figure out what to do, given the fact that there will be a significant amount of instability generated by a potential Russian collapse.

Dr. Motyl: 49:29

The West needs to ask itself, or the world more specifically needs to ask itself, what would be the best way of containing that instability, of making sure that it is confined exclusively to the Russian Federation, doesn't spill over and begin to affect other states, which we've begun doing as a result of the war.

Dr. Motyl: 49:50

But Belarus, ukraine, moldova, georgia, armenia, azerbaijan and then of course the Central Asian states, all of them need to be supported in ways that would enable them to withstand whatever instability that would emerge from a potentially collapsing Russian Federation, because ultimately, again, sort of the worst, worst, worst case scenario would be for the instability to spill over from the Russian Federation into Belarus it's already done so in Ukraine, so the Ukrainians wouldn't suffer anymore but say, into Kazakhstan, uzbekistan, armenia, and at that point we you know we begin to enter nightmarish territory.

Dr. Motyl: 50:38

Mind you, none of this has to happen because you know, on the one hand Russia could go the way of the Russian Empire in 1917, 1918. That is to say, it could break up and there could be civil conflict, wars and everything else. But it could also go the way of the Soviet Union in 1991, which was peaceful, pretty much consensual, and there's no reason, at least a priori, to think that the worst case scenario will transpire. It could also be the best case and, of course, more likely than not, it will be a combination of the two, something in the middle.

Shawn: 51:13

Well, I suppose to that end, then and this is a prediction but if you were pressed, which I guess is what I'm doing, how does this all end?

Dr. Motyl: 51:28

Let me kind of work backwards and suggest how it doesn't. I can't see negotiations ending this, at least not now, partly because the Ukrainians think they're winning and they are, but mostly because Putin has made it very clear that, short of a capitulation on the part of the Ukrainians, he's unwilling to negotiate anything. So there's really nothing to talk about. He's also made negotiations with regard to some kind of territorial concessions on Russia's part impossible by annexing formally the four provinces that the Russians currently occupy. Annexing formally the four provinces that the Russians currently occupy. There is no provision in the Russian constitution for de-annexation. Now again, putin could always violate the constitution, but technically that would be a complicated procedure. So he's created a mess. I can't see anybody agreeing to anything at this point in time. As a result, as I said, primarily because of what Putin has done, I don't see Russia winning the war. I just don't see, I don't even know what a Russian victory could possibly mean. It would essentially have to be the equivalent of the utter destruction of Ukraine. That's not going to happen, and short of that, there's really nothing that would qualify as a Russian victory. They might capture Soledar, they might capture a few other towns, and they will, of course, tout that as a great victory, but you know, again, everybody with a brain will realize that it's not so. Can the Ukrainians win? Well, actually they can. They can win, and arguably. Well, let me even backtrack and say that the Ukrainians have actually already won. You know, the invasion of February 24th is akin to imagine that the United States had invaded Mexico with the same number of troops, with the same imbalance of forces, and imagine that, 11 months after the full-scale invasion of Mexico, mexico remains sovereign, and not only that, but American troops are forced to retreat from 54% of the territories they've captured. I think everybody would consider that a smashing Mexican victory and a humiliating American defeat. And essentially that's what it is at present. Now, if the weapons keep on coming and if they keep on coming in the requisite numbers and quality and it seems to be the case that the West has turned a corner on this, because now there's very serious talk about supplying something that would have been unthinkable a few months ago, namely tanks Patriot missiles are already going to be supplied, which means that the West is making a 100% commitment to Ukraine's not just survival and not just not losing, but actually winning this war. If that continues and I think it will. Then Ukraine will be in the position to exert, to impose enormous costs on the Russian army, costs that will ultimately be non-sustainable. In that sense, I'm somewhat bullish. I think that Ukraine, the time is on Ukraine's side, despite what Condoleezza Rice and Bob Gates recently wrote. I think the Russian Federation and Bob Gates recently wrote, I think the Russian Federation the longer this takes, the more serious will the trouble be that the Russian Federation faces internally and externally, and the longer it takes, the more the Ukrainians will have the upper hand. Anyway. So to make the short story long, I actually think that this ends in the Ukrainian victory Now on the battlefield.

Dr. Motyl: 55:02

I do think that Ukraine will be able to recapture the territories it lost after February 24th. Where I'm not sure is whether it will be able to regain the Crimea and the Donbass. There again, I just don't know. I don't know how much the Russians will be willing to give that up. I don't know what. I'm sure that the resistance that they will put up to any kind of Ukrainian assaults will be immense. I don't know whether the Ukrainians will want to expend that many lives. It's all a little unclear to me, me. But if they manage to recapture what they've lost. That will be a smashing victory for the ukrainians, and I can see that happening.

Dr. Motyl: 55:44

First of all, in general. I'm not sure it'll happen in 2023, but I think it could. I'd say it's like a 50 50 chance that it could, and there's talk of a major offensive both by the Russians and the Ukrainians in the early spring. If and when that happens, that could very well be decisive. One way or the other. Either the Russians will break through which I doubt, but again it's certainly a possibility or, more likely, the Ukrainians will be able to break through, in which case that will weaken Putin, possibly lead to his political and possibly physical demise, and then accelerate all those disintegrative tendencies that I talked about with regard to the regime and the state. So I remain cautiously optimistic.

Shawn: 56:33

Dr Motyl, thanks for taking the time. I really do appreciate this conversation.

Dr. Motyl: 56:37

It was my pleasure.

Shawn: 56:43

The consensus is shifting. Ukraine could very well win this war, but it's far from certain. And even if it does, it remains unclear what the Russian loss looks like, how it transforms Russia and, by extension, the rest of the world. We can only hope that somebody at the adult table has been planning for this and can help all involved to a safe landing. If not, regardless of the outcome of the war, we may all be in for some real chaos economic, political and social, with implications for mass immigration, civil war, battlefield atrocities and geopolitical power struggles that reverberate across the globe. So even if we can't find a very specific personal investment in the outcome of this war, we do all have a stake in it one way or another. All right, check back next Friday and every Friday for a new episode of Deep Dive Chat soon, folks.