What Do We Do With Russia After the War?
Jewish people did not feel like dying because Hitler thought it was a great idea. Equally, Ukrainians are not buying the idea of “surrendering” (aka as physical extermination and re-education of Ukrainian children into Russians), propagated by Russia and its servants on the world arena.
An obvious option in a situation when you are being attacked is to get rid of the attacker. An absolute majority of Russians support Russian Nazism, which involves the extermination of Ukraine. Nevertheless, physical extermination of all Russian people supporting Russian ideology is neither possible, nor particularly desirable, especially taking into account even the remote possibility of Russia having a functioning nuclear arsenal.
Still, the existence of a militant fascist society armed with nukes is not a preferable option for any of Russia’s neighbours. Neither is it an acceptable option for the whole democratic world, which the Russian Nazis see as an ideological enemy.
While no one is pleased with the existence of Russia, physical elimination of the Russian government has clearly not been seen as feasible or desirable till now. Nevertheless, it is quite clear we are not going back to business as usual relations with Russia for a very long time, potentially ever. The recent 24-hour coup also indicates there are plenty of interested parties, who want to see Putin gone. Increasingly, removing Russia from the civilised world moves from the domain of “why?” into the domain of “how?”
Once all diplomatic, economic and financial ties with Russia are severed, what then? Do you just let it be and hope for the best?
You don’t just let serial killers run around in your cities. There is no reason to do the same with Russia. You cannot lock millions of people in prisons, however. For the sake of the world community and Russians themselves, Russia has to be severely reformed.
How Do You “Reform” Russia?
Throughout the hundreds of years that Russia existed its inhabitants have not been able to develop a sustainable model of self-governance. The population has always levitated towards tyrants and autocrats, mostly paranoid schizophrenics eager to slaughter their own people to avoid any potential internal threats to their rule.
Recent developments with Prigozhin taking on Rostov and threatening Putin’s leadership illustrated Russian people are even more eager to support a terrorist leader, executing people with sledgehammer. Unlike the rest of the world, Russian population clims only deeper into the abyss of savagery and Nazism.
Unlike Ukraine or Baltic states, which share a long history of civil society and democratic rule, Russia has always been ruled by the figure of a Tsar, be that Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Putin, or whatever comes after him if the West is not strategic enough.
The only times, when Russians managed to produce a reasonable path forward, the reformers have been ruthlessly removed from power. Stolypin’s assassination in 1911 is a great example of how reasonable people end up in Russia.
While such a bold stance sounds prejudiced, coming from a Ukrainian, having learnt the history of the country, you would realise it is not an exaggeration.
The causes behind the formation of a nation, so utterly incapable of critical thinking, are the foundation for the whole new research into national identity and nation building, which is needed, but which we do not have time to cover here.
What can be concluded without going into much detail, however, is that Russians are historically incapable of ruling themselves in a sustainable way.
Putin’s Presidency is not the exception, but the confirmation of centuries-long tradition of moral slavery.
In such a reality, and accounting for the possibility of MAD, — the only sustainable solution, presenting itself is foreign governance. The very same situation happened in Germany and Japan, where Americans took the lead in transforming the countries’ national and economic systems after WWII, creating “economic miracles” in both countries.
Accounting for the presence of numerous nuclear warheads scattered around the Russian territory the importance of foreign oversight cannot be underestimated. Most importantly, however, is the oversight by the immediate Russian neighbours.
While Ukrainians understandably want nothing to do with Russia and Russians, the desire to have them out of sight is, unfortunately, more short sighted rather than strategic:
If your neighbour is doing DIY tricks involving explosive materials you want to be aware of which materials he is using. Equally if you are living next to a Nazi nation, stocked up with nuclear warheads, you very much want to know what is going on within this state.
Whether Russia will fall apart or stay as a unified state it is in Ukrainian national & self-preservation interest to know each and every Russian step.
What’s better than knowledge of the present? Influence over the future.
What makes Ukrainian survival prerogative overlap with the world’s wider interests of reforming and fixing the Russian Nazism problem is Ukrainian culture and mentality. Ukrainians possess Western mentality and a good knowledge of Russian culture and language. Moreover, Ukrainians have much higher stakes in seeing Russia as a peaceful non-threatening neighbour, than other nations or the West itself.
Counterintuitively as it sounds, Ukrainians are the best nation to be given the right to reform Russia once the war is over.
Indeed, if a responsible and benign ruling elite is established in Russia, the dissolution of the Russian Federation might not even be desirable for the well-being and safety of Russian neighbours. In any case, however, foreign representatives should be stationed in all regions of Russia, to prevent local unrest and oversee safe disarmament and denuclearisation.
During the first 20–30 years of such rule, the “Russian Morgenthau Plan” should be enacted. All science and tech-related industries in Russia should be dismantled, leaving only resources-related fields. Scientific breakthroughs and innovations should not be shared with the Russian population for the foreseeable future, as this will only end up in the repetition of the nuclear weapons fiasco. Russia should be maintained and enhanced as a reliable supplier of natural resources and energy. Only innovative technology, related to resource extraction, should be shared.
It will be advisable to create a demilitarised zone next to all of Russian Western neighbours. Inhabitants of this zone should be given preferential treatment and the incentive to maintain piece, — potentially by inviting them to the economic restoration projects and encouraging them to learn the history and culture of the neighbours.
As soon as full reparations are paid to Ukrainian state and Ukrainian people, as soon as the Russian society gets close to the Western levels of tolerance, human rights and values, we can be looking into sharing technological innovations and opening the borders for the holders of Russian passports.
The idea of Russian reformation also has to include a thorough work on identification and strengthening of the positive elements of the Russian culture, which do not contain the stolen, expropriated or Imperial features, as well as creating an elaborate education plan for the Russian people to finally have the truthful account of history.
The work on reforming Russian society might turn out to be much harder than the one which has been done in Germany or Japan, not just due to the size and backwardness of the country, but also because of a much longer time period of the Russian mentality formation. Here the Technology will prove an indispensable role, with Internet, Virtual Reality and other scalable tools helping us transform Russian people to finally live at peace with their neighbours.
It is imperative to try, — for the sake of the future of Humanity and the avoidance of future threats emanating from the Russian steppes.
