Essay: Is Russia a failed state?

Map of Russia.

Approximately 7% of Russia's land is arable and suitable for agricultural production.

Question: Is Russia a failed state?

Consider:

Almost half of global strategists think Russia could become a failed state within the next 10 years, Fortune magazine, January 23, 2023.

The 2023 article Russia has failed as a state published by Modern Diplomacy indicates: "Britannica explained that a failed state is the one that “cannot protect its national boundaries". April 26, 2023 head of the Russian Committee of defense of the Russian State Duma suggested that Russian citizens should be mobilized to protect Russian borders acknowledging that Russia has no resources for that, comparing the current inability of the state to the previous mighty USSR."

Ukraine, which has a much smaller population of Russia, invaded Russia in 2024. It did so in the southern Kursk region of Russia (See: Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine's Surprise Attack in Russia's Kursk Region, video and Ukraine invades Russia: Russian civilians seek shelter as fighting rages, video). Russia was caught completely by surprise and was unprepared for the attack. In addition, Ukraine used innovative drone tactics to blind Russian S-400 air defenses and take out Russia's Khalino Air Base which is located in Kursk Oblast, Russia (See: How Ukraine Took Out Russia’s Khalino Air Base with Advanced Tactics, Kyiv Post, December 23, 2024 and Ukraines Masterstroke - Russian Khalino Air Base TOTALLY OBLITERATED, Military Show YouTube channel, 2025).

On August 22, 2024, The Hill published the article Another Russian mercenary leader has turned against Putin which stated:

“

A little over a year ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s former cook and the founder of the notorious Wagner private military company, launched a coup attempt that fizzled quickly. But, significantly, the Russian military and security services did nothing to stop it. They just watched — hardly a sign of their loyalty to Putin. A few days ago, Georgy Zakrevsky, another head of a private military company, effectively called on Russians to get rid of the “Great” Putin (his modifier, not mine). When the guys with the guns start making fun of your greatness, it may be time to read the writing on the wall... Here’s Zakrevsky’s diatribe against Putin, in my translation: “Our country is not just on the brink of disaster or already right next to it; our country is already in trouble. In big trouble. Drones are flying all over central Russia, right up to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They even attacked the Kremlin. Our Black Sea fleet is being pushed out. It’s being pushed out as if we were not a great power with a great fleet, but some third-rate country. “Our air force is practically not working because it is also being pushed out. We are standing in the same positions that we took more than two years ago, and partly in those to which we retreated. The population is dying out, becoming impoverished, drinking itself to death: no one cares. All they have time to do is bring in migrants.” Zakrevsky minces no words in assigning blame for this sad state of affairs: “And all this was done by the so-called ‘president.’ The ‘Great’ Putin.”

”

"Russia is a declining power, and it will only get weaker with time." - International relations scholar John Mearsheimer

Questions: Will Russia become a failed state within 10 years? Is Russia currently a failed state? Will Russia eventually become a failed state?

To better answer these questions in your own mind, please see: Will Russia become a failed state within 10 years? Is Russia currently a failed state? Will Russia eventually become a failed state?

I used to be more interested in Russia, but the ButterGate scandal put a damper on that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Russia's war economy is well balanced to supply both guns and butter, but the price of butter itself is now soaring as surging inflation distorts parts of the economy. The price of a block of butter has risen by 25.7 per cent since December, according to the state statistics service.

'The Armageddon with butter is escalating,' Russian economists claim on Telegram.

See: Butter prices soar in Russia amid surging inflation in war economy, CBC News, November 2, 2024 and Russians Resort to Stealing Butter Amid Shortages, Newsweek, October 29, 2024

Skyscraper-high sewage plume of feces erupts in Moscow.[1]

See: Russia's sewer crisis

Many contemporary hyper Russophiles sound like citizens in the former Soviet Union bragging in the late 1970s and 1980s who boasted about how incredibly powerful the Soviet Union's military was while its civilian sector suffered and its empire declined before it fell (Russia's GNI (PPP) per capita is ranked 46th in the world[2]). See: Stagnation in the Soviet Union

The International relations scholar John Mearsheimer indicates that "Russia is a declining power, and it will only get weaker with time" and almost half of global strategists think Russia could become a failed state within the next 10 years, Fortune magazine, January 23, 2023 (See: Will Russia become a failed state within 10 years? Is Russia currently a failed state? Will Russia eventually become a failed state?).

The failed state of Russia can't even protect its borders and Ukraine (which is country with a much smaller fraction of Russia's population) invading Kursk proves this (See: Russia has failed as a state, Modern Diplomacy, 2023).

As noted above, the 2023 article Russia has failed as a state published by Modern Diplomacy indicates: "Britannica explained that a failed state is the one that “cannot protect its national boundaries". April 26, 2023 head of the Russian Committee of defense of the Russian State Duma suggested that Russian citizens should be mobilized to protect Russian borders acknowledging that Russia has no resources for that, comparing the current inability of the state to the previous mighty USSR."

Russia should invest more in upgrading the skills of their labor force (Russia's labor productivity rate is half that of the USA. The World Intellectual Property Organisation publishes a Global Innovation Index based on an assessment of national innovation inputs and outputs. In 2021, Russia was ranked in 45th place after Vietnam and Thailand, with the United States being third and the UK fourth in the ranking. Russia’s ranking highlights that Russia is a low-tech nation.[3]), fixing the potholes of its dilapidated roads (Russia ranks 120th in the world on the quality of their roads. See: Russia: A land of potholes and bad roads!), and fixing its sewage system crisis (20% of Russian household don't have indoor toilets amidst Moscow having an incidence of a skyscraper high sewage fountain. See: Russia's sewage system crisis).

"Sewer systems in Russia have been neglected for decades. Many citizens do not even have access to working water closets, and some public infrastructure has literally collapsed due to unmaintained sewage lines. However unattractive this fact may be, it should be taken seriously as it attests to wider societal problems in Russia." - Russia’s strange acceptance of the sewage pit, New Eastern Europe website, 2019. "According to data put out by the Russian Statistics Service 22.6 percent of Russian households aren't connected to a sewer system, most of them in rural areas. Russian commentators are divided about how vital an achievement modern toilets are." - What do outdoor toilets tell us about Russia?, Euro Topics Press Review, April 3, 2019. Russian social stability is threatened by a lack of indoor toilets in rural areas? Russian commentators are divided![4]

In addition, because Russia has not made greater efforts to diversity their economy like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have done, Russia may soon be faced with this potential possibility: Saudi Arabia has a big plan for oil that could hammer Russia’s war machine, economists warn, Fortune magazine, October 14, 2024. See: More bad news for the oil seller Russia: Oil markets brace for 2025 collapse as pressures mount on all sides. Many Russian nationalists and hyper Russophiles delusionally think Russia is strong, yet they do not realize how brittle it is. The former authoritarian and corrupt Soviet Union (which was very dependent on oil prices) was temporarily strong, but it was brittle as evidenced by its fall (The Tragic Fall of Soviet Oil). Furthermore, there are legitimate questions concerning how stable/instable the Russian oil industry is in terms of its short-term and long-term future (See: How stable is the Russian oil industry?).

In short, Russia cannot have a prosperous guns and butter economy because the citizens of its authoritarian kleptocracy are not productive and innovative enough. And any "victory" that Russia achieves in the war in Ukraine will be a pyrrhic victory as the war in Ukraine made Russia's demographic crisis worse (Russian demography has long been an existential issue to Vladimir Putin. In 2021, he declared “saving the people of Russia is our top national priority".[5]) and also made its poor labor productivity rate worse (During his annual phone-in with the public in 2019, President Vladimir Putin described low productivity as “one of the most acute and important” problems facing Russia.[6] See: Essay: Russia's economy is that of a shrinking, aging, and poorly qualified population).

Why I am not bullish on Russia's future

See: Essay: Why I am not bullish on Russia's future

The flag of Russia

Russia's decline and some Roman Empire decline parallels

Please read: Russia's decline and some Roman Empire decline parallels

Are the Russians as unhappy as they claim they are?

See also: Are the Russians as unhappy as they claim they are?

In 2023, Russia ranked 74 out of 150 countries on the World happiness index. The World Happiness Index 2023 Report will mark its 10th anniversary with the Globe Happiness Reflect, which compiles data from international surveys to show how people rank their lives in more than 150 countries.

According to Statista.com, the happiness index, calculated as the difference between shares of happy and unhappy people, reached 18 percent in Russia in 2021, down from 51 points in 2016. To compare, an average of 44 countries surveyed worldwide was measured at 43 percent in 2021, having increased from the previous year.

In 2023, Russia had the second highest alcoholism rate as far as it being a problem with both genders. In addition, in 2023 Russia had the highest alcoholism rate for males.

in 2019, it was reported that every year 500,000 people die due to alcohol in Russia.

In 2023, Business Insider reported: "Russia lost the first Crimean War because of widespread alcoholism. Drinking is killing their troops in Ukraine, too, intel shows."

Jerusalem Post: Many Russian troop deaths tied to alcohol, gun accidents, hypothermia -UK, 2023

Russians are very unhappy.

*Russians are fewer, poorer and more miserable than a decade ago, The Economist, April 1, 2022

*World Happiness Index 2023 Country Wise List, Russian ranked 74 out of 150 countries

*Some Russian soldiers in Ukraine unhappy with top brass, Girkin says, Reuters, December 2022

*Ukraine war: families of unhappy Russian conscripts could undermine Kremlin’s war effort, The Conversation, 2022

*Russia: The Unhappy People, Partner Science Norway, 2012

High income countries are rarely authoritarian countries in our technological age driven by innovation

See also: Essay: High income countries are rarely authoritarian countries in our technological age driven by innovation

Statue of the creative Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci in Tuscany, Italy.

Research indicates that in the long-term, non-authoritarian countries are more likely to experience greater economic growth (See: No, Autocracies Don’t Make Economies Great, Cato Institute, 2021 and Time Under Authoritarian Rule and Economic Growth, CORI Working Paper No. 2007-02).

Previously, I wrote the essay at: The USA is more innovative and productive than China and Russia. This essay is a sequel to that essay.

Stephen Kotkin is a historian who compiled a highly respected 3 volume work on the life of Joseph Stalin.

Kotkin said of authoritarian regimes, "This is the problem of despotism. It’s why despotism, or even just authoritarianism, is all-powerful and brittle at the same time. Despotism creates the circumstances of its own undermining. The information gets worse. The sycophants get greater in number. The corrective mechanisms become fewer. And the mistakes become much more consequential.”

Creativity, innovation, and technology are increasingly drivers of economic growth and change in the world. And in today's fast-moving world, countries and companies need to adapt to rapid change or quickly fall behind more economically competitive countries.

Openness to experience is important to one's level of creativity. Needless to say, top-down, authoritarian regimes which restrict information, engage in heavy propaganda and oppress dissent, are not big fostering openness in their societies. Thus, their societies have less of an ability to be creative/innovative.

In today's economic climate, there is evidence that in order middle-income countries to become high-income countries, they must escape the middle-income trap and innovation plays a role in this matter.

The Amazon description of the book The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society:

“

A bold exploration and call-to-arms over the widening gap between AI, automation, and big data—and our ability to deal with its effects We are living in the first exponential age. High-tech innovations are created at dazzling speeds; technological forces we barely understand remake our homes and workplaces; centuries-old tenets of politics and economics are upturned by new technologies. It all points to a world that is getting faster at a dizzying pace. Azeem Azhar, renowned technology analyst and host of the Exponential View podcast, offers a revelatory new model for understanding how technology is evolving so fast, and why it fundamentally alters the world. He roots his analysis in the idea of an “exponential gap” in which technological developments rapidly outpace our society’s ability to catch up. Azhar shows that this divide explains many problems of our time—from political polarization to ballooning inequality to unchecked corporate power. With stunning clarity of vision, he delves into how the exponential gap is a near-inevitable consequence of the rise of AI, automation, and other exponential technologies, like renewable energy, 3D printing, and synthetic biology, which loom over the horizon. And he offers a set of policy solutions that can prevent the growing exponential gap from fragmenting, weakening, or even destroying our societies. The result is a wholly new way to think about technology, one that will transform our understanding of the economy, politics, and the future.

”

Map of high income countries in 2024 (GNI per capita of $13,206 or more)

Question: In today's economic environment, are high income countries rarely authoritarian countries?

The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes!

High income countries are rarely authoritarian countries

In 2024, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia during the years of 2012–14, 2022- present, which are countries that have lots of oil, no authoritarian regime have been a high income country (See: High income countries in 2024 and World Bank high income countries).

As noted above, research indicates that in the long-term, non-authoritarian countries are more likely to experience greater economic growth (See: No, Autocracies Don’t Make Economies Great, Cato Institute, 2021 and Time Under Authoritarian Rule and Economic Growth, CORI Working Paper No. 2007-02).

Articles that support the thesis that authoritarian are rarely authoritarian countries:

• Is an authoritarian government better for economic development than a democracy? Authoritarianism is a hindrance to sustained economic growth, 2020

• False promises: The authoritarian development models of China and Russia False promises: The authoritarian development models of China and Russia, 2024

Other essays about Russia

Vladimir Putin in a KGB uniform.

See also: Vladimir Putin is a corrupt kleptocrat and an authoritarian

• Why I am not bullish on Russia's future

• Vladimir Putin is a corrupt kleptocrat and an authoritarian

• Russia is not a conservative country

• Russia is dying out. The war in Ukraine is making Russia's demographic crisis even worse

• Russia considers having a "Ministry of Sex" to tackle its demographic crisis

• Low labor productivity is one of the most acute and important problems facing Russia

• Russia's economy is that of a shrinking, aging, and poorly qualified population

• Russia's labor shortage

• Russian oil: Lower future production/profits due to future higher extraction costs and other inefficiencies

• More bad news for the oil seller Russia: Oil markets brace for 2025 collapse as pressures mount on all sides

• Russia is far behind the USA and China as far as innovation and Russia's ability to innovate is likely going to get worse

• Russia has the 3rd highest rate of divorce in the world

• Will Russia become a failed state within 10 years? Is Russia currently a failed state? Will Russia eventually become a failed state?

• We Made History: Citizens of 35 Countries Overestimate Their Role in World History (Covers the notion of Russian exceptionalism)

• Does Russia have more national narcissism than the USA? How exceptional do Russians think their nation is?

• How anti-homosexuality is Russia? Are there countries that are more anti-homosexuality and more family-friendly?

• Russian war crimes in Ukraine

• Russia has the 2nd highest rate of alcoholism in the world

• Russia's unfriendly business environment

• Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic

• Are the Russians as unhappy as they claim they are?

• Vladimir Putin's foolish decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

• Russia's economy and gas and oil profits will be BADLY damaged when China's economy declines

• China's economic decline will contribute to Russia's decline

• Russia's neo-Nazi problem belies one of Putin's rationales for the war in Ukraine

• The future of Russia. The kings of wishful thinking versus a more realistic scenario

• Russia getting pummeled in wars in Russian history that hyper Russophiles will not tell you about

• The war in Ukraine and Western sanctions will significantly hurt the Russian economy

• Russia's economy will enter a long-term decline

• Is Vladimir Putin a beacon of family values or a complete failure in this matter?

• Is Vladimir Putin a manchild or a macho genius?

• Search results for "Russia demographics crisis" using the Russian search engine Yandex and Google Scholar. Fanatical Russophiles weep for Mother Russia who has a low fertility rate that is far below a replacement level of births

• Do you strongly believe in gun rights? Don't move to Russia!

• Nordsteam pipelines being sabotaged and Putin failing to play politics several moves ahead on the politics chess board

• Doomsday phobias - including nucleomituphobia caused by Russian threats to use a nuclear bomb

• Russian Statistics Service indicates that 22.6 percent of Russian households aren't connected to a sewer system

• America's sewage system is better than Russia's TERRIBLE sewage system

• Russia: A land of potholes and bad roads!

• 21st century Christianity and sexual normalcy in the world. Africa will be far more influential than Russia

• Vladimir Putin understimates small opponents - big time! - Humor

• There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin plays chess - Humor

• Why a Westerner falling for Russian propaganda is like a man who is seduced by a corrupt 300 pound woman - Humor

Essays about the United States

• The United States will be the leading power in the world for the foreseeable future
• The USA has one of the highest labor productivity rates in the world - significantly higher than both China and Russia

Flag of the United States

• The USA is more innovative and productive than China and Russia
• Business is more powerful than military might. All REAL Americans know this!
• The terrible track record of forecasters predicting rapid de-dollarization and/or the imminent demise of the U.S. dollar
• Is the USA an economic powerhouse and juggernaut?
• Size of a working age population in a country and its correlation with national GNP in advanced economies. The ability of the United States to attract some of the best and brightest workers in the world
• Top 12 reasons why people are flocking to the USA and leaving the corrupt, authoritarian countries of China and Russia
• Isolationalism is growing in the United States. Is this a good thing?
• The USA is outproducing Russia and Saudi Arabia in oil production. The best is yet to come
• The USA can reduce its national debt. It has done it before
• The citizens of the United States are happier than the citizens of Russia and China. USA! USA! USA!
• The U.S. Navy is the most powerful navy in the world
• Gold reserves by country. The USA is still golden!
• The genius of the founding fathers of the United States, happiness and labor productivity
• Why I am glad that Conservapedia has an American flag in its logo rather than a Chinese or Russian flag
• The USA will become bigger, better and stronger than ever before! Russia and China will not! USA! USA! USA! - Humor
• Attention all hyper Sinophiles/Russophiles. The USA being better than China and Russia is an incredibly low bar for Americans to jump over!

Essays about China

The flag of China.

China

• Skepticism about China remaining a global power

• It's time to be very bearish about China's long-term economy

• Decline of China

• The rising rule of communist idiocracy in China

• Communist China’s quixotic quest to innovate: A statist economy can’t make creativity greatly blossom

• Donald Trump, who is favored to win the 2024 presidential election, wants to hammer China with high tariffs

• The chance that China's GDP will one day overtake that of the US is declining

• China has a labor productivity rate that is a WHOLE LOT LOWER than the labor productivity rate of the USA

• China's promotion of the transexual agenda in the USA

• Is there anything more fragile than an economy run by communists - especially one that has the cult of personality surrounding Xi Jinping?

General international politics essays

• Why wars and hyper-militarism often make a country weaker
• The myth of multipolarity. What do the terms unipolar, bipolar and multipolar mean as far as international relations?
• The so-called multipolar world is often mere Chinese propaganda and public relations
• Why did so many self-declared international relations experts miserably fail concerning their multipolar fantasy?
• What drives Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin?
• Why has the West been so successful?
• Why the corrupt, authoritarian regimes of China and Russia are losing their long term competitive edge relative to the USA
• Slow and steady growth over the long term via capitalism and the rule of law versus short-sighted authoritarian economic growth that is costly to the long term economy
• Was December 2021 a pivotal moment in the future of global politics for decades to come?
• American and Western triumphalism or a realistic appraisal of world affairs?
• Attention anti-American hyper Russophiles/Sinophiles. Time is not on your side
• The 2023 BRICS Summit was a bunch of hoopla. We still don't live in a multipolar world.
• The wreck of the HMS Multipolar World Fantasy - Humor
• The anti-Christianity Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and Xi Jinping have opposed homosexuality so this isn't a very high moral bar for China and Russia to clear

"The United States and China are undoubtedly the two most powerful countries, but at least one more country must be roughly in their league for multipolarity to exist. This is where claims of multipolarity fall apart. Every country that could plausibly rank third—France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom—is in no way a rough peer of the United States or China." -The Myth of Multipolarity, American Power’s Staying Power, Foreign Affairs, 2023

However, a number of leading geopolitical analysts are skeptical about China remaining a global power as it faces a number of serious intractable problems (See: Skepticism about China remaining a global power).

I do agree with Donald Trump that America should not get into "endless wars" that do not serve America's vital interests. I also agree with Trump's policy of not using the American military to "solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands".

Give me liberty, or give me death!

• Why has the West been so successful?

• What drives Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin?

• The rising rule of communist idiocracy in China

• Vladimir Putin is a corrupt kleptocrat and an authoritarian

• Do you strongly believe in gun rights? Don't move to Russia!

• Top 12 reasons why people are flocking to the USA and leaving the corrupt, authoritarian countries of China and Russia

"Give me liberty, or give me death!" - Patrick Henry

User:Conservative's essays

• User:Conservative's essays