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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

July 5th, 2005

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Could Russia Collapse?

Via the always inspiring Zenpundit, this article poses the question to a number of experts. There is far too much to blockquote because everyone has their own take on the situation, and all of them are very good. Go read it yourself.

Whether or not it’s likely or not, it would be an appalling catastrophe that would lead to a myriad of nuclear mini-fascist fiefdoms spread out across Eurasia. I can think of few worse geopolitical scenarios for the 21st century.

Comments to this entry

Chief Wiggum
July 5, 2005
5:36 pm
I read the article and found only one reference to the plunging decline of the Russian population:

_On a more general level, the "invisible hand"Â? of the market has led to the population of Russia dying out at the rate of 1 million per year._

We are familiar with the "demographics is destiny"Â? principle.

The great Mark Steyn recently published an article in the Western Standard recently touching on Russia's problematic future:

"Your Link":http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=618

(Registration required)

_ Which I suppose gets to the heart of the matter: is Canada doomed?

A lot of places are. Russia, for example. It's midway through its transition from "superpower"Â? to ghost town. Russian men already have a lower life expectancy than Bangladeshis; not because Bangladesh is brimming with actuarial advantages, but because being a Russian male is to belong to an endangered species. By 2025, the country's population will have fallen by a third. By mid-century, vast, empty Russia will have a smaller population than tiny Yemen. The decline in male longevity is unprecedented for a (relatively) advanced nation not at war. Russia has a serious AIDS problem, though not as bad as Africa's, and it's a measure of the nation's decline that for once nobody seriously thinks the HIV pandemic can be solved with free condom distribution. AIDS, along with extraordinary rates of drug-fuelled hepatitis C, heart disease and TB, is just one more symptom of what happens when an entire people lacks the will to rouse itself from self-destruction._

The Chinese are pressing Russia on its eastern boarder, while exploding muslim populations threaten their southern borders. Curzon is correct; the collapse of Russia would be a catastrophy for us all. Unfortunately, Putin and the powers that be in Russia seem to be locked into failed programs and policies that are accelerating the death-spiral.
Kenneth
July 5, 2005
9:30 pm
In concentrating on forging an alliance with China, Putin has neglected to address domestic problems. This is not good. The upside is that while China might conceivably consolidate Siberia it will acquire far less political and economic capital than it would if Russia remained intact.

Oh dear there I go pointedly highlighting the benefits of a collapse....
Kenneth
July 5, 2005
9:34 pm
Actually nevermind, Russia's collapse could facilitate the enlargement of the Chinese proxy the SCO. Damn.
mark safranski
July 6, 2005
3:52 am
Lord Curzon wrote:

"... it would be an appalling catastrophe that would lead to a myriad of nuclear mini-fascist fiefdoms spread out across Eurasia"

Amen.

Recalling the Russian Civil War after the Bolshevik Revolution, just imagine warlords like the Atamen Semyenov, Baron Ungern von Sternberg and Makhno the Anarchist with ten megaton bombs.
Curzon
July 6, 2005
6:00 am
Only ten??
mark safranski
July 6, 2005
1:21 pm
Well, the hundred megaton blockbusters are kind of old -- I'm sure they are still around since the Russians never scrap anything -- but their upkeep would require some sophisticated resources
heirabbit
July 6, 2005
4:06 pm
A bit off the subject: the "HIV" problem in Russia and "Africa" (as if it were a country). HIV has never been found in a human body, and that's why there's only antibody tests that are a part of the guesswork hospitals do in "HIV diagnosis" (the list of conditions for a positive get more complicated every year). The real problem is that a major AIDS definining illness, tuberculosis, is basically caused by dirty water. African countries don't even have the resources to do the faulty blood test, much less have a homosexual underground that uses immuno-suppressant "poppers".

The idea that Russia will go down in part because of an AIDS crisis is more than a little bogus. But it could go down in part because it's a really dirty place....
Save The GOP » Russia and the Future
July 6, 2005
5:36 pm
[...] Hat-tip: Coming Anarchy (I am sure I have said this before, but if you missed it the first time: This is a must-read blog) [...]
Dan
July 7, 2005
1:03 am
Excellent point, heirabbit. Have you written more on this subject elsewhere?
Mike
July 7, 2005
2:22 am
Can you imagine all of Russia looking like Central Asia does today? I am not even sure what the United States or the EU could do to prevent this collapse. We live in interesting times.
Dan
July 7, 2005
2:37 am
The EU has been trying to speed up the collapse.

tdaxp.blogspirit.com post
heirabbit
July 8, 2005
7:45 am
Yes I have Dan. I'm translating Christine Maggiore's website into Chinese right now. The 1984 and after media and government attitude toward pubic health problems has been, say it's a virus first, then look for the virus later. The problem with HIV is that it's already been 21 years, and no one has found it in fresh blood (all those other pictures and models are related to something that is created from human blood in a laboratory). The new virus hoaxes all use the same test, the Western Blot test, to prove the existence of actual virus. So the problem arises, do those crazy British cows have mad cow disease, hepatitis C, SARS, or HIV? They all use the same test. A documentary made by Ms. Maggiore's husband very aptly states all the logical problems with the HIV theory, and it gives equal time to both sides of the debate. The website is www.theothersideofaids.com . I live in China where the government is also becoming heavily influenced by pharmaceuticals (now the fastest growning sector in the Chinese economy). There are billboards all over Nanjing with pictures of men saying, "Be a responsible man, get an HIV test." Russia is probably under the same kind of propaganda assualt.
Curzon
July 8, 2005
7:55 am
Calling MF, Adamu, Saru, and especially Younghusband...

Can you say Z A N E ?!
Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace
July 9, 2005
2:14 am
Heirabbit is probably correct in saying that all modern tests for viruses use Western Blots, but they are certainly not all the same in their particulars, and there is no cross-reactivity between the different tests. In short, there is no possibility of confusing HIV and SARS.

Typical screening for AIDS/HIV begins with an ELISA test [Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay] . This is a test for circulating antibodies to HIV proteins in the patient's blood. It is relatively quick and inexpensive, but prone to false positives, so positive results are "always" tested by Western Blotting . This is essentially the reverse test - it uses known antibodies to see if HIV proteins are in the patient's blood. [For biochemists, the name is part of an involved joke, which is explained on Wikipedia]

HIV/AIDS testing is not trivial, so I share your concern that numbers about disease incidence in Russia or sub-Saharan Africa are very questionable. Let's hope the picture isn't as bleak as it seems at face value.....
heirabbit
July 9, 2005
5:59 am
The crux of what you said is "HIV proteins", which, until there's been a strict definition of what HIV is, and then discovered in fresh human blood, is totally a fictional concept. In the literature this is called a lack of a "golden standard". Using an irrelevant test, the Elisa, then using another irrelevant test, the WB, and testing again and again with irrelevant tests does absolutely nothing. You can only prove that I'm really sick with something, or have been sick many times in the past, and that isn't good enough to diagnose any disease. Also, in third world countries most patients are never given a blood test at all, the doctor just says it looks like they have AIDS. Scientific?
Albert
July 23, 2005
8:57 pm
I read something recently which does seem wierd and very little believable is a bit interesting. They apparently made a study in the Baranov medical center surveying about 700 people of various ethnicities to test their being prone to the aids virus. Basicly there are approximately 1-2% people in the world who have the Skr5 or Ckr5 gene defect on both gens which lower or eliminates their ability to contract the virus. They basicly state that the highest % of people who have this are poles with about 27% of the population then russia about 25% and english with approximately 22%. (I think its a bit of bs but I remember this guy on Howard Stern who was examined by the NYU medical center and was discovered with this gene defect so you never know).
heirabbit
July 24, 2005
4:25 am
Excuse me, but what is "the AIDS virus"? If someone has this virus is there a test to detect it? And if they have the virus, does that mean that they have AIDS?

Read up on the definition of AIDS. The standards change every year, and they are fairly complex. A positive WB or Elisa does not equal an AIDS diagnosis. HIV tests do not test HIV, and HIV itself is not a molecule that leading researchers agree upon as to it's makeup. There's no standard by which to say what is an HIV antibody, and even if there was a proven relationship between it and the virus, antibody tests do not prove the existence of any virus.

So all this speculation you're making about some "anti AIDS virus gene" is really very silly.
Albert
July 27, 2005
9:37 am
heirabbit I m not arguing with you. Maybe you are right and it isn't virus at all but an immune defficiency syndrome. Since it itself is not detectable but the effects are ergo lowered immune response until it cannot protect the person any longer. My prior post still holds some water (if the study cited has merit). My thoughts are that AIDS might be a destabilization of the immune system. It might be a catalyst that creates a chain reaction whereby the immune system is purged.
Mutantfrog
July 27, 2005
10:30 am
I understand the attraction of a good conspiracy theory, but what is so inherently unbelievable about a virus which destroys anti-body producing cells in the body, leaving the host open to secondary infection and eventual death?

If HIV is a fiction, then what exactly are you looking at when you download the publically avaliable data of its sequenced genome?
heirabbit
July 28, 2005
11:55 am
Mutant frog: you're looking at data from the analysis of various (and irregular) particles created with chemical stimulants in a laboratory. This is why American, British and French scientists don't agree on what the HIV genome actually consists of. Again, these results are not taken from research on fresh blood and therefore do not satisfy the scientific requirements for proving the existence of an infectious virus. What is so unbelieveable about the scenario you propose is that HIV has yet to be discovered in a human being, and even if it were, that still wouldn't be proof that it is at all infectious. Before calling them retroviruses in the eighties, this type of particle was called an oncogen. In the seventies Gallo spent his time trying to prove that cancer was contagious. But retroviruses aren't standard viruses, and few have ever been proven to have ill effect on the human body.

In the 1990's, scientists became very used to discovering new retroviruses, and have proven that they are in fact extremely prevalent in the human body. So the HIV theory is also an anachronism from the days when they thought these particles were strange, to today when they are seen as commonplace.

I'm certainly not coming from a conspiracy theorist's point of view, just pointing out some inconsistencies and failures in modern medicine.