Thread by @spartyflyboy

Russia is a colonial, imperial power. 🧵
Karaganov et al describe vividly how internal colonization works, and how they plan to implement it.
They also tells us why appeasement has no perspective. Russia's war on Ukraine is born from and part of a wider campaign for conquest.
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https://twitter.com/usv1980/status/1698585843517051318

Like many empires who approach their terminal stage, Russia faces severe issues. Demography, emancipation of colonies, imbalanced economy, bloated military & lack of social coherence.
Russia approaches these issues not by internal reforms but by applying the imperial playbook.
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What Karaganov demands is in itself not new - we see it already enacted in various Russian wars, foreign & domestic policy.
Karaganov calls for a more radical implementation of imperial policy without much regard for internal and external consequences.
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Russia's war on Ukraine has shown her core weakness: A fragmented deconstructed and depoliticized society that is unable to stem a major coordinated war effort akin to Levée en Masse.
Here Karaganov's ideas for ethnic cleansing of Ukraine and re-education mesh with domestic
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policy. Or, as @TimothyDSnyder describes it's replacement by "sadopopulism". Citizens are not intended to be rallied around a political idea or social vision but, akin to the 3rd Reich, behind a mythical and in essence apolitical dogma of Russian entitlement and greatness.
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Foreign policy is the practical enactment of this dogma. The sphere of Russian influence is equal to the whole globe. Anything that is seen as a threat to Russian expansionism is to be preemptively crushed - even using nuclear first strikes on non combattant nations as tool.
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The disregard for the interest of other state actors is obvious when Karaganov blatantly calls for abandoning the contractual principles of international law. The ultimate arbiter is what Russia desires, revisionism on steroids invalidates any persistency of contracts.
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The persistent conduct of Russian state should serve as warning to push what Kartapolov writes aside as just one voice in the confused chorus of RF officials.
Looking further than Russia's war on Ukraine we see what Kartapolov demands already being implemented - since a while.
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This highlights a dilemma @KeirGiles , @NTenzer and others have pointed out for a while:
The Russian invitation to talk about peace isn't in good faith. Revisionism is too dominant to reach a persistent settlement. It only gives RF space to consolidate.
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https://twitter.com/KeirGiles/status/1155886722326114304?s=20

Kartapolov also serves as example for what @Sasha_Etkind describes : "paleomodernity" and internal colonization. Old imperial ideas are meshed with Russia as cultural concept, absorbing and reeducating other nations for a mystical bright future under Russian identity & rule.
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The Russian war on Ukraine and Kartapolov are hence not outliers. They are symptoms for a general trend in Russian doctrine. Any appeasement, any success by keeping Ukranian land, any desire to stabilise the Russian regime will only increase support for Kartapolov's ideas.
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This is where the approach of some "realists" fails. They treat Russia as modern state actor vs a declining empire with deep feudal structure. Faced with rampant revisionism they dream of negotiating with an entity that has no desire in stable international relations.
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History provides evidence that the only way to deal with an aggressive yet struggling empire is to reign it in and allow it to collapse.
We also can't hope to include Russia into some conceptual pipe dream of reigning in China. The two revisionist actors will exploit this.
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What Kartapolov writes should serve as a warning:
If we stabilize Russia we simply pump a balloon that will inflate until it blows.
The longer it takes, the more Russia will inflate - and the bigger the bang and damage will be.
Better the Russian imperial nightmare ends now.
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