As I predicted, all it took was for NATO to step on the gas even slightly, and the concept of the "special military operation" collapsed. Today, this is something the Kremlin is forced to acknowledge, as its clumsy propaganda machine is learning how to pronounce the word "war." Well, as they say, war is war. Let us talk about wars and the fates of civilizations from a "Hamburg reckoning" perspective — meaning without illusions or sentimentality. What does Russia’s entry into a full-scale war with a consolidated Europe, without reliable allies behind it (or rather, with allies ready to stab it in the back at any moment), mean?
War is not a toy for aging empires. Perhaps for a young, rapidly expanding empire, overflowing with "passionate energy," where strength is surging through its veins, war can indeed serve as a way to "release steam." But for an empire suffering from clinically diagnosed dementia — because it cannot decide whether it is Soviet or Russian — weakened by demographic decline and living on imported technological prosthetics, war has become a devastating stress test of the system’s resilience, one that it appears to be failing.
The paradox of the situation is that for Russia this war is a losing proposition even if, by some miracle for Putin and his St. Petersburg clan, it turns out to be victorious (which I consider highly unlikely, but one should never say "never"). Before the war, one could still debate how strong or weak Russia was. This war has made Russia’s technological, logistical, and managerial weakness obvious. And while Europe is still, somewhat by inertia, treating the "Russian threat" seriously, across the Atlantic they quickly understood what they were dealing with and removed Russia from the balance sheet of major geopolitical threats.
There is no mystery here. From nothing, only another nothing can emerge. For forty years Russia wandered through the desert, but it was unlucky with its Moses. Following tradition, the Russian elites chose yet another Ivan Susanin as their guide — one who ultimately led them right back to where they started.
Few people understand that the causes of today’s gasoline crisis are exactly the same as the causes behind the collapse of the Soviet Union. In both cases, the root problem is a deep crisis of the social system and the administrative hierarchy built upon it.
Essentially, nothing has changed in Russia compared with 1989 (except perhaps for the worse) — the same "blue uniforms" and the same "loyal people." Moreover, even the timid attempts to experiment with social models in order to inject dynamism into the system were eventually completely neutralized. The vacuum was filled by the self-organizing force of popular looting.
As a result, not only did the gas station end up without missiles, but it was also occupied by incompetent bandits who, in a critical situation, might dilute gasoline with donkey urine to bring it up to AI-92 standards — but they certainly will not switch to electric cars.
So what has the war ultimately revealed? That everything is rotten; that continuing to live this way is not only impossible but even dangerous; that Russia has once again missed another leap forward in the industrial revolution; and that catching up — if it is even possible at all — would require the deepest restructuring of the entire social order.
This reminds me of something. Does it remind you of anything?
