How should we reprogram Russia?

We need to consistently convey three important ideas to Russians War, as we know, is a complex socio-political phenomenon with unpredictable consequences, especially for those who started it.

Unpredictable consequences are often revolutionary in nature. For example, the Crimean War of 1853-56 led to a whole series of systemic reforms in the Russian Empire, the most famous of which was the abolition of serfdom.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 ended with the First Russian Revolution and the introduction of parliamentarism.

The First World War turned into the Second Russian Revolution and the Civil War, which swept away both the Russian Empire and its ruling class – the nobility.

The Afghan war of 1979-89 exhausted the USSR and showed the limits of its potential, as well as the (un)attractiveness of the idea of communism for the mujahideen. The attempt at perestroika ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union as such.

So what lessons and with what consequences should Russians learn from the current war with Ukraine? That is, what consequences for the enemy, besides his military defeat, should we strive to prevent this war from happening again?

Thus, in the post-war period, we need to consistently convey three important thoughts to Russians:

1. We and they are not one people. This is proven on the battlefield. A “special military operation” is designed to be carried out within the framework of “one people,” and a war between peoples and states is not even a civil war.
2. They are not one people either. The Russian Federation is a conglomerate of peoples and countries of these peoples colonized by the imperial center, including those that are traditionally considered Russian regions (the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, etc.)
3. They are not peoples at all, but nations that have the right to self-determination up to and including secession from the Russian Federation. They are nation-states, born different but equal. Celebrate Diversity.
   

I understand that this is just a statement of the problem. The answer to the question of what we should do with Russia. It will be more difficult to answer the question of how to do it technologically.
My preliminary answer is – in stages, multivariate and flexible. But we need to keep this strategic goal in our short-term memory already now.

Date of first publication: August 22, 2022.