A few years back—before COVID, before Ukraine turned hot—I said Russia would eventually break apart, but not anytime soon. Not because it’s stable, but because Russians are conditioned to endure misery like it’s a national sport. They can suffer forever without blinking. I also said China was the more immediate risk, teetering on the edge of collapse, because unlike Russians, the Chinese had gotten hooked on the fantasy of prosperity—and that fantasy doesn’t die quietly. I figured they’d crack first. But watching the slow-motion entropy now, I’m not so sure. China might still outlive Russia. Both are brittle relics—empires built on inertia, stuck in yesterday’s structures, and allergic to reform. They’re anachronisms, held together by fear and habit. Time will grind them down, eventually. Just not on our schedule.
