considering how much of a disaster the USSR’s break-up was for tens of millions of people
Given the center-of-mass that is Russian regional politics and economics, I would not be surprised if the USSR reconstituted itself in some form over the next century. Similarly, the BRI out of China will create durable trade and travel routes that tie it to neighboring states and provinces in a manner not unlike the US Rail and Highway systems unified post-Civil War America.
Unlike the EU, which has shaped up more as a trade union than a real economic union, these other states are building real physical infrastructure to cement the legal and economic relationships they are forging through politics.
That was - ostensibly - Modi's pitch to the country when he took office half a decade ago. But Modi consistently failed to deliver, while putting economic pressure on rural states in a way that's fracturing his country along party lines.
I would not be surprised if the USSR reconstituted itself in some form over the next century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State
Russia has supposedly been in a long and slow process of eventually merging with Belarus. A couple other countries have expressed interest in joining too, including breakaway states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But the whole thing doesn't seem certain to actually happen.
Given the center-of-mass that is Russian regional politics and economics, I would not be surprised if the USSR reconstituted itself in some form over the next century. Similarly, the BRI out of China will create durable trade and travel routes that tie it to neighboring states and provinces in a manner not unlike the US Rail and Highway systems unified post-Civil War America.
Unlike the EU, which has shaped up more as a trade union than a real economic union, these other states are building real physical infrastructure to cement the legal and economic relationships they are forging through politics.
That was - ostensibly - Modi's pitch to the country when he took office half a decade ago. But Modi consistently failed to deliver, while putting economic pressure on rural states in a way that's fracturing his country along party lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_State
Russia has supposedly been in a long and slow process of eventually merging with Belarus. A couple other countries have expressed interest in joining too, including breakaway states like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But the whole thing doesn't seem certain to actually happen.
Nothing is certain, and the US is certainly fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent it.
But how long we can keep blue-balling every other emerging regional power on the planet is questionable.