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Comment by psychphysic | Hacker News Reader

I once heard that during the Cold War nobody could work out what was reason going on in the USSR because it seemed like a constant back stabbing brawl.

I'm starting to see what they meant.

Absolutely everyone looks ridiculous, Putin somehow manages to survive another day and the roulette wheel begins to spin again.

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Putin might actually be in trouble. Obviously Wagner can't defeat the whole of the russian army, but he's got a large number of battle hardened troops who could stage an effective assault against Putin, overwhelming his person security.

The other factor is Prigozhin is popular with the rank and file in the russian army, and so has a chance to effectively control the army if he decapitated the leadership. Putin's underlings would probably fall in behind him if they believed he did.

Putin, for all his personal power, is only one guy, he depends on the loyalty of the people around him, and this being russia, I imagine they're very much looking out for themselves, rather than some higher calling, so they can be convinced of what's good for them in the current situation.

Exactly, it appears like Putin blinked to another warlord. Now Russia looks less like a dictatorship and an unstable group of warlords.

At the end of the day all you need is one person and one bullet, right? See: JFK, Indira Gandhi, John Lennon, many more. 50,000 people all with a lot of bullets seems like a bit of a problem no matter what. Gandhi in particular is interesting, as she was murdered by two of her Sikh bodyguards angry over how she dealt with the Sikh independence movement at the time. Who knows who will get "inspired" from this action, and what they will do.

Learn from the past. Assassinating the dictator just creates a power vacuum that someone else fills. Look at Iraq. The US killed Osama Bin Laden. Then Al Qaeda. Now there’s ISUS and they control everything there. Figure out what will fill the power vacuum or you may do more harm than good.

Counter-examples: Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, Fujimori, Franco, Nigerian dictatorships, Taiwan, and probably a few more. Not all were "assassinated", but countries really can transition to something better.

"Learn from the past" doesn't mean "look at this one example where things went wrong and then never do anything even remotely like that ever again".

"and this being russia...", is there a place where most people are not, for the most part, looking out for themselves? You seem to be implying that Russia is special in that regard.

It is. I think in most Western capitals most people in government are driven by ideology, patriotism, public service or simply professionalism and people are not in fear of their lives. I think in Putin's russia self-preservation/survival is top of mind. It's a brutal culture and it would only be more so at the highest levels. You only have to look to the high number of defenestrations of high level individuals that have happened in recent years.

You seem like the kind of person who believes that all countries are equally corrupt.

That's right, in the west people on government tend to be more ideologically driven than in Russia.

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