The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Rising Incompetence of the Russian System || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

More details have emerged about the March 22 terror attack outside Moscow. The information does not look good, with the biggest takeaway being the Russian government's showcasing of a shocking incompetence in security matters. That will haunt this regime until the day it falls. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-rising-incompetence-of-the-russian-system

Hey y'all, this is Peter Zion coming to you from Colorado on the morning of Saturday, September 23rd. This is a follow-up to yesterday's video on the terror attack in Russia. A group by the name of Islamic State Khorasan has claimed the attack. This is a group we've heard of before. The first time they kind of hit the airwaves from an American point of view is when they launched an attack as the Americans were pulling out of Afghanistan over a year ago. but they did attack American forces. They attacked Taliban forces,

and they've been a thorn on the side of the Taliban ever since. Since then, they've launched a number of other attacks, including the January attack in Iran, and now obviously this operation in Russia. Islamic State Khorasan is an offshoot, as it sounds of the Islamic State, but rather than hold territory, their goal is to basically punish anyone

who might have any connections to a secular Muslim government, especially if it's a Shia government. Islamic State, like most terror groups, are Sunni. They're not particularly the nice people. They're not going to be in a Disney movie anytime soon. And so far, the attack in Moscow has claimed at least 130 lives with at least another 100 people in hospital. The Russians are claiming that they've captured 11 people in association with the attack, including four gunmen who were actually going through the theater.

shooting people. There's no way to confirm any of that information. What we do know is that this is a very, very, very bad thing for the Russians. A couple things. Number one, the Americans warned specifically of an attack on concert locations back on March 7. And when the Russians didn't take it seriously, the Americans went public with the information to at least allow the chance for Americans who were in the area to, you know, give a heads up. Putin even gave a press conference where he was almost giggling about how this was a fake warning intended to destabilize Russian society, and then the attack happened despite having the intel in hand. The degree of sheer incompetence in the Russian security service is to not even deal with that information and just let the

attack unfold is almost beyond words. Second, the Russians are doing everything they can, at least publicly, to link this to Ukraine. They're not claiming that the attack was carried out by Ukrainians any longer. They were hinting at that last night. But they are saying that the forces when they escaped were making a B-line for Ukraine because the Ukrainians had opened a gap in the front, which is, of course, silly. There are so many better, better, better places in Russia to just melt away. Undoubtedly, these folks came up through the southern reaches, either the Azerbaijani border or the Kazakh border, where securities is very, very thin. Number three, There are any number of ethnic groups in the Russian Federation who are going to be motivated by this.

The Chechens, the Dagestanis, the Tatters, the Bashkirs. Keep in mind that well over 10% of the Russian population is Muslim. And if you're looking at the republics on the southern border of Russia, they're all majority Muslim. The relationship between the Muslims within Russia and the Muslims beyond Russia is mixed. Sometimes the Russians are on their side. Sometimes they're not. but the Russians see all of them as subject to peoples. And so if, if you take existing groups

throughout the Russian southern periphery within Russia property who are anti-Moscow, and they start to get inspired by things like this, you're talking about the Russians facing a broad-based uprising or even just multiple pinpricks of terror attacks on an ongoing basis. One of the reasons why the Russians launched the Ukraine War when they did is because their demographics have turned terminal.

And if you fast forward just to the 23rd, 30, 20, 35, they'll have run out of people in their 20s to throw into a war. So it always had to happen now if it was going to happen. What is true among the ethnic Russians is not true against the broader Russian citizenry. Over 20% of the population of Russia, probably closer to 30% is not ethnic Russian. The vast majority of those people are Muslims or Ukrainians, and they're not very happy with their situation. So if you take a rising demographic that is now starting to develop a pension for civic violence against declining population that is desperate to hold on. I mean, you can do the math and see where that goes. Putin has made a series of

strategic errors in the security field where, as a former intelligence agent, you would think that he would be better, on guessing what the wider world was going to do, on guessing how Ukraine was going to fall, on interpreting security information, and all of this is coming to a head just after he arranged for his own election party where he was getting 80% of the vote because he wasn't running against anyone else. This has got to have an impact on political stability in the Russian Federation. Now, there's not going to be a revolution in Russia until the day that there is. The system is strong, but it's brittle. And attacks like this are the sort of things that can cause cracks through the entire facade and start something fundamentally new.

I'm not calling that at this moment. way too early, but this is the sort of thing that in Russia, history turns on.