That’s a valid concern, but I don’t think so. Some things to consider:
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
From the “After Putin: Lessons from Autocratic Leadership Transitions” paper: “Though authoritarianism typically continues when authoritarian leaders exit, one positive note is that repressive conditions tend to ease in the five-year period afterwards”.
There’s a difference between sabotage and terrorist tactics. The latter do not really work except in a “we will force you to spend a lot of money on security” sense. The former not just “sends a message”—more importantly, it directly denies resources and makes governing harder.
Additional viewpoint that might be relevant: if you believe the duration of the war to be mainly time-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day Putin dies or the day Ukraine gets a shipment of modern weapons”) instead of resource-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day there are no Russian volunteer soldiers anymore”) then each railway delay means some amount of civilian lives saved.
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
Have you looked at North Korea?
Do you know of any historical examples where governments being short of money led to less repression?
That’s a valid concern, but I don’t think so. Some things to consider:
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
From the “After Putin: Lessons from Autocratic Leadership Transitions” paper: “Though authoritarianism typically continues when authoritarian leaders exit, one positive note is that repressive conditions tend to ease in the five-year period afterwards”.
There’s a difference between sabotage and terrorist tactics. The latter do not really work except in a “we will force you to spend a lot of money on security” sense. The former not just “sends a message”—more importantly, it directly denies resources and makes governing harder.
Additional viewpoint that might be relevant: if you believe the duration of the war to be mainly time-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day Putin dies or the day Ukraine gets a shipment of modern weapons”) instead of resource-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day there are no Russian volunteer soldiers anymore”) then each railway delay means some amount of civilian lives saved.
Have you looked at North Korea?
Do you know of any historical examples where governments being short of money led to less repression?
Money also doesn’t appear to be stretched thin: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/53559/did-the-russian-government-have-a-20-billion-euro-budget-surplus-in-the-first-has