What If the Soviet Union Reunited Today?

the year is 2017 and in november of this year it will mark the 100th anniversary of the communist revolution in russia the soviet union dissolved in 1991 but what would the world be like if the ussr suddenly reunited today what would the soviet union look like if it existed today in 2017 to begin let's think about what countries today used to be a part of the soviet union if the soviet union reunited today it would completely encompass the countries of russia ukraine belarus moldova lithuania latvia estonia georgia armenia azerbaijan kazakhstan uzbekistan turkmenistan kyrgyzstan and tajikistan this obviously would make the modern soviet union a very large country since russia alone has more land area than the entire surface area of pluto together the soviet union would be bigger than australia antarctica south america the arctic ocean and the southern ocean which makes the soviet union larger than three continents two oceans and one former planet there are 11 time zones that would go through the ussr so that means that if it was noon here in this part of the country it would be 11 pm over here on the other side of the country the soviet population would be a very large 294 million 837 000 people which would place the soviet union in fourth place in terms of population behind the united states this is interesting because the soviet population in 1991 was almost the same as it would be now at 293 million 48 000 people which shows just how greatly the population in the region has been stagnant recently the american population at the same time in 1991 was 248 million 710 000 people which was smaller than the soviets but in the time since the american population has greatly increased to nearly 319 million people a majority of the people living inside the ussr would be ethnic russians at about 46 of the population with sizable minorities of ukrainians uzbeks and over a hundred other ethnic groups russian would be the dominant language of the state just as it was during the soviet times as 58 of the population would be capable of speaking and understanding it russian would likely be the sole official language within the country and a return to communism would have to take place in order for a true recreation of the soviet union to be possible the communist party of the soviet union would be the sole legal political party within the country and would possess a monopoly on power a return to state-sponsored atheism would be enforced where believers would be free to practice their faith in private or in designated religious buildings but all public displays of religion outside of these designated areas would be forbidden despite this however the soviet union would still have a very large religious population with only 12 percent of the modern population claiming to be atheist or non-religious 54 would be orthodox christians another 3 percent catholic 24 sunni muslims 3 shia muslims and a final four percent of multitude of other diverse religions the capital city would be located in moscow the present capital of russia and the largest city of the modern soviet union to add up to the top five largest cities in the country we would add st petersburg which would be renamed back to leningrad as well as kiev tashkent and minsk the soviet economy would be pretty large at 2.034 trillion us dollars placing it as the eighth largest economy in the world russia currently is the 12th largest world economy so the soviet union would jump ahead of countries like south korea and canada but remain stuck behind india and france the gdp per capita inside the country would be fairly low at just 6 899 dollars per person which would place the ussr all the way down at 76th place ahead of bulgaria but behind china this somewhat large economy would however greatly support the soviet military with a budget of 80.4 billion us dollars the fourth largest budget in the world behind saudi arabia china and the united states what the soviets would lack in funds however they would make up for in sheer size with a force of 1 million 436 000 active duty soldiers the second highest number in the world behind china but the ussr would have an additional two million eight hundred eighty-four thousand soldiers placed in reserves giving the soviet military a potential size of four million three hundred twenty thousand soldiers in the event of mobilization a force almost as large as the entire population of new zealand a fully mobilized soviet military would be about the same size as a fully mobilized chinese military and would be 42 percent larger than a mobilized american military the soviets would also possess the largest nuclear arsenal in the world with 7 300 warheads compared to just 6970 american warheads in addition the ussr would be by far the largest oil producing country in the world outpacing both saudi arabia and the united states with a production of 12 million 966 000 barrels of oil every day if we get a little more ambitious with this and decide to add all of the former territory that once belonged to the older russian empire into the modern soviet union some interesting things begin to happen to do this we would add all of finland a very large chunk of poland including the capital warsaw and all of alaska doing this would raise the soviet population up to 313 million 496 000 people which would be nearly equal to the united states her gdp would be dramatically increased to 2.541 trillion us dollars now placing the ussr as the world's sixth largest economy ahead of both india and france but still remaining behind the united kingdom and germany the added land would make the super soviet union about the same size as the mongol empire was at its height the difference in size between the two empires would only be an area about the size of montenegro all things considered the soviet union likely wouldn't quite be the superpower that it once was it would have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world the second largest conventional military in the world and would be the world's largest producer of oil but would be shackled by a struggling economy and a stagnant population growth the united states and nato would almost certainly be hostile to a resurgent soviet union so the ussr would have to seek allies elsewhere in asia and africa it would likely be the cause for resuming the cold war or the start of a cold war too that could have global consequences the soviet union's very geography would likely determine how she would interact in the modern world the soviet union's expansion was partially a move to spread the socialist revolution but it was also a bid to protect moscow you see every bit of russia's border is protected with geography except for here this is the northern european plane a flat 300 mile wide stretch of land that funnels an invading western european army right up to the gates of moscow by gaining influence in eastern european countries the ussr was able to create a zone of buffer states between moscow and western europe not only is the russia of today weakened by its lack of buffer states but it is also condemned by its geography because it has no ice-free deep-water ports with direct access to an ocean that means it's hugely expensive to ship russian goods out of the country and their navy can't properly function without the permission of nato countries and allies i talk about all this in much more detail in my video over at wendover productions which you can find here please make sure to go ahead and check out that video next as this video was done in a collaboration with both wendover productions and alternate history hub make sure to leave your comments below about what you just watched and if you enjoyed watching this video then i sincerely hope that you'll subscribe to my channel by clicking here this video was selected to be made by people over at the official real life lore patreon which you can go to and vote on future video topics by clicking here 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 10,018,221

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, Soviet Union, What if the soviet union, USSR, CCCP, united soviet socialist republics, russia, russian empire, reunited today, empires reunited, red army, Soviet, russian, empire, moscow, leningrad, the soviet union, soviet anthem

Id: m-TFENSuJ5U

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2017