A 1910 Russian Empire dropped into the modern world

What happens if the territory and institutions of the 1910 Russian Empire suddenly replace the modern states in the same region?

The participants expect conflict and a severe economic shock, while stressing that the answer depends on exactly which territory, people, and institutions are replaced.

The panel begins with Poland, Finland, Ukraine, and other former imperial territories resisting the sudden loss of modern sovereignty. Depending on how the event is defined, the participants speculate about NATO involvement or conflicts whose alliance consequences are unclear. Replacing modern institutions and mechanized agriculture with their 1910 equivalents would also remove a major share of contemporary food production and crash global trade. In Asia, the participants debate which territories overlap before imagining Chinese attacks on a restored state unable to defend its enormous territory. Their prediction is a multinational war against the empire, followed by further conflict over its breakup and overlapping claims. The answer stresses that the premise changes so many political, administrative, and economic systems at once that no single neat counterfactual outcome is possible.