Iran And Russia: Ripe For A Cascading Failure?

Just as the Berlin Wall abruptly collapsed when the weight of its many failures became too great, both Iran and Russia are in trouble.

Allan J. Feifer | August 3, 2026

The Berlin Wall’s fall is one of history’s most recognizable examples of a rapid, largely unforeseen cascading failure. On November 9, 1989, East German spokesman Günter Schabowski mistakenly announced that new travel rules would take effect “immediately.” Crowds rushed the checkpoints, overwhelmed confused border guards, and within hours the wall that had divided Germany for twenty-eight years had effectively fallen.

While the writing was on the wall (pun intended), what no one foresaw, including Western intelligence services and most scholars, was the speed and the trigger: a single bungled press conference that sent border crossings into bedlam. Twenty-four hours later, the world had changed. In retrospect, all the signs were there that East Germany had become systemically fragile. Collapse was possible and, ultimately, likely.

Engineers describe this as a cascading failure: a system that appears stable until one relatively small event reveals weaknesses that have accumulated over time. In geopolitics, authoritarian governments can behave much the same way. They often appear strongest immediately before they become most vulnerable because they suppress the very information that would reveal how fragile they have become.

Iran (especially) and Russia are exhibiting many of those characteristics today.

East Germany’s problems were hardly a secret. Economic stagnation, declining legitimacy, dependence on Soviet support, elite infighting, failing information control, growing public disbelief, and security forces increasingly uncertain about enforcing repression had all been building for years. None of those problems alone........

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