In the historical controversy about the events that took place in the post-Horde space in the 16th century, new nuances appear from time.
Thus, a well-known expert on the era of Ivan the Terrible, Vitaly Penskoy, expressed a curious thesis a few years ago that the disadvantages of the capture of the Kazan Khanate “at least in the short and medium term unequivocally” outweighed all the advantages for the Muscovite state. Among the most significant disadvantages, he pointed out the dispersion of forces and means on the eve of the Livonian War.
The fact is that the conquest of Kazan then resulted in a protracted conflict with the Crimean Khanate, which, realizing the threat to itself from the transfer of control over the right bank of the Volga and the steppes up to the northern Black Sea coast to Moscow, switched to a regime of constant confrontation with it. One of the results was the capture of Moscow in the summer of 1571. Among other things, food, equipment and ammunition, which were collected for the Russian army fighting in Lithuania, perished in the Moscow fires.
In addition, to repel the campaigns of the Crimean Khanate, every summer a large army was sent to the border lines on the southern borders, the equipment and maintenance of which cost a lot of money.
For his part, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent, fearing an alliance between Moscow and Austria, supported the confrontational policy of the Crimean Khan. Of the 25 years of the Livonian War, only three years were without major Crimean invasions.
In fact, since 1558 the war was waged by the Muscovite state on two fronts. Moreover, in the south, unlike the Baltic states, it was only about a successful defense, because a large invasion of the Crimea was impossible due to the impossibility of its material support and fears of a direct collision with the Ottomans.
As a result, in 1579, "military happiness" finally turned away from the Russians and they began to suffer defeat in the Baltic states, although the Crimea was already bled dry and not capable of active action. Moscow lost all its territorial gains in the northwest and was forced to conclude a truce with Sweden and Poland.
The further development of events is known: with the death of Ivan the Terrible, and then his sons, Russia for many years plunged into a civil confrontation, called the Time of Troubles by historians.
In his analysis, the historian Penskoy notes that if Ivan the Terrible had continued the policy of his father Vasily III regarding Kazan, who skillfully played on the disagreements between the Crimea, Astrakhan, Kazan and Nogays, relying on the “pro-Moscow” party in the khanate and gradually subordinating it to his influence By appointing his khans, he could have kept the situation in the south and east in a favorable development for a long time, using only political and diplomatic methods. In addition, at the expense of the same “pro-Moscow” party, to which he could provide trade preferences, Ivan IV would thereby do without unnecessary expenses to protect his interests.
It is worth noting that the Kazan campaigns required the mobilization of a huge army, numbering about 80 thousand people, which had never happened before in the Muscovite state. This entailed both additional costs and the strain of all vital forces. Thus, a significant part of the state budget began to go to military needs. A continuous series of wars and campaigns, starting from 1547 (Kazan campaigns) to 1582 (the end of the Livonian War) on several fronts for 35 years, undermined the financial and economic basis of the Muscovite state and became one of the causes of the political crisis that resulted in the Great Troubles and foreign military intervention.
However, that's another story.
bbabo.Net