Текст книги "Implosion. The end of Russia and what it means for America"
Автор книги: Ilan Berman
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Политика
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
CHAPTER SIX
PUTIN’S CRUMBLING STATE
Fifteen years after he strode onto the Russian national scene, Vladimir Putin is beginning to show signs of weakening power. Although he handily won reelection to the Russian presidency in March 2012, switching places with his handpicked protégé Dmitry Medvedev (who assumed the post of prime minister), Putin now finds himself facing eroding popularity and a mounting sense of political siege.
The numbers tell the story. A February 2013 poll by the Levada Center in Moscow found that only 32 percent of Russians would vote for Putin if elections were held today—a drop of nearly ten percentage points from June 2012. 1Over the same period, the number of those who would choose not to vote at all rose to nearly a quarter of all respondents.
Putin’s plunging popularity is easily explained. Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency (2008–2012), during which time Putin served as prime minister, was viewed with optimism by some in Moscow (and more than a few in the West). That hope was misplaced because, despite his dulcet tones and talk of reform, Medvedev made few tangible alterations to Russia’s political direction. This stasis culminated with Putin’s preordained return to the presidency in March 2012—a development that sparked widespread disaffection and mass protests throughout that year. 2
In a democracy, such political numbers would be fatal to a president’s political future. Even in authoritarian Russia, they are deeply worrying to the Russian president and his coterie. As a result, the Kremlin has launched a number of initiatives to tighten its grip on power, even as it attempts to project the image of a more pluralistic and accountable polity.
POTEMKIN POLITICS
Following his rise to power in the last days of 1999, Putin set about consolidating Russia’s then unruly political scene. A key element of that effort was the creation of United Russia, a pro-Kremlin political faction built upon the Unity Party that dominated the country’s 1999 parliamentary elections.
In the years that followed, United Russia became a dominant force in Russian politics, securing commanding majorities in Russia’s 2003 and 2007 parliamentary elections as well as in various regional and local political contests. Recently, however, the bloom has come off United Russia’s political rose. In the 2011 Duma elections, it failed to win even half of the popular vote—a testament to the party’s flagging popularity. 3
As a result, Putin has begun to think bigger. Since 2010, his administration has attempted to build a broader political coalition—one that rehabilitates United Russia while simultaneously diminishing its opponents. The result, unveiled by Putin in May 2011, is the “All-Russian National Front,” a grand coalition of parties, organizations, and “non-affiliated United Russia supporters” designed to help the president’s political faction formulate a political platform and seed its candidates throughout parliament. 4Today, the “National Front” unites hundreds of national and regional political and social groups under a pro-Kremlin umbrella. 5That bloc is closer than ever to becoming the unquestioned hegemon in Russian politics. Russian experts have projected that, by the fall of 2013, the National Front will become the dominant force in the Russian Duma. 6
The Kremlin has similarly sought to transform the workings of Russian politics. In May 2012, a series of reforms championed by Dmitry Medvedev during his time as president were signed into law. Kremlin supporters contend that these steps—which include, among other things, a lowering of the political bar on the registration of political parties—reflect a new reality in which the Russian government is increasingly forced to take into account the views and wishes of the electorate. 7
But more objective observers are not so sure. They point to the fact that the Putin government continues to wield broad discretion over the legitimacy of political candidates and parties. As such, they say, Putin’s recent policies—however pluralistic they appear at first blush—are simply more of the same heavy-handedness. 8
The Kremlin’s treatment of Russian civil society groups tends to confirm the latter view. Worried over the “color revolutions” that have taken place in the post-Soviet space in recent years and wary of the prospects of something similar occurring in Russia, the Russian government has assumed a dramatically harder line toward nongovernmental organizations.
Among the measures enacted by the Kremlin is a notorious “foreign agent law” that forces nongovernmental organizations that receive funds from abroad to register with the country’s Justice Ministry as “foreign agents” and provide quarterly accounting of their activities. 9The move was seen by civic activists as a concrete step designed to silence dissent. 10These fears appear to have been realized: using the law as justification, the Russian government in recent months launched what observers call an “unprecedented” campaign to investigate the activities of thousands of NGOs active in the Russian Federation. 11
The end result is that Putin’s Russia, while on paper nominally more free, is functionally less so. Rather, it is a modern-day political version of a Potemkin village: an artificial construct designed to mollify the masses with the form of pluralism but without the substance of it.
ROTTEN TO THE CORE
In the heady early days of post-Soviet Russia, President Boris Yeltsin spoke out publicly against the economic and political disorder plaguing his country. Russia, Yeltsin said in 1994, had become “the biggest mafia state in the world . . . the superpower of crime that is devouring the state from top to bottom.” 12Fast-forward almost two decades, and the situation in principle is substantially different—but in practice is eerily similar.
Over the past dozen years, the Putin government has focused on consolidating and centralizing power, transitioning first to a system of “managed democracy” and from there to a highly hierarchical authoritarian state. This has, by necessity, entailed a reining in of Russia’s ubiquitous and powerful criminal entities.
Today, organized criminal groups, once unaccountable, operate under a new code—one in which they are mindful of, and in return receive exceedingly soft treatment from, the Kremlin. 13Putin’s government likewise has clamped down on Russia’s powerful oligarchs, conveying to them in no uncertain terms that they enjoy their wealth and freedom at the pleasure of the Kremlin, and that political cooperation is the key to preserving both. The result is a micromanaged investment climate deeply hostile to entrepreneurship and dominated by capricious government policies.
International business has taken notice. Capital flight from the Russian Federation has surged as multinational corporations and investors have abandoned the country’s uncompromising economic atmosphere. In 2010, for example, $33.6 billion left Russia. In 2011, that figure more than doubled, totaling $84.2 billion—and leading to a notable weakening of the Russian ruble. 14In 2012, that figure dipped to $56 billion, but experts maintain that Moscow has made little real progress in addressing the underlying socioeconomic conditions fueling such flight. 15
These conditions include organized corruption on a staggering scale. According to a February 2013 study by research group Global Financial Integrity (GFI), Russia lost more than $200 billion in illicit financial outflows stemming from crime, corruption, and tax evasion between 1994 and 2011. All told, the study estimates “the size of Russia’s underground economy—which includes, among other things, drug smuggling, arms trafficking, and human trafficking—at a massive 46% of GDP” over that period. 16These figures are a tragedy for ordinary Russians. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost that could have been used to invest in Russian healthcare, education, and infrastructure,” GFI Director Raymond Baker points out. 17
On the surface, the Russian government seems to be addressing the issue. During his presidency, Dmitry Medvedev called it “one of the most dangerous and most serious problems” in the country and took steps to destroy Russia’s culture of corruption. 18One move was the 2008 creation of an advisory body known as the Anti-Corruption Council; another was the 2012 launch of the Open Government Initiative—a “roadmap” for stemming corruption and increasing governmental transparency. 19These initiatives ostensibly have been inherited by the Putin administration.
The Kremlin’s initiatives have claimed a number of casualties. In November 2012, long-serving Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was publicly sacked by the Kremlin over his purported role in the speculative sale and illegal transfer of government assets totaling millions of dollars. 20Subsequently, in early 2013, Vladimir Pekhtin, a lawmaker from United Russia, was forced to vacate his seat in the Russian Duma after an opposition blogger disclosed that Pekhtin possessed multi-million dollar properties in Florida. 21Pekhtin was the second Duma deputy to be stripped of his parliamentary immunity in less than a year. 22
But these high-profile examples, observers caution, do not reflect a broader commitment by the Kremlin to eradicate corruption. 23Indeed, the very foundations of Putin’s state—and, by extension, his hold on power—rely on loyalty that is secured through informal dealings and graft. Without them, the Putin government’s hold on power would quickly loosen.
Increasingly, the same also holds true for another key node of power in post-Soviet Russia: the Orthodox Church.
AN “ORTHODOX IRAN”
In February 2013, Russian president Vladimir Putin took to the airwaves to make an unprecedented public declaration of faith. Standing alongside Kirill II, the patriarch of Russia’s Orthodox Church, at a press conference in Moscow, he told the assembled reporters that the “Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religions should get every opportunity to fully serve in such important fields as the support of family and motherhood, the upbringing and education of children, youth, social development, and to strengthen the patriotic spirit of the armed forces.” 24
Putin’s statement was a monumental reversal. For most of the Soviet past, the Russian Orthodox Church had been relegated to the margins of the USSR’s formally atheist politics (although it did play a role in shoring up the legitimacy of the Soviet Communist Party among the country’s population). Today’s relationship between church and state in Russia is much deeper, more overt, and more visceral. Simply put, the Kremlin has come to view the Church as an ally, and a tool with which it can tighten its hold on power and the people.
The Russian Church, for its part, has become increasingly comfortable with this new relationship. And, even as Putin’s government has given the Church more space to influence Russian society, it has wasted no time doing so. Over the past two years, Russia’s patriarchate has weighed in on everything from education to morality. 25It has also pressed the faithful to embrace Putin’s political agenda—and to reject those of others.
The Church’s politicking has netted results. In the spring of 2012, for example, a group called the Public Committee on Human Rights issued a blacklist identifying fifty-five “anti-Christian xenophobes” active in Russian political life. Among those identified as being guilty of “blasphemy” were former chess champion (and staunch regime opponent) Garry Kasparov, human rights crusader Lev Ponomaryov, and internet activist and blogger Alexei Navalny. 26The message was clear: being an opponent of the Russian government increasingly is synonymous with being an apostate.
This support, in turn, has informed the Russian government’s draconian treatment of Pussy Riot, a punk rock group that in March 2012 performed an inflammatory anti-Putin concert at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. Three of the band’s members were arrested after the show, and two of them were sentenced to two years’ incarceration in a prison camp for hooliganism aimed at inciting religious hatred. 27
The Russian government’s infusion of power into the Orthodox Church has been so dramatic that opposition figures like Boris Nemtsov have taken to warning publicly about the dangers of Russia turning into an “orthodox Iran”—a country where clerical fiat stifles political and cultural life. 28
Indeed, the trend line is ominous. In the early 1990s, Russia formally recognized thirty-one religious denominations. But most were largely legislated out of existence in the years that followed. Today, in a throwback to Soviet practice, only four religions—Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—are formally recognized by the Russian government. And with the Kremlin’s help, the Orthodox Church is rising in power and prominence.
Not surprisingly, this has exacerbated already-tense relations between the Russian state and its growing Muslim minority. In line with American philosopher Eric Hoffer’s famous dictum that ideologies are inherently competitive, 29the Russian Church—imbued with Kremlin’s support—is beginning to crowd out other forms of religious identification in Russia. And it is doing so at precisely the time when the bonds holding the country’s various ethnicities together have become more tenuous than ever.
ENERGY DOMINANCE . . . FOR NOW
In March 2002, Russia officially became the world’s top energy producer, for a time eclipsing Saudi Arabia in oil production. The event was the culmination of a goal that had animated the Kremlin since the collapse of the USSR: to reemerge as a global energy superpower.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of energy on Moscow’s strategic agenda. “Energy is Moscow’s primary tool of foreign policy influence and attempted dominance,” notes Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “[A]nd the Kremlin has systematically undertaken to become the leading energy superpower in Eurasia.” 30It has done so “either by controlling pipelines from Eurasia to Russia and then Europe or by maximizing its control of gas supplies from Russia (including those Central Asian supplies) to Europe.” 31
Energy represents far more than an economic instrument for the Russian government; it is also a geopolitical weapon and a tool of strategic dominance. To that end, Russia has pursued a variety of energy maneuvers throughout Eurasia over the past decade. It has opposed some projects (such as the Baku-Tbilisi Caspian oil route during the 1990s), undermined others (such as the ill-fated Nabucco natural gas pipeline to Eastern Europe), and derailed still others (including the Odessa-Brody pipeline connecting Ukraine to Poland). It has also successfully nurtured an unhealthy dependency on its energy exports among European countries. As of 2010, nearly half of Europe’s natural gas imports came from the Russian Federation, making some countries on the continent deeply vulnerable to any manipulation of supply that might take place in Moscow. 32
Russia has been able to do all this in large part because of its status as a bona fide energy superpower. Russia, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates, “holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, and the ninth-largest crude oil reserves.” 33Russia is therefore in a league of its own in the production and exportation of both natural gas and oil. 34
But despite its resource wealth, Russia risks being left behind by the global energy scene. The problem is practical: experts estimate that, at its current rate of production, Russia has thirty years of proven oil reserves and sixty years worth of proven natural gas reserves. 35This energy wealth has made Moscow resistant to the idea of energy diversification, and the Kremlin has neglected to explore and harness alternative and renewable sources of energy. (In the United States, by contrast, something resembling a “revolution” in shale gas is now taking shape, with momentous consequences for U.S. energy independence and its position vis-à-vis foreign oil suppliers.) 36
Russia has also failed to make substantial investments in the infrastructure it needs to remain a global energy power. Its 2002 foray into the role of the planet’s top energy producer was short-lived; by the following year, Russia’s energy output had receded, in part due to a crackdown on high-profile figures and firms by the Kremlin (chief among them energy conglomerate Yukos and its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky). The Kremlin’s heavy-handedness toward its energy sector had a chilling effect on foreign direct investment into Russia. 37But shoddy infrastructure—and a lack of serious investment in the same by the Russian government—likewise had constrained the country’s energy horizons. In a 2004 interview with Interfax, then Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref admitted as much when he told the state news agency that the country’s oil production had plateaued and was expected to rise by less than 5 percent annually for the foreseeable future. 38
Nearly a decade later, not much has changed. The Russian government recently pledged a whopping $1 trillion in funds to develop the country’s infrastructure. But, observers in Moscow say, these funds are intended overwhelmingly for the rehabilitation of basic infrastructure (such as roads and bridges across the Russian Federation’s sprawling expanse). Upgrades to Russia’s energy facilities and pipeline grid are not likely to be forthcoming. 39And because they are not, Moscow has been forced to look further and further afield for new energy-rich arenas to preserve its global position.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
In recent years, no region has preoccupied Russian attention in terms of energy more than the Arctic. Over the past decade, climatological changes have made more and more of the previously inhospitable region accessible to oil and natural gas exploration, with dramatic results. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic seabed may hold as much as ninety billion barrels of oil and a third of the world’s untapped natural gas reserves. 40These findings have sparked renewed interest from oil companies, as well as from the “Arctic Five” nations—Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States—whose borders abut the region.
But in Moscow the new findings have done much more. Russian policymakers’ hopes for an energy renaissance depend on the Arctic, and they have made the acquisition of a greater stake in the area a cardinal national priority. Then President Dmitry Medvedev said as much in September 2008, when he told a meeting of his National Security Council, “[o]ur first and main task is to turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century.” 41
Since then, the Kremlin has set about crafting a legal framework for dominating the region. It has done so because the Arctic lacks its own legal regime, relying instead upon the rules and regulations contained in the 1972 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under them, each of the “Arctic Five” nations is allowed to stake a claim to roughly two hundred miles of Arctic territory beyond its demarcated northern border. (The rest is considered part of the “global commons,” over which no nation can claim sovereignty.)
Moscow has cited UNCLOS in its expanding claims to the region. Over the past decade, it has asserted that the so-called Lomonosov Ridge, a massive undersea geological formation in the Arctic Ocean, is part of its sovereign continental shelf and, therefore, that it is solely entitled to its resources. (That position is contested by Canada and Denmark, which claim to have evidence that the Ridge is rightly part of the North American continent.) In 2007, Russia even sent an expedition to the North Pole to plant an undersea flag on the Ridge as proof of its territorial claim. 42
But Moscow has also attempted to refashion the region’s geopolitical order to reflect its own interests. In March 2009 it publicly released the full text of its new Arctic strategy, entitled The Foundations of Russian Federation Policy in the Arctic until 2020 and Beyond. 43That document, first issued in September 2008, lays out a dramatic expansion of official Russian sovereign interests in the area. According to the strategy, the Arctic zone represents “a national strategic resource base” for the country—one that is “capable in large part of fulfilling Russia’s needs for hydrocarbon resources.” As such, Russia must systematically develop the region and create “a system of complex security for the defense of the territories, population, and objects in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation critically vital to Russian national security from threats of a natural and technical character.” 44
Russia has moved forward with these objectives. Economically, it has encouraged large-scale and sustained investment in the region on the part of Western multinationals such as BP, as well as Russian firms (including state natural gas giant Gazprom). Militarily, Moscow has worked to make the region its own exclusive strategic purview. In 2011, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced plans to station two army brigades in the Arctic in order to expand Russia’s presence in the region and “defend its interests” there. 45It has also begun construction on a fleet of new submarines to better “protect Moscow’s interests in the icy North.” 46And in early 2013, Russian warplanes began regular patrols of the Arctic Ocean. 47
For the time being, officials in Moscow have discussed the need for multilateralism in managing the Arctic. 48But the strategy that Russia has adopted over the past half-decade is unilateral and increasingly aggressive. It is no wonder that more than a few people now fear that an “Arctic cold war” might be imminent. 49
TROUBLE AHEAD
Although it appears consolidated from the outside, Putin’s state today rests on unstable foundations. These systemic flaws have forced Russian authorities to adopt an increasingly repressive and authoritarian approach at home.
But this situation has the potential to become much, much worse. For, although the effects may not be immediately apparent to casual observers of Russian politics, the demographic, political, and ethnic trends at work within the country’s borders are already threatening its internal stability, as well as its relationship with the world.
