Russia

In December 2003 Putin won an overwhelming endorsement from the electorate. Managed democracy was working. It might not be meeting meet the highest standards of constitutional politics, but was no worse a travesty than the American presidential election of 2000 had been, and even American businessmen in Russia preferred Putin’s careful authoritarianism to anarchic rule by oligarchs and mafias. ³⁵ In March 2004 the President dismissed his prime minister, Mikhail Kasianov, and in so doing severed the last prominent link with the corrupt Yeltsin regime. The fact that a diplomat, Mikhail Fradkov, was appointed to succeed Kasianov suggested that, having steadied developments within Russia, Putin was intent on developing Russia’s position in the wider world.

The frontiers with what Russians now termed ‘the near abroad’ were still contested in some areas. The gates of Europe had been closed against it, but Russia had clung on to the important Baltic naval base of Kaliningrad, formerly Konigsberg. It had held on by force to Moldova, and, though Georgia was lost, its support for the Abkhazian rebels and the Ossetinians secured it influence in the vicinity. The change in mood in the United States following the disasters of 11 September meant that its attempts to suppress nationalism in Chechnya drew no formal American protest. However, the assassination of a Chechen premier and the bloody seizure of schoolchildren in Beslan by Basaev’s people in the summer of 2004 showed that anti-terrorist operations there were not yet effective.

The changing mood also helped Moscow in Central Asia. Although the United States had been able to penetrate the region, it now needed Russian help in its global campaign to keep militant Islam and terrorism at bay. Russia was well equipped to help. It was experienced in fighting terrorists. It also had better intelligence on the Islamic world, and many more experts in its languages and cultures. And it retained influential friends in the former Central Asian republics and Afghanistan.

Under Putin, Russia was developing relations in Asia that promised to stand it in good stead. Its arms exports to India and China were buoyant, it was respected in the Middle East, and the unpopularity of the American-led invasion of Iraq presented it with worldwide opportunities.

Putin’s progress was no less deliberate abroad than at home. In the opinion of at least one Western international-relations expert, he rapidly succeeded in revolutionizing Russia’s position in the world. Displaying a clear sense of strategic realities and steadiness in the pursuit of his priorities, Putin was quick to appreciate opportunities and skilful in exploiting them. Unlike Yeltsin, he was concerned with realities, not gestures. He made it clear that, even in its reduced state, Russia had teeth, and its ability to cut off gas or oil supplies to a near neighbour or to withdraw from the agreement on limiting conventional forces in Europe could indeed be effective negotiating points. He made a realistic but advantageous accommodation with NATO, changed a forced retreat in the face of America’s power into a strategic partnership with the USA against the forces of terrorism, and transformed defeat over strategic disarmament into ‘the spearhead of Russia’s global resurgence’. ³⁶

The springboard for any resurgence depends on the economy, and Russia’s has been growing steadily at a rate of 6 per cent a year. Though it is overly dependent on commodities, it is likely to meet Putin’s stated aim of doubling GDP by 2011. The budget shows a surplus, the national debt is shrinking, and unemployment is relatively low. Much ground remains to be made up, but analysts suggest that the recovery is likely to continue. The fact that the Russians are recovering from the collapse of their fourth empire is not to suggest that they will create a fifth. But nor can the prospect be entirely written off. To make an informed assessment of its chances, however, they must be reviewed in relation to both the current world situation and the historical record.

Conclusion

THE RUSSIANS CREATED four empires, each of a different kind, and each of the four collapsed for different reasons. The first was a trading empire based on co-operation between indigenous Russians and Varangian adventurers which developed into an association of city states governed by a grand prince. Though heavily influenced by Christian Byzantium and in awe of it, the rulers of Kievan Rus had imperial ambitions of their own, and held sway over a multi-ethnic, multilingual population, Finno-Ugrian and Turkic as well as Slavonic. This first Russian empire collapsed in the face of the invading Mongols, but also because the breakdown of its succession system made it easier prey than it might otherwise have been.