foreign policy
politics
The Future of Russia
Council on Foreign Relations
U.S. Ambassador to Russia (2012-14)
0
0
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale
February 12th, 2021
Predicting Russia’s future is the bane of Russia watchers. One of the greatest, George Kennan, suggested that the policy of containment could vanquish the Soviet threat in 10-15 years; it took nearly 45. The experts failed to foresee the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Widespread predictions in the 1990s that Russia was on the path to democracy ran afoul of an entrenched authoritarian mindset. Late in that decade, I wrote an essay entitled “A World Without Russia?” that traced a decades-long decline in Russian power and predicted it would continue. Alas! Humility is in order.
One prediction, though, we can make with complete confidence: A post-Putin Russia will eventually emerge. We just don’t know when or what it will look like. A lively debate over the possibilities is already underway. Observers fall into two broad camps, what we might call the Historians, who stress the enduring patterns of history, and the Sociologists, who are more attuned to the logic of change and development.
For the Historians, to whom I am partial, Putin’s Russia shares political characteristics with its Soviet and Tsarist predecessors: the concentration of power and property in the hands of a small elite, centralization and personalization of political power, exploitation of society for the state’s benefit, and suppression of a vibrant civil society. The details are of course different. Today’s Russia is hardly a replica of 15th century Muscovy. But the political DNA is the same.
Similarly, Putin’s foreign policy is grounded in a strategic framework with deep roots in Russian history. He faces the same challenge his predecessors did: How to defend a vast, sparsely-populated. multiethnic country located on a territory without formidable physical barriers that abuts powerful states or unstable regions. And he seeks security as they did in strategic depth, buffer zones, tight internal control, disruption of hostile coalitions, and wary alignment with powerful neighbors. Again, the details vary over time, but the logic remains the same.
Not surprisingly, the Historians tend to believe post-Putin Russia will eventually revert to this historical pattern, even if it goes through an unstable period that suggests otherwise. That is what happened after the Revolution in 1917 and the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991. And that means the United States will likely continue to face a tough competitor in the decades ahead and not welcome a democratic Russia as a partner, as we once hoped to.
The Historians should be wary, however, of falling into a crude determinism that blinds them to possibility of radical change. One thing history teaches is that states rise and fall, and some disappear, as the surrounding political, economic, and technological context creates new requirements for viability. That is a critical lesson for today, as technology rapidly and dramatically changes the way we govern and wage wars. In these circumstances, whether the historical Russian state will remain viable is an open question. On this point, the Sociologists perhaps have something to teach the Historians.
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