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  • The Policy of the Siamese Twins

    Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia
    Jan 21 2009


    The Policy of the Siamese Twins

    Article by Dmitriy Furman

    We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly
    hampered powers.

    Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in
    tranquillity in this home and everyone is friendly to some
    extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance,
    however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the
    shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with
    Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia
    arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say
    hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It
    is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its
    neighbours.

    We Rail Against the Social Order

    This happens for a variety of reasons - because Estonia moved the
    Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we
    support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the
    prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are
    more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the
    scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in
    the building, and is being discussed in every household.

    The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give
    Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbours, who
    dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in
    general, and the Western countries' treatment of it as a "problem
    state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The
    connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and
    the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one
    hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for
    the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the
    developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of
    these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in
    our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a
    sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic
    impulses and correct behaviour. All of this is understandable, but
    something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts
    with our neighbours acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin
    left office as the president.

    First, Second, Third

    The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the
    fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before
    Putin took office. Putin's personal mindset (we can recall his image
    of the boy walking towards a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy
    in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but
    knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional
    habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those
    established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly
    developed everything that was put in place when the first president
    was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving
    ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took
    office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin's increasing anxiety
    and irritability towards the end of his term were connected with his
    vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was
    due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would
    require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a
    different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin
    named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same
    stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have
    the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he
    was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal
    tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make
    some "corrections" in the policy line.

    In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the
    government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The
    government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid
    mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into
    consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to
    be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The
    system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society
    for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of
    mistakes.

    This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these
    systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist
    Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was
    the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint,
    and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his
    predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened
    in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the
    futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the
    change of presidents in today's Russia not lead to policy adjustments?
    Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why
    did we start moving more quickly towards an impasse instead of trying
    to avoid it?

    Side Effects

    We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts
    of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict,
    Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia's enemy for
    many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be
    done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen
    not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we
    not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no
    longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose
    tens of billions more in the future - an amount many times the sum we
    ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our
    isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency towards European
    integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is
    more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests
    of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the
    surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious
    that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and
    Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in
    December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end
    the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have
    concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two,
    but this is the third week that nothing has been done.

    I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for
    conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the
    tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and
    give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin
    did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been
    psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and
    healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin
    probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young
    president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as
    the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any
    goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin
    created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and
    our entire political mechanism.

    We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the
    removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the
    president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token,
    even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no
    chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he
    chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is
    even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to
    separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both
    of them and to our entire political system.

    There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that
    Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his
    successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed
    conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not
    think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central
    Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or
    that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy
    the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared
    whole barrels of wine at Stalin's dacha. It is just that all of them
    were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev's
    victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many
    historical conflicts between friends and colleagues - from the
    conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin's conflict with
    Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.

    Trapped by Each Other

    Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation
    which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is
    a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because
    the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign
    of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of
    disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an
    extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall
    destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very
    different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion,
    if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create
    nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating
    nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his
    dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government
    recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any
    particular message, however. At a time when the president's decision
    truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is
    not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.

    Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely
    difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone
    away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our
    policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome
    legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had
    done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He
    cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the
    prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him
    packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame
    everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from
    office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president's
    office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but
    they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one's own
    mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and
    support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no
    possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.

    The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the
    separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of
    severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered
    president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was
    just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on
    the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime
    minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to
    be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to
    synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed
    route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the
    leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the
    current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he
    was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he
    is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.

    The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had
    done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of
    Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised
    Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes
    concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind
    alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin
    had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own
    mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President
    Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a
    result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem
    that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now
    taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.

    Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin
    nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the
    absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course
    if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and
    they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose
    control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we
    incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are
    only the beginning.

    [translated from Russian]
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