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Putin Is Basking in an `Astonishing Leadership Vacuum'

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  • Putin Is Basking in an `Astonishing Leadership Vacuum'

    TIME
    Jan 6 2014

    Putin Is Basking in an `Astonishing Leadership Vacuum'

    Ahead of Sochi, Putin has thrown his weight around - but Russia is
    still crumbling under the strain of his tyranny

    By Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg and Garry Kasparov Jan. 06, 20146 Comments


    Since Vladimir Putin's official return to power in 2012, the Russian
    President seems to have set his mind on teaching the rest of the world
    a few simple lessons. First, that he shall not be underestimated on
    the international stage; second, that Moscow will keep reasserting
    control over what it considers to be its legitimate sphere of
    influence for Russia; and finally, that he shall do whatever he
    pleases at home. To convey his message, Putin has supported a
    murderous dictator, lectured the U.S. about multilateralism,
    blackmailed his neighbors into accepting Moscow's ironfisted embrace,
    inflamed anti-American and anti-gay sentiments, and brutally cracked
    down on dissidents.

    (MORE: Putin Eases Protest Ban Ahead of Sochi Olympics)

    >From Syria and the Snowden saga to blatant human-rights violations
    and, most recently, pressuring Ukraine's leadership into a sudden
    change of heart on its association with the E.U., Putin has managed to
    bedevil the West all year long. His latest clemency decision for some
    prominent critics of the regime, only two months before the Olympics
    in Sochi, lacks credibility; it is an arbitrary reflection of being at
    an autocrat's mercy, not an act of mercy under the rule of law.

    When it comes to the honorable title of Bully of the Year, the Russian
    President surely triumphed in 2013. But all too often bullies fail
    with their homework. Russia's economy is crumbling. Moscow revised
    downward its economic outlook in December, the fourth time it did so
    last year. Growth, investment and industrial output are all below
    previously set targets, while inflation has risen to above 6%. This is
    not a short-term disturbance only, but the sign of the chronic
    shortfalls of a centralized and corrupt state. Russia seems to have
    completely misread the scale and pace of the energy revolution, and
    its overdependence on natural resources has now become an imminent
    threat to its economy.

    (MORE: Putin Takes to the Ski Slopes in Sochi)

    Crony capitalism and the heavy hand of the state has led to steady
    brain drain among the educated Russians needed for any real economy to
    thrive. Sclerosis persists in the public sphere as well, with
    everything from the health care system to the vaunted Russian army
    falling to pieces under the weight of graft and neglect. The cash
    reserves, now dwindling after being built by years of record energy
    prices, go to internal security and propaganda, hardly the budget
    priorities of a confident leadership.

    And what is really happening to Russia's standing in the world? It
    might be impossible to ignore Putin, but his behavior has hardly
    earned him any new friends - quite the contrary. A somewhat overlooked
    aspect of the contest over Ukraine is the role Berlin has played in
    it. Germany is the country that has often emphasized the importance of
    building bridges to Russia, and has come up with policies like `change
    through rapprochement.' But by now, Putin's zero-sum game mentality
    and hard power push have provoked even the otherwise
    not-so-confrontational German Chancellor to take action. Germany has
    embraced the cause of Ukraine's association with the E.U., it has
    offered to provide medical treatment for the imprisoned politician
    Yulia Tymoshenko, and its Foreign Minister traveled to Kiev to meet
    with demonstrators. While scoring a probably Pyrrhic victory, Putin
    has alienated an important partner. Ironically, he also achieved what
    no pleas from the U.S. President or fellow European leaders could do:
    Germany finally assumed leadership on a difficult foreign policy
    issue.

    (MORE: Second Deadly Blast Hits Southern Russian City)

    Moreover, Putin also made the E.U. look much better than it otherwise
    does these days. On first sight, the E.U. Association Agreement is a
    remarkably boring document, whose benefits only become evident in the
    long term. Yet its adoption has become synonymous with signing up for
    democracy, the rule of law and economic progress. We have gotten all
    too used to popular protest against the E.U.'s undemocratic power
    grabs, to politicians likening Brussels to the Moscow of the Soviet
    era and to discussions about different countries' potential exits from
    the grand European project. Ukrainians have now reminded us of the
    transformative influence that the always too slow and never too
    effective E.U. can still have on young democracies.

    Whether they are real successes or not for Putin, recent events should
    serve as a wake-up call for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. The
    U.S. should return to long-term and extensive foreign policy planning.
    The primary reason for Putin's self-aggrandizing behavior is the
    astonishing leadership vacuum in the world. Washington's recent
    preference to let other nations, including Russia, lead on
    international affairs has eroded the U.S.'s authority. However, the
    U.S. seems to slowly realize now that to influence Putin it must speak
    his language, that of power. Still, it has to use the right tools. The
    Magnitsky Act, designed to punish Russian officials for human-rights
    abuses, is one of the available tools, but so far Washington seems to
    lack the will to use it.

    As for Europe, it finally seems to recognize that it needs to be
    capable of taking care of its own neighborhood. The frozen conflicts
    in the post-Soviet space have been ignored for far too long. Why did
    it take a war in Georgia to realize that Tbilisi required more
    assistance from Europe? Why did it come as a surprise that Armenia, a
    country on the brink of an open confrontation with Azerbaijan, could
    be ruthlessly pressured into anything by Russia as long as Moscow is
    the one providing for its security? Will it now be spurred by another
    country retreating from the Eastern Partnership program, or will the
    E.U. face the problem of how vulnerable the Transnistria conflict
    makes Moldova?

    Russia's behavior toward Ukraine might hand Europe an opportunity to
    become more united and effective in its foreign policy. This would not
    be the first time Putin's aggressive policies backfired. One of the
    most remarkable achievements of the E.U. recently is how it has
    learned to stand up against Gazprom's monopolistic practices. A few
    years ago, the E.U.-Russia energy relations were all about the
    former's defenselessness. Today, the news is about raids in Gazprom's
    European offices, the European Commission's plans to try the energy
    giant in an antitrust case and most recently, Brussels' calls for the
    renegotiation of Gazprom's bilateral agreements. As a result, it is
    now Gazprom that has started working toward a settlement with the E.U.

    (MORE: Putin's Latest Moves Tip the Balance of Power Toward Russia)

    In 2006, observers and leaders inside and out of Russia expressed
    doubts as to the true nature of Putin and what he was creating. Now
    those doubts seem to be gone: for many, Russia has moved from the
    domination of one party to the despotism of one man. And yet on Jan.
    1, 2014, Russia became the chair of the G-8, the group of the world's
    major industrial democracies, despite being neither a functioning
    democracy nor an industrial economy. The remaining seven governments
    must ask themselves why they embrace an unacceptable status quo.

    The past few weeks of headlines out of Russia should also serve notice
    to those who claim that Putin's repression has at least come with the
    benefits of predictability and stability. The sudden and unexplained
    release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the institution of martial law around
    the Sochi Olympics region, the twin terrorist bombings in Volgograd -
    these are not the signs of a stable and reliable environment.
    Disconnected from the people, every authoritarian government
    inevitably faces challenges beyond its ability to respond and to
    produce a positive agenda. This unmooring often leads to the creation
    of scapegoats and enemies and to increasingly erratic behavior.

    Another recent move by Putin illustrates quite well his priorities and
    outlook for the future. On Dec. 9, he suddenly announced the
    dissolution of the state news agency RIA Novosti and the formation of
    a new, apparently strictly propaganda outlet. This is an additional
    step down the spiral of despotism: when reality does not conform to
    the needs of the people, produce more propaganda to convince the
    people that reality is not real. However, in this era of Internet and
    globalization, the truth cannot be hidden for long.

    The recent events in Kiev should caution us against assessments that
    put policy over principles and attempts to stand in the path of
    history for the sake of a more comfortable present. The massive
    pro-E.U. crowds in Ukraine serve as a perfect example to the Kremlin
    and its beleaguered subjects that there is no genetic condition called
    immunity to democracy. How will the E.U. and the U.S. react to the -
    probably inevitable - rise of the Russian people? Let us hope they are
    not too meek to stand up for the universal values on which they were
    founded.

    Zu Guttenberg is a former German Minister of Defense and Minister of
    Economics, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
    Kasparov is the leader of the Russian pro-democracy group United Civil
    Front and chairman of the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation.

    http://ideas.time.com/2014/01/06/putin-is-basking-in-an-astonishing-leadership-vacuum/

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