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Putin Is Basking In An 'Astonishing Leadership Vacuum'

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  • Putin Is Basking In An 'Astonishing Leadership Vacuum'

    PUTIN IS BASKING IN AN 'ASTONISHING LEADERSHIP VACUUM'

    TIME
    Jan 6 2014

    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/




    From: A. Papazian
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