Anders Aslund's article, Putin's Decline and America's Response, has stirred debate from a number of different fronts. Generally, Aslund identifies (perhaps exaggerates) weaknesses in the Putin regime, and the identification (and inflation) of these perceived flaws leads to anxious hypotheses about the stability of the Russian state.

Critics attack the most extreme of Aslund's conjectures and ask for definitive prognoses in order to trip up the analyst and prove him wrong when the forecasts fail. While this is a formulaic scrap of academic debate, has it achieved the likely goal of Aslund's critics - to discredit his analysis and thus dissuade US officials from following his policy recommendations?

Unfortunately, those who rebut Aslund's theses tend, again formulaically, to overstate Aslund's case and their own, by setting up a false dichotomy between the Yel'tsin and Putin presidencies, as if they weren't, with slightly different goals and personnel, close companions on a continuum of governance. (Any one care to trade Korzhakov for Sechin or V. Ivanov?)

Is there not a middle ground that acknowledges:

. The media, and television in particular, were more dynamic and free during Yel'tsin's regime, at least until oligarchs and enterprising advertising forces figured out how ownership and control could promote their own financial, political, and financial (again) wellbeing. Under Putin, some oligarchic interference has been detangled from media outlets, but state control, overt or assumed, has been reasserted (assumed control would include the possibility that Putin did not directly can an editor at Izvestiya, but that the Kremlin might have expressed displeasure, thus leading the owner to act "on his own."). Media fortunes (literal and figurative) fluctuated in the Yel'tsin years; unfortunately, the Putin terms seem to lack, utterly, any hope of a cresting wave of vibrancy. Compare, if you will, the role of television in the 1993 elections (for good and ill!) and the rather pallid 2003 parliamentary elections.

. While Aslund's predictions well overstate the frailty of the Putin regime (and use an odd analysis of policy successes and failures to bolster the case), it is clear that the Kremlin has become obsessed with 2008. This extreme of early politicking suggests a certain soft underbelly, if not brittle foundation, to Putin's second (lame duck?) term;

. Kremlin isolation and insulation have led to mind-numbing errors this past year, perhaps most notably in Beslan (and this includes Putin's completely off-base response of strengthening the power vertical, as much as the failure of the services). The Putin gaffe about Dan Rather in Bratislava was embarrassing as a one-off event, but subsequent statements have reflected fundamental misunderstandings that might buttress part of Aslund's argument about the role of siloviki as screens of information to Putin; it certainly portrays a flat-lined learning "curve" and a president as isolated as Yel'tsin was during his many stays at Barvikha.

The real issue in this debate appears to be US policy vis democratization in Russia and the other post-Soviet states. Does any serious analyst assert that interfering in Russia's next succession joust would redound to US benefit? If so, who should be supported? How would we gauge the success of such an administration? (Improvement in the domestic standard of living or increases in foreign investment?)

The problem with even addressing these issues lies in attitudes toward sovereignty. In both the short and the long term, it is not the US administration's responsibility to question how a state governs itself (Individuals? Academics? Businessmen? Journalists? Yes! But our government­no!) We can object strenuously, at times even militarily, when one state interferes, disrupts, or invades another state - no matter how simpatico they seemed in the Soviet period. Hence, the debate returns to the question of neo-imperialism. Do the Rose, Orange, Tulip, etc. revolutions reveal the instability of post-Soviet states (and the perils of corruption), or do they reflect American interference? So far, the Putin regime is quite certain (or, at least pretends that) it is the latter.

Susan J. Cavan, Deputy Director
Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology & Policy
Boston University
E-mail: sjcavan@bu.edu
Tel. (617)353-5815
Fax. (617)353-7185.