Article
from
The Boston Globe
The central question for Russia-watchers today is: Who is Putin? Even among fellow KGB spooks in his first profession, Putin earned a reputation for being "secretive." He personifies Winston Churchill's characterization of Russia: "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Up to now, Putin has appeared in the role of the candidate. In that capacity he has focused single-mindedly on winning yesterday's election. Only now that he has become Russia's elected czar (with all the powers Yeltsin's constitution affords) will the electoral mask will be removed and the "real Putin" emerge.
Nonetheless, his conduct of the presidential campaign as well as several longer, more philosophical statements, offer telling clues about his prospective policies.
Putin's performance as a candidate showed him to be competent, energetic, serious about both strategy and tactics, and remarkably adaptable. When he first joined the Yeltsin administration, he disparaged elective politics: "One has to be insincere and promise something which you cannot fulfill, so you have to be a fool who does not understand what you are promising or deliberately be lying."
Given the role, he has fully utilized skills acquired in winning a black belt in judo and his spurs as a KGB spy. Judo is a sport that rewards not strength but maneuver. KGB agents' skills in deception, disinformation, cover, and seduction of agents who become their sources of information have more applications in electoral politics than many had suspected.
In a truly remarkable campaign, Putin managed to hold up to each major constituency a magic mirror in which each group saw a closet champion of its own aspirations. To reformers, he appeared a quiet reformer; to oligarchs, a guarantor of their positions and possessions; to the KGB, their brother "under the roof."
Philosophically, three attributes stand out above all others: realism, pragmatism, and patriotism. No previous Russian leader has ever spoken to his fellow citizens with such brutal candor. Most striking was his New Year's address to fellow citizens. Instead of offering customary good cheer, he compared Russia not to the United States, not to the great nations of Europe, but to Portugal. As he stated bluntly: "To reach the production level of Portugal and Spain, two countries that are not known as leaders of the world economy, it will take Russia approximately 15 years if the GDP grows by at least 8 percent a year." Have a happy new year?
Putin's pragmatism pervaded his campaign. He displayed a dazzling flexibility in framing key issues of the campaign, smearing opponents, and chilling critical press - without any evident constraints of ideology, romanticism, or principle. His stated aspirations for Russia show little traditional Russian mysticism, romanticism, or illusion. Putin makes no apologies, however, for being a Russian patriot who believes in Russia, who is deeply concerned about Russia's survival, and who wants Russia to be respected.
Putin's diagnosis of Russia's predicament is harsher than that of Russia's fiercest Western critics. He argues that Russia's very survival is at stake - threatened by forces of disintegration should Chechen separatism spread through the Caucasus into central Russia. His disgust with and disdain toward the Russian government for its loss of authority and credibility is palpable. And in acknowledging Russia's poverty today, he notes that its per capita GNP falls in the lower half of nations in the world and risks falling into the third league among nations.
For this predicament, Putin's prescription is straightforward. Russia must strengthen the state to assume survival as a country and restore government's capacity to enforce its laws and decisions. Russia's great challenge for the next generation is one of economic reconstruction. He and his advisers believe that this effort will take at least a generation.
Putin argues that the only way Russia can achieve such levels of growth is through integration with the Western-led global economy and its associated institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and global capital markets. Russia has, he says, "entered the highway by which the whole of humanity is traveling. Only this way offers the possibility of dynamic economic growth and higher living standards, as world experience shows. There is no alternative to it." So much for recurring Russian illusions about a separate or third Russian way.
Finally, Putin says bluntly that in order to enter the global economy and attract foreign investments, Russia must adopt a cooperative posture towards the United States and the West. He will not, of course, sacrifice Russia's vital interests. But beyond those interests, he will almost surely adopt a minimalist foreign policy aimed at Russia's economic advancement, not broader political or geopolitical aspirations.
Russia's new president is a leader "with whom we can do business," as President Clinton noted. The US stands astride at the tollbooths along the highway to the global economy and international investments. A new realistic, pragmatic, integrationist Russian leader thus presents Western policy makers a great opportunity.
Despite the fact that it enters its final year with a foreign policy agenda that is already overloaded, the Clinton administration must not miss this chance to define the specific terms of cooperation in ways that address the West's most important interests. At the top of this list should be a major joint initiative to secure Russia's nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material against theft by criminals or corrupt officials who might sell such weapons to terrorists or rogue states.