Putin

The timing was good, the timing was bad. Good from the point of view of Russia’s wealth and Putin’s popularity, bad from the point of view of the world situation. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 might have been seen by Putin as only an internal question if NATO had not at the same time conferred membership on seven former Eastern Bloc countries, three of them former Soviet republics, moving the alliance right up to Russia’s western border. It was then that Putin began to suffer not from a too low sense of danger but from one that would quickly become much too high.

And as people often do in times of threat and jeopardy, Putin reverted to the tried and true, in his case “the power vertical.” His rule started out as authoritarianism lite but became less so with each challenge, culminating in the street demonstrations on the eve of his inauguration in May 2012. Economically, hewing to the tried and true meant sticking with gas and oil instead of transforming Russia into a knowledge-based economy that would have involved large numbers of people. Instead, the state and society ended up separate if not opposed, Russia’s perennial tragic conundrum.

And because it did not involve the people enough, the House of Putin will, like the House of the Tsars and the House of the Communists, sooner or later come crashing down. When and with how much suffering is anyone’s guess. All that is sure is that the Russian people, who outlasted Genghis Khan and Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler, will survive the fall of the House of Putin. Surviving is what Russians absolutely do best.

NOTES

EPIGRAPHS

“I cannot”: Winston Churchill, “The Russian Enigma,” BBC Broadcast, October 1, 1939. The Churchill Society London.

“The politics of Russia”: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Russian Question at the End of the Twentieth Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), p. 18.

PREFACE: PUTIN TRUMPS AMERICA

“if the Trump campaign”: “Full transcript: FBI Director James Comey testifies on Russian interference in 2016 election,” The Washington Post, March 20, 2017, p. 3.

“I have been authorized”: Ibid., p. 9.

“gray cloud”: Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, “Trump’s Weary Defenders Face Fresh Worries,” The New York Times, March 20, 2017.

“there is smoke”: Ibid.

“A year ago”: Full transcript, p. 2.

“The hotel was known”: Full text of Christopher Steele dossier published by Buzzfeed, January 10, 2017, unpaginated.

“You know the closest”: Glenn Garvin, “Donald Trump, the Unwanted Palm Beach Mansion and the Russian Fertilizer King,” The Miami Herald, March 7, 2017.

“provided valuable,” “critical to national security”: Eric Shawn, “Felix Sater, man at center of Ukraine plan, said he was only trying to help.” Fox News Politics, February 20, 2017.

“Russians make up”: Glenn Kessler, “Trump’s Claim that ‘I Have Nothing to Do with Russia,’” The Washington Post, July 27, 2016.

“were sitting in the room”: Megan Twohey, Scott Shane, “A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates,” The New York Times, February 19, 2017.

“the Russian authorities”: Christopher Steele dossier, Buzzfeed.

“after his name surfaced”: Andrew E. Kramer, “Paul Manafort, Former Trump Campaign Chief, Faces New Allegations in Ukraine,” The New York Times, March 20, 2017.

“I don’t think”: “Here’s the transcript of Trump’s repeated evasions on whether his campaign had contacts with Russian officials,” The Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2017.

“In 2006, a series of protests”: James Miller, “Trump and Russia: All the Mogul’s Men,” Daily Beast, November 6, 2016.

“I am trying to play”: Ibid.

“was doing a great job,” “at least he was”: Jeremy Diamond, “Timeline: Donald Trump’s Praise for Vladimir Putin:, CNN Politics, July 29, 2016.

“Manafort proposed”: Jeff Horowitz, Chad Day, “Manafort Had Plan to Benefit Putin Government,” Associated Press, Bloomberg News/Politics, March 22, 2017.

“We are now of the belief”: Ibid.

“Ambassador Kislyak”: John R. Schindler, “The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins,” Observer.com, February 2, 2017.

“A senior National Security”: Ibid.

“The Russia Investigation”: Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman, “Why Letting Go, for Trump, Is No Small or Simple Task,” The New York Times, March 21, 2017.