Putin's Statecraft.

AuthorCoffey, John
Position'Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft' - Book review

Allen C. Lynch, Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft, Potomac Books: Washington, DC, ISBN 13- 978-1-59797-298-7, 2011, 184 pp., $16.99.

If, to paraphrase Carlyle, history is the biography of the "shapers of international history," Allen Lynch's book illustrates how Vladimir Putin's formative experience has influenced his approach to Russian statecraft and paints a grim picture for Russia's future.

Vladimir Putin was born in 1952 into a postwar Leningrad working-class family from which he inheritedan intense patriotism. Initially a poor student and schoolyard bully, he found purpose in music, the German language, and judo, which taught him focus and discipline. Recruited by the KGB while studying law at Leningrad State University, he was posted in counterintelligence in 1985 to Dresden, East Germany. Lynch relates how his experience there after the fall of the Berlin Wall spurred Putin's resolve to restore Russian state power.

In 1990 Putin became deputy mayor to St. Petersburg reform Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and played a key role in Russia's liberal transformation. Resigning from the KGB, he produced significant accomplishments, became convinced of the need for strong state management of the economy, and on several occasions courageously defended liberal reform forces. Impressed with Putin's ability and character, Yeltsin brought him to Moscow in 1996, where he rose rapidly in Kremlin politics, including heading the FSB (the KGB's successor) and the National Security Council. This "time of troubles" witnessed Russia's economic collapse, and Putin was shaken by the specter of domestic anarchy. The Chechen crisis led Yeltsin to appoint Putin Prime Minister in August 1999, who responded to the terror bombings of September with a full-scale military assault that won him public acclaim. Putin grasped the public mood, promising Russians he would "wipe out the Chechen thugs wherever they are, right up to the last shithouse." By January 2000, when Yeltsin appointed him acting President until a March election, Putin basked in a 77% approval rating, handily winning election.

Inheriting an economy in shambles, Putin's economic reforms and rising oil prices generated 7% annual growth for eight years, doubled living standards, and repaid Russia's entire foreign sovereign debt. This economic success, however, relied on energy exports (30% of GDP), making Russia a petro state like Venezuela. Putin's concentration of power and government domination of the...

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