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.The postcommunist model is traditional.Oligarchs and their retinuesare granted privileges at the people’s expense in return for taxes, tributeand fealty to the national leader.They can assert claims to property, engagein business, act as entrepreneurs, buy positions in the Duma, the FederalSecurity Service (FSB) and bureaucracy, grab state assets (privatization),exert power, and misbehave (from the standpoint of Western norms) aslong as they refrain from challenging the leader.53 The constitution and precedent allow the president to command without a party, and control, asit has always been in Russia, is mostly informal.54The characteristics displayed by the Russian system depend significantlyon circumstances.When the state is vulnerable as it was during War Com-munism, NEP, and for diverse reasons throughout much of Stalin’s reign,it turns to the secret police to subdue enemies and sometimes to mobilizeproductive effort.But when it is courting new oligarchs, when candidates aresubmissive, when defense isn’t pressing and the people are quiescent, auto-crats are more permissive.This adaptability has allowed authoritarianism tosurvive over the centuries.Of course, because Russian autocracy is incom-patible with an authentic rule of law, there is always the danger of oppressionwhen oligarchs run amok, or the people are driven to insurrection.Autocracy remains the gravitational center of politics in Russia, butbecause our public culture prefers to ignore it, it is valuable to have anP1: FCW0521857449c10Printer: cupusbwCUNY475B/Rosefielde0 521 85744 9November 5, 200614:1214The Reconfiguration of National Wealth and Powerauthority like Yevgeniy Primakov, a former prime minister and now pres-ident of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry admit it.Hedisagreed with the criticism of Russia drifting toward authoritarianismexpressed by Human Rights Watch in its 2005 annual report.“I have abso-lutely nothing against authoritarianism,” Primakov said in an exclusiveinterview with Ekho Moskvy radio on January 20, 2006.“Authoritarian-ism should not always be associated with Stalin’s practice.For me it doesnot necessarily mean party leadership or throwing people to jail,” he wenton to say.“Authoritarianism should not affect freedom of speech.But a statecannot exist without fulfilment of the orders and administrative discipline,”he added.55Today, Russia is a vulnerable and brittle autocracy; a system in whicholigarchs and siloviki tirelessly scheme to place their private agendas abovethe ruler’s.At the current juncture the nation appears to be simultaneouslybeset by three perils: obstreperous servitors, poverty, and an oppressiveregime.Russia Will RearmThe strategy of the Soviet regime was to impose Spartan living standardson its population in order to maximize military preparedness.Since theend of the Soviet period, Russia has continued to economically subjugateits people, but for a decade or so the Russian leadership gave precedence togreed over martial power.An economy structured to provide maximum military strength (the Spar-tans of our time) has lost sight of its raison d’etre – military strength.Wemust expect that it will regain it.This is the path of least resistance for theRussians.To try to become a Western-style consumer society is proving tobe very difficult, and it’s increasingly clear that Russia won’t ever be verygood at it – the West and even the Chinese will always exceed it.Hence,Russia is likely to go where it has been before and where it has historicallybeen quite effective – a structurally militarized state.In fact, the CIA’s anal-ysis to the contrary not withstanding – the Soviets have since the 1930snever led the United States in the rate of increase in living standards; rather,the only economic success the Kremlin has ever achieved is mass weaponsproduction.Russia must be expected to find a security strategy keyed to its economicpotential.Markets which were supposed to have been vehicles for servingconsumers, are being gradually harnessed for the development of a fifth-generation, full spectrum military capable of contesting with America byP1: FCW0521857449c10Printer: cupusbwCUNY475B/Rosefielde0 521 85744 9November 5, 200614:1Geopolitical Aspirations of the Nations2152010.56 The potential of Russia’s economic system is large enough to support the full spectrum, fifth generation rearmament scheduled 2005–2010, ifPutin restores the Genshtab’s and Ministry of Defense’s control over theFederation’s natural resources as is currently happening, because the Sovietera military industrial complex is largely intact, and missing pieces can bereassembled with funds from the natural resource sector that the Yukos affairand the subsequent Gasprom-Sibneft merger will ultimately provide.The armed forces sought by President Putin greatly exceed the sizerequired for optimum security.They will be sufficient to restore the Rus-sian Federation’s undisputed status as a superpower, but only a junior onethat provides little tangible benefit because the economic model lacks thecommercial base to compete technologically with America.Moreover, fullspectrum rearmament will strengthen authoritarianism, nail the coffin shuton democratic free enterprise, starve civilian investment, hamper globalintegration and bind Russia to Soviet-style impoverishment, after the oilbubble bursts.“For Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister SergeiIvanov,” writes Stephen Blank, “modernization, not reform characterizesdefense policy [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]