The Czar is Back - But why is the West worried?

Western commentators are gleefully pointing out that United Russia has suffered a “massive” 14 percentage points loss in the December 4 parliamentary election. But Putin’s party still took home half the votes, and they are streets ahead of their closest opponents, the Communists, who got a fraction over 19 percent. Barring an unlikely upset, Putin will be back in the saddle in March, haunting the West, or more precisely the Anglo-American axis, for many more years.

There are two reasons for this obsession: the first, contemporary and personal, and the second, historical.

Putin represents that moment when Russia was transformed from an economic basket case into a resurgent power. How can the West forgive him for that? Drunk with triumphalism after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they sat back and enjoyed the collapse of their old enemy, only to see Putin return and give all of them a collective hangover.

Tough talker

During the US presidential elections in late 2008, Hillary Clinton, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination, said, "He was a KGB agent, by definition he doesn't have a soul," to which Putin coolly replied, "I think that a head of state must have a head as a minimum." Devastating.

In October that year, after the war in the Caucasus, Putin famously described Western lackey Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia as “this corpse”.

Indeed, Putin’s steely gaze is truly presidential. For comparison, how about George W. Bush’s shifty, darting eyes, Tony Blair’s smarmy smile, or Barack Obama’s vacuous words?

Image counts

Then there’s the strongman syndrome. Where the clumsy Dick Cheney shoots his hunting partner in the face, Putin uses a tranquilizer to snag a Siberian tiger. (To those who allege his outdoorsy acts are choreographed, please have a look at a Siberian tiger and ask yourself if this 700 pound beast can be co-opted in a fake show). While British Prime Minister David Cameron is refused service by a waitress at an Italian cafe, the Russian leader makes news for his bare chested photos, making Russian beauty queens draft marriage proposals.

These are not the images people in Washington and London want to see. Putin makes Western leaders look inadequate. What they really want to see is a vodka-fortified Russian stuttering on TV. (Something along the lines of GOP candidate Rick Perry self-destructing in his New Hampshire speech.)

Russia first

You get the picture. Putin is sending a clear message to the West: Go ahead make my day. Saakashvili and his Pentagon backers both know – with the benefit of hindsight – the Russian leader doesn’t bluff. The Americans lost face and Saakashvili a good chunk of his country when he baited Putin in August 2008. And that is what irks the West most. Putin takes care of Russia’s interests the way they protect theirs.

The democracy drivel

The Economist earlier this month described Putin’s job swap with Dmitry Medvedev as making a mockery of Russian democracy. Really? How about George W. Bush’s stealing of the US Presidential election? Didn’t the US Supreme Court and the Governor of Florida (Jeb Bush, George W’s brother) collude to deny Al Gore of a win, in an election where Gore got more votes than Bush? In fact, if The Economist looks at its own backyard, it will find how Iraq sleaze was used by Gordon Brown’s backroom boys to oust Tony Blair as Prime Minister. But then that would be real journalism. In Britain investigative journalism means listening into people’s mobile phone conversations.

The Economist didn’t publish such idealistic tripe when Boris Yeltsin was selling off Russia’s crown jewels to rapacious Western transnationals and plunging the country into third world status. This was the same Yeltsin who ordered tanks against the Russian parliament. As tank rounds thudded into the Russian ‘White House’, killing dozens of deputies inside, TIME magazine described him as “the handsome Yeltsin”. Handsome in the eyes of which species?

What Putin’s detractors fail to see is that democracy is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end – which is economic prosperity and security for the people. Putin himself has said that he doesn’t want the kind of democracy we now see functioning in Iraq. Authoritarian prosperity as practised by much of Asia and Russia is a viable option to the crumbling democracies of the West. India, for instance, is an example of a country that is being held back from its great power destiny by the misuse of democracy.

Setting the record straight

Forget the machismo, let’s judge the man by his record and governance.

During Putin’s first stint in power (from 1999-2008), the Russian economy recorded an average growth of 7 per cent annually. During this period, industry grew 75 per cent, while real incomes more than doubled. The monthly salary of the man in the street went from $80 to almost $600. The IMF, which worked overtime to destroy Russia’s state owned corporations and banks, admits that from 2000 to 2006, the Russian middle class grew from 8 million to 55 million. The number of families living below the poverty line decreased from 30 per cent in 2000 to 14 per cent in 2008.

More significant was the impact on morale. Russians could once again hold their head high and the Russian military was able to operate out of its bases. Russian strategic bombers were back over the Atlantic. On one notable occasion, two Blackjack bombers (armed with nuclear tipped cruise missiles) flew past the unprotected southern flanks of the US, causing panic in the Pentagon.

All this was too much for the West, which was used to seeing Russia stagnating and shrinking.

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Nothing you do is good enough for us

When Putin’s nationalist economic policies paid off (the Russian stockmarket jumped 17 per cent the day he got the job in 1999), the Western media rubbished his achievements, and said Russia’s resurgence was solely due to its oil and gas. But what these keen observers don’t realise is that Russia has always had oil and gas. Didn’t Norway and Britain build their welfare state from North Sea oil profits? Then again you don’t believe much of what you read in the press anyway, do you?

Historically irreconcilable

There is an underlying historical reason why the West caricatures Russia. Starting from the Crimean War—in which czarist Russia’s serf army exposed the military and logistical immaturity of the ‘professional’ British army—to the Great Game in Central Asia, it is true that Russia and Britain have had incompatible interests. The Americans, who are basically Brits with an accent, now share the same historical prejudices of Britain. It’s simply the Anglo-American bloc vs the Slavic set. Unless the Muslims pour into Europe, the two are likely to be rivals for long.

The new Great Game

So when Putin talks about his plans to forge a Eurasian Union on the vast swathe of territory that used to be the Soviet Union to compete with the European Union and the US, it makes many Westerners nervous – the same folks who have moved the borders of NATO closer and closer to Moscow.

The Eurasian Union if it happens will create a global power bloc that would straddle one fifth of the earth's surface and unite almost 300 million people. "We have a great inheritance from the Soviet Union," Putin wrote in an article. "We inherited an infrastructure, specialised production facilities, and a common linguistic, scientific and cultural space. It is in our joint interests to use this resource for our development."

Putin has signalled that US unilateralism is over. So in the months ahead, expect more decisive action in areas such as Syria, the last of Moscow’s two remaining allies in the Middle East; the other being Algeria. Ties with India and China will be strengthened, and Germany will roll out the red carpet for the Russian leader, who incidentally speaks fluent German.

The Putin-Medvedev tandem has also signed major oil and gas pipeline deals with both Europe and China, effectively shutting out British and American oil majors, ensuring smoother energy flows into the global system. The success of Nord Stream (the Russian oil pipeline to Germany bypassing Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic republics) with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at its helm has been a body blow to Anglo-American hopes of clipping Russia’s oil hegemony in Europe.

James Bondski

Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB spy who defected to Britain in the year 2000 shortly after his retirement. He is said to have spilled a lot of secrets before his British handlers.

One day he was found dead, the cause of his death being plutonium poisoning – the first such murder in history. His killer has never been identified although the British have gone hoarse, crying it was a Russian job. They would like to tie the murder to the KGB and all the way up to Putin himself.

However, it seems the British are acting petulant not because Litvinenko died but the manner in which he died. If you believe the British allegation, then it holds that the fictitious James Bond may be British but the real Bond is Russian? Now, that’s unpardonable.

No place for weak leaders

Putin’s Russia may not be perfect. It has organised crime, the oligarchs still control a good chunk of the economy, Russian companies are yet to come up with world class consumer goods, and the Soviet era infrastructure needs an overhaul. It is precisely because of such problems that strong leaders are needed; a wishy washy Obama-like approach will ensure that nothing gets done. Russians have seen enough of the Yeltsin era chaos, and the last thing they want is a return to the days of lumpen democracy.

The Anglo-American axis and their hangers-on must realise that a foreign leader who protects his country’s interests is not a tyrant. Around 2300 years ago, Chanakya, the original master of statecraft and policy in India, said in the Arthashastra (Economics): “The foremost duty of a ruler is to keep his people happy and contented. The people are his biggest asset as well as the source of peril. They will not support a weak administration.”

Rakesh Krishnan Simha is a New Zealand-based writer. He has previously worked with leading Indian publications like Businessworld, India Today and Hindustan Times.

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