Leading Russia to Failure
Garry Kasparov, a world-renowned chess champion, once said “In chess we have rules, and clearly Putin doesn’t care about rules because what he’s been doing now in Ukraine, it violates international law.” Back in 2005, Kasparov ran for the Russia presidency on a Western framework that confronted Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian control over the Russian political agenda and economy. Yet Putin, obsessed with his totalitarian regime and refusing to accept any political foes or challengers, did everything in his power to prevent Kasparov’s run. Kasparov would discover boulders and cows littering airport runways on his way to campaign speeches, power shortages in his campaign auditoriums and a myriad of other obstacles that consistently impeded his campaign. Poor Kasparov! Exhausted, he discontinued his run, feeling checkmated by the oppressive “democratic” policies of the Russian government. Putin, when assuming office in 2000, pledged to protect “the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, the freedom of the mass media and the rights of private property.” Did he deliver? Definitely not. Putin has plagued Russia in the past 15 years with his broken promises, suppression of the people’s voices, non-pluralistic democracy (if that term even exists), unsustainable economic growth largely based on oil companies and inconsiderate stance towards other countries, forcing many to ask the question: Is Russia on the right track?
When his control over the Russian people comes into direct conflict with the economic or social well-being and progress of the nation, Vladimir Putin seems to prioritize the former. This aggressive desire for power is ironic, given that Putin spent his 1990s humbly executing the commands and pleas of his bosses. Putin uses his grip on mass media as a tool for exercising psychological eminence over the Russian people. This corrupt mindset permeates through many of Putin’s political decisions, most notably the passing of a constitutional amendment extending the presidential term from four to six years as well as the Putin-Medvedev tandem. Until Putin allows political and economic competition and ensures transparency in government decisions, Russia will continue to fall behind European nations in most standards including the life expectancy of its citizens and fail to secure sustainable relationships with Western countries. And until that happens—until Putin annuls Russia’s status as a “petrostate”—Russia will move farther and farther away from development and progress.
What exactly has Putin done in the previous few years? On the basis of outdated Soviet ideology, Putin attacked Crimea in an effort to assert Russia’s dominance in the countries of post-Soviet Eurasia. Putin bewildered President Bush at a 2008 NATO summit in Romania when he proclaimed, “Ukraine is not even a country.” Rather than isolating Ukraine from its developing relations with the West, Putin must learn the lesson Ukraine has learned so long ago: Westernization, or more specifically a diversification of the Russian economy and a friendlier attitude towards other countries, is the only way to elevate Russia from the ashes of the Soviet Union. The Crimean Conflict, in essence, served as a culmination, or rather a vivid representation, of Putin’s conquests in Georgia and Ukraine in the years before. In both cases, Putin desperately tried to install pro-Russian leaders and delegitimize that country’s connections with the West but failed because of an overwhelming backlash from the United States and European nations.
Year after year, Russia is losing support on the global stage. Putin, though he tried in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, has done nothing strategically in the past years to secure an alliance with any European nation or China, instead only ruining Russia’s image in pursuit of energy predominance. Refusing to honor the interests of others, Putin has challenged the borders of autonomous nations, in July off the coast of Alaska, later that month near the Baltic states and finally next to the Turkish border last November. Putin will not beat the Islamic State by himself, nor will he advance the Russian military front by carelessly violating international law and using the territories of his allies as his chessboard. The United States must therefore consolidate its position in the fight against ISIL in the Middle East and realize that our ignorance of Russia’s actions feeds Putin’s egoism and augments his sense of dominance and power.
I pity Russia, because I wish that its people could stand up and stop succumbing to the government’s abusive policies. And yet I love Russia, because in the face of a tumultuous and oppressive political climate, its people have not given up; its people have not lost hope; its people have survived the impossible. I beg Putin to stop testing the limits of the Russian people, because one day, as it has happened in a multitude of other political scenes, it will backfire; the Russian people won’t stand it anymore.