“Encouraging the emergence of a full-fledged democracy” is an essential component of a successful Russia strategy for the Obama administration, argues Democratic analyst Samuel Charap. The U.S. must also make Russia a part of the solution to international problems and be prepared to confront the challenges presented by both an assertive Russia and a declining Russia.
“The legacy of the 1990s, when the word democracy gained a negative connotation among the Russian population,” will complicate the task, he concedes. But “a Russia that is more integrated and embedded in the international system will be a more democratic Russia and a democratic Russia will likely be a more reliable partner in addressing issues of mutual concern.”
But pressing the reset button on U.S.-Russia relations is easier said than done.
“Aggrieved, authoritarian Russia presents the world’s democracies with challenges aplenty,” writes Daniel Kimmage, an independent consultant and a senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute. “Conventional wisdom on Russia has been consistently, and sometimes catastrophically, wrong,” he notes, insisting that the US should rethink before it resets the relationship.
Reassessment should include an appreciation that the real sources of power in Russia’s selectively capitalist kleptocracy are not the formal state institutions and agencies, but networks of influence groups:
They form an invisible power structure parallel to the imposing marble ministries. They control assets, vie with other groups for assets, and tug the mechanisms of state power to further their interests. The influence they wield secures their hold on assets in the absence of real property rights.
[His article is adapted from a longer essay to appear in "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians," a special report to be published in June by Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia.]
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