Russia: A totalitarian regime in thrall to a Tsar who's creating the new Facist empire
By JONATHAN DIMBLEBY - More by this author »
Last updated at 00:00am on 17th May 2008
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As ex-President Putin settles in to his new role as Prime Minister, he has every reason to congratulate himself.
After all, he has not only written the script for his constitutional coup d'etat, but staged the play and given himself the starring role as well.

Of course, he has given a walk-on role to Dmitry Medvedev, his personally anointed successor.

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The Russian bear: Despite a new President, Vladimir Putin remains in overall control

But the transfer of power from Putin to his Little Sir Echo, Medvedev, and the show of military strength with those soldiers and clapped-out missiles in Red Square on Victory Day which followed it last week, made it clear who is really in charge.

No decision of any significance for the Russian people or the rest of us will be made in the foreseeable future without the say - so of Medvedev's unsmiling master.

Just before he stood down as President, Putin declared: "I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning til night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results."

As he surveys the nation today he reminds me of that chilling poem by Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting, in which the dreaded bird sits at the top of a tall tree musing: "Now I hold all Creation in my foot - I kill as I please because it is all mine - I am going to keep things like this."

In a way he is right to be so self-satisfied. He has told the Russian people that life is much better than it was before he took over - and, after a journey of some 10,000 miles across the largest country in the world for a new book and BBC TV series, I am in no doubt that the majority of his subjects believe him.

I travelled from cities to towns to villages by road, rail and boat and met a great diversity of people - from St Petersburg glitterati to impoverished potato-pickers, from a witch who charms the sprites of the forest to the mountain herdsmen who worship fire and water, from oilmen to woodcutters.

It was an exhilarating and revelatory experience in a land of extremes. But it was also deeply disturbing.

Despite the fact that Putin's Russia is increasingly autocratic and irredeemably corrupt, the man himself - their born-again Tsar - is overwhelmingly regarded as the answer to the nation's prayers.

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Vladimir Putin welcomes his personally selected successor, Dmitry Medvedev

Russia has a bloody and tormented history. Its centuries of suffering - its brutalities, its wars and revolutions, culminating in the collapse of communism and the anarchic buffoonery of the Yeltsin years - have taken a terrible psychological toll.

Cynicism and fatalism which eat away at the human psyche have wormed their way into the very DNA of the Russian soul.

In a nation that has not tasted and - with very few exceptions - does not expect or demand justice or freedom, all that matters is stability and security.

And, to a degree, Putin has delivered these twin blessings. But the price has been exorbitant and the Russians have been criminally short-changed.

Putin boasts that since he came into office investment in the Russian economy has increased sevenfold (reaching $82.3 billion in 2007) and that the country's GDP has risen by more than 70 per cent.

Over the same period, average real incomes have more than doubled. But they started from a very low base and they could have done far better.

Nor is this growth thanks either to the Kremlin's leadership or a surge of entrepreneurial energy.

On the contrary, it is almost solely down to Russia's vast reserves of oil and gas.

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Ex-President Putin is overwhelmingly regarded as the answer to the nation's prayers

When Putin came to power, the world price of crude oil was $16 dollars a barrel; it has now soared to more than $120 dollars - and no one knows where or when this bonanza will end.

But this massive flow of funds into the nation's coffers has not been used "to share the proceeds of growth" with the people; to reduce the obscene gulf in income between the rich and poor.

It has not helped to resurrect a health service which is on its knees (and is ranked by the World Health Organisation as 130th out of the 190 countries of the UN), or to rebuild an education system which is so under-funded that the poor have to pay to get their children into a half-decent school or college.

It has not brought gas and running water to the villages where the peasants have been devastated by the collapse of the collectives, or even developed the infrastructure that a 21st century economy needs to compete with the rest of the world.

Russia may be a member of the G8 whose GDP (because of oil) should soon overtake the United Kingdom, but, in many ways, it is more like a Third World country.

Stricken with an epidemic of AIDS and alcoholism which both contribute to a male life expectancy of 58 years, the population is projected to shrink from 145 million to 120 million within a few decades.

So where has all the oil wealth gone? According to an Independent Experts Report, written by two former high-level Kremlin insiders who have had the courage to speak out, "a criminal system of government [has] taken shape under Putin" in which the Kremlin has been selling state assets cheaply to Putin's cronies and buying others assets back from them at an exorbitant price.

Among such dubious transactions the authors cite the purchase by the state-owned Gasprom (run until a few months ago by Dmitry Medvedev) of a 75 per cent share in an oil company called Sifnet (owned by Roman Abramovich, the oligarch who owns Chelsea Football Club).

In 1995 Abramovich, one of Putin's closest allies, paid a mere $100 million for Sifnet; ten years later, the government shelled out $13.7 billion for it - an astronomical sum and far above the going market rate.

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Putin claimed he worked 'like a galley slave' before he stepped down

Even more explosively, the authors claim the Kremlin has created a "friends-of-Putin" oil export monopoly, not to mention a secret "slush fund" to reward the faithful.

According to an analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Centre, which promotes greater collaboration between the U.S. and Russia, the report is "a bomb which, anywhere but in Russia, would cause the country to collapse".

In Britain such revelations would certainly have provoked mass outrage, urgent official inquiries and a major police investigation - if not the downfall of the government.

But because of Putin's totalitarian grasp on power (he has not only appointed his own Cabinet, which used to be the prerogative of the President, but will remain in charge of the nation's economy), there will be no inquiry.

You can forget any talk from the new President about "stamping out" corruption. This social and economic disease is insidious and rampant.

According to Transparency International - a global society which campaigns against corruption - Russia has become a world leader in the corruption stakes. Foreign analysts estimate that no less than $30 billion a year is spent to grease official palms to oil the wheels of trade and commerce.

But when you raise the subject, Russians shrug their shoulders: "What's the problem?" they retort.

"That's how the system works. It will never change."

And that is because everyone is at it. From corporations (including foreign investors who claim to have clean hands but cover their tracks by establishing local "shell" companies to pay the bribes) to the humblest individuals who buy their way out of a driving ban.

In a country where the "separation of powers" has become a bad joke, the law courts are no less corrupt.

Except perhaps for minor misdemeanours at local level, the judiciary is in thrall to the Kremlin and its satraps.

The threat of prosecution for tax fraud is the Kremlin's weapon of choice against anyone who dares to challenge its hegemony.

When Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, used his oil wealth to promote human rights and democracy, Putin detected a threat to his throne.

The oligarch was duly arrested and convicted of fraud. He now languishes in a Siberian jail where he is in the third year of an eight-year prison sentence.

None of this is a matter of public debate in Russia where the media has been muzzled by the Kremlin, their freedom of expression stifled by the government.

Almost every national radio and television station is now controlled directly or indirectly by the state, and the same applies to every newspaper of any influence.

In the heady days immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet empire, editors and reporters competed to challenge the mighty and to uncover scandal and corruption.

Now they cower from the wrath of the state and its agents in the police and the security services.

That diminishing number who have the courage to investigate or speak out against the abuses perpetrated by the rich and powerful very soon find themselves out of a job - or, in an alarming number of cases, on the receiving end of a deadly bullet.

Some 20 Russian journalists have been killed in suspicious circumstances since Putin came to office. No one has yet been convicted for any of these crimes.

Putin calls the system over which he presides "sovereign democracy". I think a better term is "cryptofascism" - though even the Kremlin's few critics in Russia recoil when I suggest this.

After all, their parents and grandparents helped save the world from Hitler - at a cost of 25 million Soviet lives. Nonetheless, the evidence is compelling.

The structure of the state - the alliance between the Kremlin, the oligarchs, and the security services - is awesomely powerful.

No less worryingly is popular distaste - often contempt - for democracy and indifference to human rights.

In the absence of any experience of accountability or transparency - the basic ingredients of an open society - even the most thoughtful Russians are prone to say: "Russia needs a strong man at the centre. Putin has made Russia great again. Now the world has to listen."

The new Prime Minister has brilliantly exploited the patriotism and latent xenophobia of the Russia people to unify them in the belief that they face a major threat from NATO and the United States.

This combination of national pride and insecurity has been fuelled by the America with its proposed deployment of missiles only a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border, allegedly to counter a nuclear threat from Iran.

No serious defence analyst believes this makes any strategic sense, while even impeccably pro-Western Russians recoil from this crass assertion of super-power hegemony by President Bush.

Similarly most Russians feel threatened - and humiliated - by the prospect that Ukraine and Georgia, once the most intimate allies of the Soviet Union, may soon be enfolded in the arms of NATO.

Georgia, which is struggling to contain a separatist movement that is openly supported by the Kremlin, has the potential to become a dangerous flashpoint in which the Western allies could only too easily become ensnared.

Does this mean - as some have argued - that we are about to face a new Cold War? I don't think so for a moment.

With communism consigned to "the dustbin of history", there is no ideological conflict of any significance. And there is now only one military superpower.

In comparison with America, Russia's armed forces are a joke. Only catastrophic stupidity on either side could lead to a nuclear confrontation.

But this does not mean that we can all breathe a sigh of relief and forget about the Bear.

An autocratic and resurgent Russia that feels bruised and threatened is an unstable beast.

The Kremlin's growing rapprochement with Beijing (the adversaries of a generation ago are now not only major trading partners, but conduct joint military exercises) shifts the balance of power in the world.

And as life on earth becomes less and less secure, with evermore people competing for a dwindling supply of vital resources, Russia, as an energy giant, is once again a big player on the world stage.

Make no mistake, we are in for a very bumpy ride.

• The second episode of Russia - A Journey With Jonathan Dimbleby is on BBC2 tomorrow at 10pm. A book to accompany the series is published by BBC Books

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
What is the current state of the global security system, and where is it headed? What challenges and opportunities do we face, and what dangers are emerging? How will various regions of the world be affected? How can the United States best act to help shape the future while protecting its security, interests, and values? How can the United States deal with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?

An intellectual history of U.S. national security thinking since the end of the fall of the Soviet Union, Seeing the Elephant is an attempt to see the evolving international security system and Americas role in it through the eyes of more than fifty perceptive authors who have analyzed key aspects of the unfolding postCold War drama. Its premise is that, like the blind men in the Buddhist fable who each feels a different part of an elephant, these authors and their assessments, taken together, can give us a better view of where the world is headed.

From the Publisher
"Drs. Binnendijk and Kugler have rendered a genuine intellectual service by their comprehensive appraisal of the most significant contemporary literature on geostrategic issues. Their volume should be of enormous value not only to students and academics but especially to policymakers. It provides an incisive overview of the main directions of America's strategic thought." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter

"The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union caught most experts by surprise. The ensuing changes in the global landscape have been as surprising and unexpected as the end of the Cold War itself. This extraordinary book is perhaps the best synthesis of the intellectual efforts aimed at making sense of this new world and at distilling its consequences for decisionmakers. Seeing the Elephant is bound to become an indispensable reference for many years to come." -- Moisés Naà m, editor in chief, Foreign Policy

"Seeing the Elephant is a terrific and timely book. It is the ideal starting point for anyone interested in national security strategy who does not have time to digest the more than fifty books summarized and distilled here. Better yet, the authors have provided a clear and accessible analytical framework that will help readers identify and remember the big ideas and important debates in the national security literature past, present, and future." -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

". . . a major work providing an important intellectual history of U.S. national security thinking since the fall of the Soviet Union. . . .a foundation work central to any thorough understanding of U.S. foreign relations today." -- The Midwest Book Review, March 2007

Product Description
What is the current state of the global security system, and where is it headed? What challenges and opportunities do we face, and what dangers are emerging? How will various regions of the world be affected? How can the United States best act to help shape the future while protecting its security, interests, and values? How can the United States deal with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?

An intellectual history of U.S. national security thinking since the end of the fall of the Soviet Union, Seeing the Elephant is an attempt to see the evolving international security system and Americas role in it through the eyes of more than fifty perceptive authors who have analyzed key aspects of the unfolding postCold War drama. Its premise is that, like the blind men in the Buddhist fable who each feels a different part of an elephant, these authors and their assessments, taken together, can give us a better view of where the world is headed.

From the Publisher
"Drs. Binnendijk and Kugler have rendered a genuine intellectual service by their comprehensive appraisal of the most significant contemporary literature on geostrategic issues. Their volume should be of enormous value not only to students and academics but especially to policymakers. It provides an incisive overview of the main directions of America's strategic thought." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter

"The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union caught most experts by surprise. The ensuing changes in the global landscape have been as surprising and unexpected as the end of the Cold War itself. This extraordinary book is perhaps the best synthesis of the intellectual efforts aimed at making sense of this new world and at distilling its consequences for decisionmakers. Seeing the Elephant is bound to become an indispensable reference for many years to come." -- Moisés Naà m, editor in chief, Foreign Policy

"Seeing the Elephant is a terrific and timely book. It is the ideal starting point for anyone interested in national security strategy who does not have time to digest the more than fifty books summarized and distilled here. Better yet, the authors have provided a clear and accessible analytical framework that will help readers identify and remember the big ideas and important debates in the national security literature past, present, and future." -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

". . . a major work providing an important intellectual history of U.S. national security thinking since the fall of the Soviet Union. . . .a foundation work central to any thorough understanding of U.S. foreign relations today." -- The Midwest Book Review, March 2007

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
A New Way to Look at Canada and the World, November 15, 2004
By James McCormick (Canada) - See all my reviews

Any serious discussion of the central role of English traditions in Canada is fraught with twin perils: mindless claims of racism/imperialism and founding-nation chauvinism. The Anglosphere Challenge is something very different. It's an exciting exploration of a new way to look a modern global culture and its Canadian flavour, keeping both perils at bay. Leading off with a chapter on the dynamic and converging nature of modern technology (cf. Vernor Vinge's The Singularity), the author makes the case that cultural dynamism and flexibility will be at a premium in the 21st century. His claim for the future pre-eminence of the common law countries (irrespective of their citizens' personal origins) is based on the Anglosphere's history of adapting successfully (and first) to technological and political change.
Bennett shows how respect for the individual, and the effective separation of religious, political and economic powers have a very deep roots in the English-speaking world. Before the creation of Canada and the United States. Before the English Civil War. Before the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps even before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. In the roots of the English common law, we can find the fundamental principle of equal treatment before the law: male or female, lord or commoner. A virtuous circle ensued, freeing individuals from the constraints and predation of the powerful ... in ways impossible in continental Europe let alone other parts of the globe.The history (as opposed to the myths) of this era are eye-opening. And the great strength of the Anglosphere Challenge is the firm grounding in modern scholarship. The book's annotated bibliography is a gem.

Using the metaphor of concentric rings, Bennett sees the Anglosphere as an inner ring (the industrialized common law countries), an outer ring of countries strongly influenced by English language and law, and finally, a periphery of countries exposed to the language and law indirectly, through the international institutions (in trade and politics). A second major contribution is Bennett's outline of the "cultural nations" of the Anglosphere. These "cultural nations," often identified in the turmoil of 17th and 18th century England, cross modern national borders. They provide a more effective tool for understanding the politics and behaviour of modern Anglosphere countries. Finally, Bennett offers the term "network commonwealth" to describe the economic, social, and intellectual connections between Anglosphere nations that will largely overtake (but not replace) the current sovereign nations. Anglosphere nations like Canada, especially in the Internet era, will find themselves quickly and easily co-operating to handle the innovations and challenges of the 21st century.

Canadians will find their past, present and future discussed in the chapters of this book. Our lives have been profoundly affected by the two titans of the English-speaking world, the UK and US. Bennett provides a cultural context for this influence that readers from this country will find fascinating. A book that will make you think. A companion website offers sneak peek at the book plus updates on concepts and sources: anglospherechallenge.com.

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The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover)
by James C. Bennett


35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
Janus-Faced Book Studies the Past to Illuminate the Future, November 15, 2004
By Lexington Green - See all my reviews
James Bennett popularized the term "Anglosphere", which refers to those communities which speak English and share in the cultural practices and institutions inherited from England, e.g. common law, parliamentary democracy, highly developed civil society, private rather than communal notions of property, entrepreneurial rather than state-led economic development, relative openness to innovation and to immigration. These characteristics have been developing in the English-speaking world for at least a millennium, and represent a distinct sub-civilization within the larger West. Bennett draws on the work of Alan MacFarlane and David Hackett Fischer to demonstrate the uniqueness of the civilization which developed in England and which it in turn passed on to its daughter polities, most importantly the United States. This Anglosphere civilization has been the path-breaker for modernity, initiating modern democratic institutions and the industrial and subsequent economic revolutions. Note that Bennett does not offer this analysis in any spirit of triumphalism. This is not the old "Whig theory" of history, since Bennett correctly sees that these developments were the result of fortunate historical contingency. Bluntly, those of us who live in the Anglosphere are not better than anybody else, just lucky to be here. Bennett predicts that the Anglosphere will continue to be the cutting edge civilization in terms of economic and political developments into the future. In particular, the existence of the Web and cheap air and sea transport has already created a unitary Anglophone economic and cultural space, which will develop further as the highest value-added products become increasingly information-intensive, placing a premium on linguistic and cultural commonalities. Bennett offers predictions concerning the institutional form that this new economic reality will call forth, which he labels a "network commonwealth". Bennett believes that this future political form, and a dense and robust underlying civil society, present the best hope for coping with the hazards presented by emerging technology, and obtaining the maximum benefits of that technology. Moreover, Bennett offers numerous, concrete policy proposals to further the development of this emerging Anglosphere network commonwealth, in the areas of trade, immigration, defense procurement and military cooperation. Bennett's book is the result of years of reflection on these historical and contemporary issues. This short paragraph does not even scratch the surface of a book that has many novel insights and profound ideas, and which opens up numerous lines for further inquiry. Five stars is really not a sufficient rating. This is one of the three or four most important books I have read in recent years to understand the world we are living in, why it is the way it is, where we are going, and how we can create a future worth living in.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
A profound work, October 16, 2004
By Mark Frazier (Washington DC Area) - See all my reviews

For more than two decades, Jim Bennett has been one of the country's most acute thinkers on the frontiers of technology and cultural/political trends. The Anglosphere Challenge shows the strengths of civil society responses to growing state incapacities and failures. Emerging "networked commonwealths", he foresees, will advance universal values of freedom while accelerating innovation across new realms of human endeavor. This book is a storehouse of wisdom and hope for not only for those in the Anglosphere, but for people of all heritages and backgrounds seeking to live in an open world.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Whether fought for commercial or strategic concessions or even moral reasons, whether little-known or well-publicized, America's "small wars"--against, say, the Barbary pirates and the rebellious Boxers--played a large part in the development of what historian Max Boot does not hesitate to call an American empire. All arguments to the contrary, Boot insists, America has never been an isolationist power; it has "been involved in other countries' internal affairs since at least 1805," when American marines landed on the shores of Tripoli, and it has "never confined the use of force to those situations that meet the narrow definition of American interests preferred by realpolitikers and isolationists." Closely examining the record of those small wars, which far outnumber major conflicts, Boot argues that Americans have a historic duty to deliver foreign nations from aggression, even to intervene in civil wars abroad, especially if the product is greater freedom--for, he writes, "a world of liberal democracies would be a world much more amenable to American interests than any conceivable alternative." Readers may take issue with some of Boot's conclusions, but they merit wide discussion, especially in a time when small--and perhaps large--wars are looming. Boot's book is thus timely, and most instructive. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
As editorial features editor of the Wall Street Journal, Boot (Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench) has a reputation as a fire-breathing polemicist and unabashed imperialist. This book addresses America's "small wars" in chronological order, dividing the action from 1801 to the present into three sections ("Commercial Power," "Great Power" and "Superpower") to argue that "small war missions are militarily doable" and are now in fact a necessity. Beginning with a description of going to work on September 11 as the World Trade Center tragedy displaced the WSJ newsroom, Boot quickly gets down to some historical detail: from the U.S. expedition against the Barbary pirates to violent squabbles in Panama, Samoa, the Philippines, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Beirut, Grenada, Somalia and Bosnia. Examples of wars "that were fought less than `wholeheartedly,' " of wars "without exit strategies" and wars "in which U.S. soldiers act as `social workers' " are decried. Each of the 15 short chapters might have been the focus of a separate in-depth book, so Boot's take is once over very lightly indeed. While America's and the world's small wars certainly seem more and more related, Boot's historical descriptions are too thin to provide a solid foundation for relating one war to another. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.