Watching Kremlin decision-making and Putin's own most recent speeches, convinced more and more that we are seeing impact of Putin still being in the big chair in 2022. Remember some sideline track 2 conversations back in the mid-2000s with Russian interlocutors concerned ... 1/
that Russian system had no mechanism for regular succession apart that hoping that elections/constitutional requirements would require it. Admiration for both Chinese and Japanese systems which provided for rotation of leadership. (Of course, China has moved away from this). 2/
But idea was that you had a system in place that provided for retirement (without loss of privilege or influence). Mexican system under the PRI also provided for this. Concern was that Russian system was creating perverse incentives ... 3/
for a leader to stay in office, and that over time you'd lose the fresh perspective and responsiveness that leadership change brings; also you had to create expectations among elite that there would be regular opportunities for someone to make it to sit in the big chair. 4/
More and more, I have come to conclude that sequencing of political reform is critical: first, get provisions for regular succession and principle that former leaders retain freedom and privileges so as to avoid perception that only options for leaving presidency ... 5/
are the coffin or jail. Then strengthen the election system. Even Ukraine was having issues with this--the imprisonment of former PM Tymoshenko after losing 2009 elections to Yanukovych, moves to prosecute former president Poroshenko (even w/ justifiable evidence of corruption).
Georgia facing this problem in that track records of ex-presidents (death, deposition, jail, etc.) doesn't incentivize current office holders to accept loss at ballot box. 7/
Back to Russia: Medvedev had represented a generational shift and different perspective. If he had served his two terms, a different person in office today ... would we have different outcomes? Certainly would we have desire to go back to refight outcomes of 1989-1991? 8/

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More from @FPRI_Orbis

Mar 18
With renewed interest in the 1989 moment & @FukuyamaFrancis's "end of history" thesis (regretfully published in @TheNatlInterest rather than @FPRI Orbis), how have those arguments resonated on our pages? 1/
In 1993 @JoshuaMuravchik raised the question: "whether strong political leadership or outside influence can succeed in implanting democracy in venues where the objective conditions for it seem unpromising." 2/ sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
In 2009 @JeremiSuri critiqued the popular reduction of Fukuyama's thesis: that "tides of global change inevitably brought societies to embrace U.S. ideas and interests discouraged serious strategic thought, 3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 18
If you haven't read it yet, the interview of Turkish president Erdogan's advisor Ibrahim Kalin with the @BBC on the Putin-Erdogan call (he listened in) ... 1/ bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Kalin asserts that Putin sounded clear and concise and that it was a normal conversation, suggesting that there was nothing strange or out of the ordinary. (Given the constant contact between the two leaders, Kalin should have a baseline for noticing something ...) 2/
Kalin suggests that Putin has limited his demands and hints that some of them can be fulfilled largely symbolically. Kalin sees opportunity for face-saving statements that would allow Putin to claim success (especially around 'de-Naziification'). 3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 17
Far be it from me to dispute @RadioFreeTom, but a quibble. Russian casualties and losses reveal not only incompetence, poor logistics and lack of motivation, but the realities of Ukraine's defense preparations. U.S./NATO in Afghanistan is an apples/oranges comparison. 1/
The Taliban never had the ability to contest Afghan airspace, meaning not only U.S./NATO control of the skies but also ability to airlift wounded and keep casualties low. Taliban had no air defense systems, planes, tanks, armored vehicles, patrol boats. 2/
The Taliban had the tools of an insurgency: mortars and short-range rockets, IEDs, truck and motorcycle attacks, suicide bombers. Plus no major security alliance able to keep up a continuous resupply effort of equipment. They went after "soft" targets. 3/
Read 6 tweets
Mar 17
I have my students watch @micheleflournoy's 2019 Drell lecture & wrestle with @josef_joffe's hub and spokes concept for the current international order. Watching the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, points both make have real salience. 1/
Despite all the hype about China's rise and multipolarity, the U.S. still sits at the central node of the global economy & when united with key partners in Europe & Asia, can "excommunicate" even a major country from that system. Moscow gambled on its indispensability ... 2/
to the world economy to shield itself, a gamble that so far has not paid off. China's willingness to shield Russia has also been far more hesitant that Russia expected (one of my "Vladimir's Delusions"). 3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 16
Comparison of two speeches: Zelensky making his case and proposing the "U-24", in essence a G-20 but of the democracies, committed to taking action. Putin doubling down and essentially taking Russia out of the Western system towards civilizational isolation. 1/
Can we reconcile these speeches with the draft proposals for compromises to end the fighting? Zelensky's U-24 does not necessarily require Ukraine in NATO and could be compatible with some versions of neutrality. A neutral status that allows for "association" with NATO. 2/
Putin's speech, at first read, doesn't sound like any acceptance of compromise. It did acknowledge neutrality on the agenda, but otherwise was a call to stand fast and accept suffering for the sake of Russian "survival." 3/
Read 6 tweets
Mar 16
As we discuss the nuts and bolts of what a possible compromise settlement might look like, we also have a once in a lifetime opportunity to finally sort out the lingering ambiguity in Euro-Atlantic treaties. 1/
NATO & EU maintain they are open to any "European" state who wishes to join and can contribute. Back in the Cold War days, it was understood that there was an effective geopolitical border to Europe. The 1975 Helsinki conference offered a vision from Vancouver to Vladivostok. 2/
Differing conceptions: geographic Europe, cultural & political Europe-never sorted out-and in post Cold War conditions, countries were terrified of being defined as "out" of Europe & rendered ineligible for membership. 3/
Read 7 tweets

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