Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 111

RUSSIA AS THREAT

influences that have reportedly shaped his world
view.
Under the depressing circumstances that Russia
faces, it is not hard to see why a strong personality
like Putin would have such public appeal in Russia.
According to his primary biographer, Masha
Gessen, Putin was never a communist ideologue;
rather, his faith in communism was always shallow which, long before the fall of the Berlin Wall,
he had concluded was no longer plausible. Rather,
Putin placed his faith in Soviet institutions of the
central government and the historical resilience of
the Russian people.52 First and foremost, his loyalty
was to the KGB and the Soviet empire it defended.
Thus, when collapse came (as stated in his own
words), the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “the
greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth
century.

When Putin first came to power in 2000, he
exploited the disillusionment and weariness of the
Russian population, who had suffered under the
economic instability of the Yeltsin years, ruthlessly
reconcentrating power in a centralized state government.53 His efforts were abetted by a concomitant
surge in global oil prices that created a huge windfall
for the energy sector of the Russian economy and
helped the government’s fiscal position.54 In fact,
the sober, highly disciplined former KGB officer
successfully established a great measure of economic
stability, elevated Russia’s position in foreign affairs,
and extended its international influence on the
world stage.
His numerous perceived faults notwithstanding, Putin’s efforts have made him a national icon
because he restored in great measure a lively sense
of national pride to his countrymen, who had felt betrayed and humiliated by their nation’s rapid decline
from being a recognized superpower in the 1990s.55
Despite significant domestic dissent and rumblings
in recent years protesting his autocratic style and
efforts to undermine the institutions of pluralistic
democracy, he appears to be firmly in control of the
Russian state with widespread public support.

Influences on Putin’s Thinking
Putin may be a faithful reflection of wider Russian
attitudes. There appears to be broad cultural agreement among ethnic Russians that their nation either
grows or it dies. Putin apparently shares that world
view, which was shaped by a broad range of nationalist politicians and intellectuals, espousing a platform
of irredentism promoting expansion. Across the political spectrum, leading political thinkers have publicly
advocated ways to reconstitute the Russian empire,
ideas that have seemingly wide public support.56 As
far back as 1995, the late Nobel laureate Alexander
Solzhenitsyn called for the reconstitution of the
Slavic nations of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, along
with Kazakhstan in his book The Russian Question at
the End of the Twentieth Century.57 On the political
left, Anatoly Chubais, the liberal architect of Russia’s
pro-Western economic reforms of the 1990s, also
voices support for imperial expansion.58
(Photo courtesy of NocturneNoir)

MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2015

Opulent Chinese border gate into Russia at Manzhouli, Inner
Mongolia Province, 7 July 2009.
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