I definitely don't agree 100% with all of the views expressed in this piece but, it does make for an interesting reading.

Russia’s Darkness at Noon
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 22, 2005

A new resurgence of nostalgia for Joseph Stalin is reverberating throughout Russia. As recently reported by the Telegraph, new monuments in several Russian communities are being erected to honor the genocidal Soviet dictator who liquidated millions of Soviet citizens. What is the significance here? Is Russia returning to the dark ages of Soviet totalitarianism? Is this phenomenon connected to Vladimir Putin trying to make himself an absolute ruler? Or will it be impossible for the genie of Russian democracy to be put back in the bottle? To discuss these and other questions with us today, Frontpage has assembled a distinguished panel. We are honored to be joined by:

Richard Pipes, a Professor Emeritus at Harvard who is one of the world's leading authorities on Soviet history. He is the author of 19 books, the most recent being his new autobiography Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger;

Fredo Arias-King, the founder of the academic quarterly Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, based in Washington. He is part of the campaign, headed by Václav Havel, to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, and serves as advisor to the democratic forces in Cuba, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova. In the latter country, he received in 2004 the highest honor awarded by the democratic opposition, the “Inima de Aur” (Golden Heart). He the author of two books, the latest of which, Transiciones a la democracia: Las lecciones de Europa del Este, is forthcoming in 2005;

Yuri Yarim-Agaev, a former leading Russian dissident and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Upon arriving in the United States after his forced exile from the Soviet Union, he headed the New York-based Center for Democracy in the USSR. He was among the first people inside the former Soviet Union to be asked by US officials to assess the work of Radio Liberty;

Dick Morris, an adviser to Bill Clinton for 20 years and the author, most recently, of Rewriting History. He worked for Boris Yeltsin through his work with President Clinton and for a slate of anti-communist congressmen in Russia in the last Russian election (and won 12 of 14). He also worked for Yushchenko in the Ukraine and for Yuri Rosca, the Christian Democrat, in Moldova;

and

Ramsey Flynn, the winner of a National Magazine Award for reporting and a former staff writer for the Washingtonian and chief editor of Baltimore magazine. He is the author of the new book Cry from the Deep: The Submarine Disaster That Riveted the World and Put the New Russia to the Ultimate Test.

FP: Richard Pipes, Fredo Arias-King, Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Dick Morris and Ramsey Flynn, welcome to Frontpage Symposium. It is a privilege to be in such esteemed company.

Mr. Morris, let me begin with you. In your recent piece Russia Next, you note that while Putin “seeks to bring down a second iron curtain around the former Soviet Union, he overreaches and misjudges the power of liberty and freedom to win the souls of men and women.” In your judgement, despite Putin’s attempt to bring Russia back to the dark ages, he will not be able to “stop the scent of freedom from arousing the dreams of liberty. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men may not be able to put Russia back together again.”

You clearly see the forces of democratization as being too powerful to allow a situation where Russia will return to its dark past. In this context, how do you see the revival of Stalin’s cult? What is your reading of this phenomenon?

Morris: My quote about the forces of democracy being too advanced to permit a return to authoritarianism is a few years old. Now, I am not so sure. I am amazed and appalled by how easily Putin has castrated democracy by disempowering the governors and eliminating single member districts, both key to democracy.

I do think, however, that Henry Kissinger is right and that Russia is always expanding or contracting. She cannot exit in stasis. Composed of so many different nationalities and ethnic groups and religions, the centrifugal forces are so severe that only an expansionist Russia can hope to hold them in line. Anyone on the "front lines" of Russian expansion tends to rebel.

So I do hope that the democratic reform movements sweeping Georgia, Ukraine, and Krygestan will hasten the forces of implosion in Russia, possibly leading to a reversal of the Putin totalitarianism.

The other place to look for hope is in Russia's dependence on oil for almost all of its prosperity. Russia has functionally become a Saudi Arabia with a population. In the US, in particular in California, there are very bold and very important efforts to promote hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The mainstream media hasn't covered it much, but by 2010 Schwarznegger, using state, federal, and private funds, plans to convert gas stations all along the state's interstate highways to offering hydrogen to motorists. Anyone living near an interstate can travel on hydrogen. And the state will produce the hydrogen and subsidize the purchase of hydrogen cars. Since 20% of all new cars purchased in the US are in California, this tail has a real chance to wag the dog.

FP: If the Schwarznegger plan is actually realistic that sounds fantastic. The day we stop depending on the Saudis and their oil is the day we can start pummelling them in the manner they deserve best. That will be a good day.

In any case, the spotlight is definitely on the approaching collision between the democracy reform movements in Krygestan, Georgia and Ukraine and Putin’s attempt at re-Brezhnevization – or does this term accurately reflect the developments? Mr. Arias-King, which way do you think this will go? And how does the resurrection of Stalin’s monuments in various Russian communities fit into this? As a Russian, I am well familiar with many of my peoples’ yearnings to be enslaved by an authoritarian father figure. But this is really getting pathological. What gives here?

Arias-King: Thank you. The company I am with here reminds me of the Sesame Street song "One of These Things Is Not Like the Others." I am particularly honored to be with two of my teachers, Pipes and Morris.

When conducting research on the origins of the ChK, NKVD and the KGB, I cited some of Pipes's works to trace a Russian yearning for order and institutionalized fear to well before the Bolshevik coup d'etat of 1917. It is certainly a pity that even after all of Stalin's crimes have been know ad nauseam, starting with Gorbachev's de-Stalinization campaign from 1986-87, some of the latest VTsIOM public opinion polls show a yearning for the Soviet times, and even for Stalin personally. I was in Moscow recently and actually met up with the founder of public opinion research in the Soviet Union, Tatyana Zaslavskaya, and asked her the same question you are asking now. This towering architect of perestroika mentioned she is actually writing a few things on this, and I cannot wait to read what sociological forces she has detected this time. We always do tend to suspect the "slave soul", but maybe there are other factors at play.

I am right now at Harvard actually, soon I will give a talk at the Davis Center for Russian Studies on the "Orange People," those democracy activists and their networks that are overthrowing despotic and corrupt regimes in various parts of the former Soviet bloc. I know many of them, and will show their pictures. One of the takeaways of the talk is: Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Despite the current mood in Russia, I share Morris's optimism that the situation is not lost.

I actually met Morris in Mexico, when he came to help a little known democracy activist named Vicente Fox, out of the goodness of his heart, since as he said then, "It is a contest between good and evil." Our opponent was a Mexican Putin: a former secret police chief with a long history of financial and human crimes who had the backing of the budget, the television, the state machinery and the apathy of the population. Our defeat was so certain (I was then handling the foreign relations of the Fox campaign) that my fellow Sovietologist Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Robert Zoellick got candidate George W. Bush to endorse the Mexican Putin, despite our loud protests. Now Rice seems to be once again making her "realist" mistakes.

Ukraine also became liberated despite Putin and despite all the obstacles. In Moldova, the democrats did not win outright but they managed to civilize the communist despot and forced him Westward.

Putin is vulnerable. In this last trip to Moscow, I was struck by the fervor of renewed democracy activism, which I had not seen since the early 1990s. The youth branches of the two main democratic parties (Yabloko and SPS) are officially cooperating, laying the groundwork for their mother parties to do the same. The democrats lost the Duma, but this Putin Duma is losing the trust of the population.

Russia never fails to attract the world's attention, and we ain't seen nothin' yet.

FP: Dr. Pipes, do you share the optimism of Mr. Morris and Mr. Arian-King? Perhaps it is true that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men may not be able to put authoritarian Russia back together again?

Pipes: There is no doubt that Russia, after a brief flirtation with democracy and the free market, is steadily retreating toward autocracy and the managed market. This trend is due not only to the political ambitions of President Putin and his inner circle, but to the wishes of the Russian public at large. Opinion polls indicate that the population identifies democracy with anarchy and yearns above all for security (poriadok) which it identifies with autocratic rule. It wants a dictator to take care of politics and economics in order to free it to pursue its private interests.

When President Putin on April 25 in his address to the Federal Assembly declared the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest political disaster of the 20th Century he was articulating widely held beliefs. One must bear in mind that the 20th century was the century of two devastating world wars, of Lenin and Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. Yet in his mind these horrors all pale by comparison with the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of its ruling Communist dictatorship.

The return of Stalin's popularity is in line with this mode of thinking. Stalin was and remains popular for two reasons: he made Russia a respected and feared world power, and he was ruthless. Ruthlessness has long been regarded by Russians as an attribute of a "good" ruler: such a ruler must be "groznyi" as was Ivan IV, the deranged despot who has always been held in high esteem by the Russian people.

I find these developments most discouraging. Democracy and human rights in Russia today enjoy the support of at most 10 percent of the citizenry. The rest either despises them or does not care. There is a heavy burden of history that accounts for this. It will not be easy to cast it off.

FP: Mr. Agaev, our panel seems to differ, as some are pessimistic and others holding on to some optimism. What are your thoughts?

Yuri Yarim-Agaev: I am an optimist. Not a complacent one, however, but very concerned.

[1] Communism as global ideology collapsed irreversibly. No ruler can restore it in any country. After a country becomes open to the outside world, it gets caught up by the global political process, and the overall direction of the current process is democratic. This global process is overwhelming and will eventually override all historical peculiarities and ethnical characteristics. Any attempt to bring back Stalinism or Brezhnevism to Russia would be futile, although painful. So here I am a great optimist.

[2] Although the long-term direction has been predetermined, the specific path for each country has not. This path matters a lot, and herewith come all my concerns. The end of communism does not automatically create democracy, which was apparently the erroneous presumption of our political leaders who rushed to proclaim Russia a democratic country. Russia was not a democracy then and has yet to become one. There was an opportunity for Russia to become democratic. For that purpose the developments of August 1991 should have been brought to a full completion. Instead, they turned into a mini revolution. Russia never condemned communism, nor did it remove communists and the KGB from power. While it is true that new leaders were brought to power by radical revolutionary forces and their first steps were in a direction of democracy and freedom, those leaders soon changed their power base back to the old soviet bureaucracy. The process went backward to its logical end, putting the KGB in charge of Russia. Yet the old soviet bureaucracy cannot reverse inevitable historic process. So we can soon expect a new mini revolution, maybe in 2008 or even earlier.

[3] A similar pattern is likely to occur in other republics. Each revolution helps democratization by disrupting the monarchical succession of power and bringing broader masses into the political process. That was the reason why I wholeheartedly supported recent developments in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. I would not overestimate, however, the depth of those recent revolutions or the democratic credentials of their political leaders. It is also possible to expect setbacks in these republics, followed by new mini revolutions. Such a scenario presents an overall positive trend but a very jerky political process. America can do a great deal to make the path smoother and faster if it chooses to support principles instead of personalities and democratization instead of the status quo. So far it has not, and neither Russia’s nuclear arsenal nor our dependence on foreign oil could be a good reason for our bad Russia policy.

[4] Our dependence on foreign oil is greatly exaggerated. Oil constitutes only about 5% of our GDP and this is a good measure of its importance. The Russian economy greatly (and Saudi Arabian predominantly) relies on oil production. So who depends on whom? If they stop producing oil we would experience some discomfort and they would be facing revolutions. Moreover, we do have an alternative source of energy – nuclear --, which is better and cleaner and can produce all the electricity we need. Your combined electric and heating bills are much greater than your costs for gasoline. This means that with nuclear power plants we can continue driving our cars relying only on domestic oil. So oil is a very poor excuse for supporting dictators in Russia and Saudi Arabia.

FP: Mr. Flynn, thank you for waiting patiently. What do you make of the panelists’ points? And your book used the Kursk disaster as a way to explain Putin's new Russia, and you concluded that the country is now "re-Sovietizing," as you put it. You also described Putin's manner of governance as a "kinder, gentler dictatorship." Do recent events support your view?

Flynn: In the short term, yes, but Russia's longer term is so much more interesting. I have always had a long attention span for human character, and this includes national character. I suppose it's a cliche that character is best revealed in extremis, and I must say that my travels among the Russian people for interviews about this dark chapter in their history have given me great reason for long-term optimism.

But it's the younger people I believe in, not their incumbent political leadership. This disturbingly trenchant longing for Stalin among the older generation will not last long under the waves of free-flowing information that currently envelop our planet, and all of Putin's media crackdowns will eventually prove futile. As with Western society, the next generation gets more and more of its information from the Internet, and even the Chinese have been learning how impossible it is to control the web.

So, while I agree with Mr. Yarim-Agaev that Russia is not now and never has been a democracy, I also agree with Dick Morris about the irrepressible yearning of the human spirit for liberty. Obviously, I like and support these democratic uprisings among Russia's border countries, and I'm also inclined to link them more broadly with recent events in Uzbekistan and Lebanon.

Imagine seeing all of this from with the Kremlin walls. What would you do?

Well, the Russians are caught up in the primal response so ingrained in their DNA, which is to see all of these border revolutions as threats and menaces. But in all of the analysis about these events from within the Russian media, you almost never hear pundits or officials talking about how to win these neighbors back by becoming a more attractive neighbor. Things worked this way for the US for much of the last century before the Iraqi conflict, and there's no reason Russia can't win back lost influence in the same manner. Enough saber-rattling. I'd love it if a new generation of Russians could craft the eternally galvanizing national idea that Russia so desperately needs, and I suspect Russia's long-frightened neighbors would love it even more if that galvanizing idea was based on respecting the liberty of countries along its borders.

Morris: (withdraws from symposium due to hectic busy schedule, sends apologies)

Arias-King: Pipes was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet empire, when he was advisor to Ronald Reagan. Morris was key in preventing a victory by the “national Bolsheviks” in 1996, by advising Yeltsin’s team on his reelection campaign.

When these two first set out to study their craft, did they ever think they would play such a role?

In Russia today there are many unsung heroes who fight to keep various liberties alive. What we have seen not just recently in several “orange” revolutions in Bulgaria (1996), Slovakia (1998), Yugoslavia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) is that a small group of well-organized freedom fighters can defeat not just an armed oligarchy but also the cynicism of the vast majority of ordinary people.

Like many unlikely heroes of the perestroika era, such as the sociologist Galina Starovoitova, or the journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin, or rebel priest Gleb Yakunin, not to mention dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov, that new generation that Flynn talks about is ready to cast aside that “president of hopelessness.” It is true that the conditions for the first group were better. After all, Gorbachev was in the Kremlin, not an insecure and violent little man as there is today. But also unlike then, this time the Russian democratic forces are ready to govern the country.

As several articles in the journal Demokratizatsiya have pointed out, Russia has no choice but to eventually join the West. Yes, it has empire in its blood. But so did virtually all of today’s EU member states, who were forced to discard their imperial glories and become “normal” countries. Austria, England, Spain, France, even Poland at some point not long ago behaved the way Russia does today. With a small (sick, depressed and still collapsing) population of 145 million, Russia alone could not hope to contain the pressures of 1.3 billion Chinese and 1.2 billion Muslims in its soft underbelly.

There are three trends at play these days that are seldom noticed in the West. The first was noticed by serious Russian analysts such as the Gorbachev Foundation’s Valery Solovei, who has written that Russian elites, despite the occasional noxious rhetoric, have largely given up their imperial ambitions. They realize that the liabilities are larger than the assets, as they did in 1989 when the Soviet Union shed its Central European empire with barely a murmur of debate among the elites.

The second trend I spoke about already: Putin is more vulnerable than is generally believed. This was predicted over a year ago by a largely unnoticed but magnificent article by Russian scholar Mikhail Belyaev in Demokratizatsiya. He ran regression analyses in the 89 Russian provinces and noticed a negative correlation between autocracy and prosperity. In other words, if in the 89 regions of Russia the governors that act like Putin bring less tangible benefits to their populations, how can Putin hope to do so on a national level—especially if the price of oil or some other variable changes?

Third, Putin’s democratic opposition seem to be quite organized and more ready to take power than the discredited “red-browns”—some of which are believed to be Putin’s puppets in order to make him look like the responsible middle.

It is true that the Russian democrats suffer from a certain curse absent in virtually all the other post-communist cases. They cannot use nationalism to add thrust to their liberal ideas. However, the Russian democrats may be able to substitute nationalism with the image of competent managers—especially as this image is beginning to wear out on Putin, his only card.

While the opinion polls indeed show that “democrats” in the stereotypical sense are unpopular—because of their reputation as philosophizers with little practical can-do experience—those forces are beginning to bring to their ranks people with an image of competent management. It is axiomatic that the most talked about common candidates of the democratic forces are a world master chess player and Putin’s former prime minister. This last one, Kasyanov, may even be able to bring other, more moderate parts of the elite over to a new democratic wave. Once the democrats can prove that they have the slightest chance of winning, several moderate strata of the regime will flock to their side, as happened in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So what that Russia has never been a democracy? There is such a thing as the ability to reinvent a country, often dramatically, if the will (and some luck) exists. Yeltsin, the traitor, did not have this will after he acheived what he wanted, which was power. He discarded the democrats and surrounded himself with his fellow nomenklaturschiki.

Recall that in the interwar period, the only democracy east of Switzerland was Tomas Masaryk’s Czechoslovakia. Today, there are over ten functioning democracies in that region. And Ukraine, Russia’s mother, who has hardly ever enjoyed independent statehood, is adding itself to that list.

Pipes: I remain skeptical. Democracy is the most difficult of all political regimes to establish and maintain: autocracy is the easiest. The people of Russia have not developed a sense of participation in government: they are quite willing to let others run the state as long as they are given minimum security and the opportunity to pursue their private interests. Public opinion polls consistently support this fact. One Russian polling firm concluded that Russians are so mistrustful of each other they may be said "to live in trenches." This is not a mindset likely to lead to genuine democracy (as distinguished from paper democracy). We must not let our hopes replace reality.

Yuri Yarim-Agaev: It is strange to be reminded about the irrepressible yearning of the human spirit for liberty, since I happen to be one of very few Russians who have carried that spirit so openly and forcefully throughout my life. In addition to that minor detail, I stated in my opening sentence that I am an optimist. I make a clear distinction, however, between optimism and wishful thinking. An optimist who believes in the possibility of a positive outcome and wants to further its realization needs to have a very sober and precise assessment of the situation.

We need to start this assessment by identifying which of the following is the existing political status of Russia: a weak embryonic democracy challenged by antidemocratic forces or an autocracy. In the first case our support, if any, should go to the government, and in the second to the democratic opposition. America’s Russia policy, which supports the Russian government, is based on the wrong choice. The truth is that Russia has never been a democracy. It was a totalitarian state before 1991, and then after a short transitional period became an autocratic one. After disbanding the Duma, Yeltsin ruled as an autocrat, more benevolent than Putin, but an autocrat, nonetheless. So there is no question about Russia’s possible return to authoritarianism, since that is where it remains. The question is whether Russia can move back to totalitarianism, and here my answer is no.

The more important question is whether Russia can move forward to democracy and whether America can realistically facilitate this process. Here we enter the murky area of forecasting, which contains a lot of uncertainty and where our opinions are influenced by personal experience and background. As a historian Richard Pipes is inclined to give more weight to national character and traditions, while as a scientist I believe that globalization and the information revolution will make those factors less decisive and democracy in Russia more likely. Neither of these positions can be proven scientifically, since we are predicting the future rather than assessing the present. This is an area of honest disagreement, and while I believe that it is possible for Russia to become a democratic country and campaign for American support for the forces of democracy there, I respect anyone who thinks that this is unrealistic and America should not invest its financial or political capital. The only thing that I cannot accept is when the belief that Russia’s democratization is very improbable becomes an excuse for supporting Russia’s dictators.

If we choose to believe that Russia can become a democracy, the next question is how to help Russia move in that direction. Here, again, I would disagree with some of the participants of this symposium since they speak about “organized democratic opposition” in Russia. I wish it existed. Unfortunately, all organized structures in Russia that I know contain very few democrats. Most leaders of these structures or parties were selected for prominent political positions long ago by the Soviet communist government. After that, they loyally served Yeltsin’s autocratic regime and those who were invited by Putin continue to serve as loyally to him. As top governmental officials they failed--if they even tried--to move the country from autocracy to democracy. In terms of their personal convictions they turned democrat only after it became safe and profitable. During Russia’s giant step toward democracy, which was its breakaway from communism, most of them loyally served that communist system, helping to prolong its existence.

The only people in Russia who were at that time on the democratic side of barricades were dissidents. I believe that so far we remain the only proven Russian democrats. The problem is that most of us are in exile and except for a short transitional period we were never welcome by Russia’s “democratic” leaders. There are many other Russian people who share the democratic philosophy, but they haven’t stepped forward yet or organized themselves in any noticeable way, which makes supporting democratic forces in Russia such a difficult task. The only acting democratic force is small business. The motives of independent entrepreneurs may not be very idealistic, but they are the only people currently in Russia who are gradually moving the country in a democratic direction and who effectively resist its return to totalitarianism.

Flynn: Even though I have come to view Putin's regime as a kinder and gentler dictatorship, I take heart in the emerging trajectory between his first and second terms. He crafted the current autocracy in response to his nation's revulsion for all the bad byproducts of some very perverse experiments with so-called "democracy." The people loved him for all the crackdowns, which promised to be a great antidote to the chaos. But now look at what's happened. Having tasted some of the upsides of democracy along with the attendant bitter corruptions, they're now starting to chafe under the tightening yoke. The democratic turns in so many of the Russian border countries are wonderfully indicative of the growing rejection of authoritarianism. No orange revolutions in Russia? I wouldn't count on that. Watch the Russians who are under 40. In all of my contacts with so many of them in recent years, it seems perfectly obvious that they can't wait for all the old Soviet-style dinosaurs to fade from the scene. I'm particularly enjoying the chatter behind the idea of characters like former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov becoming a viable Putin opponent. Even the talk of rallying around jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has a promising ring to it. Political exile doesn't have the same effect as it did in the good old Soviet era. Putin's tactics just might be unwittingly sowing the seeds of a much better Russia.

As for the West's role in all of this, I remain solidly pro-engagement, but with a tough love approach. Putin is nothing if not resolutely pragmatic. Who knows, he just might allow the rise of an opposition with a strong enough voice to occasionally tell him "no." He might allow such things in response to western pressure, but also the good of the Russian people.

FP: Last round gentlemen. In your final comment, feel free to respond to what has been said, but kindly [1] illuminate how the developments in Russia affect the terror war and [2] make policy recommendations for the Bush administration vis-Ã*-vis Russia.

Arias-King: Bush's policy towards Putin is more or less adequate, especially when compared to Clinton's policy towards Yeltsin, which was handled by a former journalist who had covered the Soviet regime only favorably.

It does, however, suffer from three basic flaws.

First, the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. After September 11, Bush reciprocated to Putin's masterful PR stunt (was the first to call Bush) by accepting Moscow's version of the war in Chechnya as an anti-terrorist operation. Bush has somewhat gone back to the pre-Reagan days of criticizing Russia's behavior outside its borders but not inside. That is why NATO expansion (over Russia's protests) and Bush's recent visit to Georgia have been wise policies. But the democratic reversals inside Russia itself have gone largely unnoticed at the White House.

Second, Washington may have swallowed the argument that Putin's alternatives are worse. The KGB (and Putin is no exception) has a history of creating fake "boogeymen" to scare the West into supporting the current tyrant. It created Zhirinovsky from its own ranks to make the Communist Party look like the responsible middle. Now it has done the same with Rogozin. And it works. EU officials routinely justify their support for Putin by saying the alternative is worse.

Third, it seems Washington has not prepared for the eventuality of Putin's downfall. Yuri above is correct in saying that the only true democrats are the former dissidents. But that proved to be true in 1991. Today, there is a whole new generation not tainted by prior Party membership, who is ready to tell Putin where to put his police state. Just last month, the youth leaders of Yabloko and SPS (Russia's liberal parties) attempted to overthrow Lukashenka in Belarus, and probably came close. They use Belarus only for target practice. All the Kremlin's attempts to sidetrack or silence these youth leaders have failed.

And the war on terror? Putin's policies may actually be making things worse. As my fellow Sovietologist Gordon Hahn has argued, the reversal of autonomy in Russia and the dismantling of the federal arrangements are creating an unstable tectonic that could disquiet Russia's 20 million Muslims. On the other hand, Putin has acquiesced to U.S. bases in Central Asia. But does he have much choice?

The problem is that unlike during the window of opportunity in 1991-93, the U.S. has very little leverage over Russia now. Moscow is no longer susceptible to constructive advice, nor is it an economic basket case where conditioning aid potentially goes a long way.

Funny paradox. Putin is weak domestically and has to acquiesce to U.S. geopolitical moves. But the U.S. has little leverage to affect Russian domestic politics.

Yarim-Agaev: There should be no doubt that the current political system in Russia is authoritarianism and it will remain so as long as Putin and the KGB stay in power. American policy in this region is a very significant factor, which can either facilitate or delay democratization in Russia. I want to remind you that the democratic opposition in Ukraine started to organize only after Washington stopped supporting Kuchma and even called for his resignation. At the same time America started openly supporting Ukraine’s democratic forces. This is a very effective two-prong approach to facilitate democratization in any region: stop endorsing the dictator and start supporting the democratic opposition. Unfortunately this is not the case for Russia: Putin enjoys Bush’s unconditional support, while the democrats have none. (I do not count support for the “ loyal opposition,” which is more a part of Putin’s entourage, than it is a true democratic opposition.)

The inconsistency of American Russia’s policy is part of a more general problem. In the fifth year of Bush’s presidency it still remains unclear, which our primary foreign policy doctrine is: the Global Democratic Revolution or the War on Terror. It can’t be both. One should be part of another. But which of which? From Bush’s inaugural address we get the clear message that it is the former, yet specific actions indicate that it is probably the latter. This ambivalence dooms our policy. What was our primary goal in invading Iraq: to oust the dictator and help Iraq to become a democratic country (Global Democratic Revolution), or to find and eliminate weapons of mass destruction (War on Terror)? Should we drop any support for Putin and the KGB and instead support the democratic opposition in Russia (Global Democratic Revolution), or embrace Putin as a partner in the war on terror? Who should be Washington’s allies: those people like myself who struggled for democracy and human rights in Russia against the communist system and the KGB (Global Democratic Revolution), or the KGB itself, the communist secret police that, among other things, specializes in dealing with terrorists (War on Terror)?

To me the primary doctrine should be Global Democratic Revolution. This is a positive, pro-active and strategic approach. The success of this policy would mean elimination of major roots of world terrorism. In my opinion the outburst of terrorist activities happened largely because we put on hold the democratic revolution started by Reagan and abandoned many areas, such as Afghanistan, allowing them to be overtaken by antidemocratic forces. Surely, in pursuing Global Democratic Revolution we should not forget the immediate danger from existing terrorist organizations and take any necessary measures to strengthen our law enforcement capabilities to protect us from them. Those actions, however important, should not overtake our domestic and foreign policies, since this would make those policies reactive and defensive, and our life quite joyless. Global Democratic Revolution, on the other hand, is a policy of optimism and measurable progress. It is also the policy that would allow for the most effective resolution of our national security problems in such areas as North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China.

Flynn: While I have some accord with both Arias-King’s and Yarim-Agaev’s closing arguments, I think they’ve given short shrift to the Bush team’s shift with Moscow over the past six months. Though I think this administration has been disturbingly ham-handed with big issues like the decision to invade Iraq, I must say their Russia policy is actually back on track. Colin Powell signalled the course-correction quite clearly in his visit to Moscow in January. He chided Putin’s reversals, even holding forth in Izvestia with refreshing candor on the eve of his personal visit with the man himself. This was precisely the sort of tough love I’d been hoping for, and seasoned Russia specialist Condoleezza Rice has eloquently ratified this more benevolent relationship. It would be terrific if thought leaders like Arias-King and Yarim-Agaev would add to the new pressure by voicing their approval. The US may have lost strategic leverage with Moscow, but Putin and his people still care about how the western states view them, perhaps more now than ever before.

As to the War on Terror, Bush’s unfortunate over-extension past Afghanistan and into Iraq has made the US more vulnerable to needing partnerships with complicated authoritarian governments like Putin’s. Though Putin may have politically accommodated our prosecution of Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership, the Russian people weren’t exactly in our corner. The Iraqi misstep has made it worse. The curious irony du jour is that if Putin were truly the elected leader of a properly constructed democracy, his lukewarm support for the US right now would be untenable.

Which further justifies the current policy toward Russia. It’s quite correct for Secretary Rice to chide Putin’s government without getting shrill. In the same way that we’ve been compelled to support autocrats like Pakistan’s Musharraf, it’s still wise for us to criticize his judicial system’s weird acquiescence to tribal gang rapists. And so it is with Putin—let’s praise his more statesmanlike moments, but distance ourselves from his heavy-handed manner of prosecuting breakaway regions like Chechnya. (Increased diplomatic pressure on that front would be a most welcome diplomatic initiative from Rice right about now).

But one of the greatest tests of our current balancing act with Russia may revolve around all this talk of Putin angling for a third term in office. If there’s any move by Putin or his associates to re-engineer the Russian constitution in such a way as to perpetuate his leadership past 2008, I’d like to think the US would be able to summon enough moral leverage to talk him out of it. Such a move by this or any administration would support exactly what all of the panelists seem to hope for, which is for Russia to join what Yarim-Agaev appealingly calls a “Global Democratic Revolution.”

FP: Richard Pipes, Fredo Arias-King, Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Dick Morris and Ramsey Flynn, we are out of time. Thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium. It was a pleasure to have you with us.