All the World's His Stage

Rus

sia's President Vladimir Putin, a judo champion in his youth, is now building up his political muscles. He flexed them ostentatiously in his annual address to Russia's Federal Assembly on April 26, grabbing headlines with his threat to reconsider his country's adhesion to the treaty on conventional forces in Europe. Signed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, the treaty committed the U.S.S.R, and later the Russian Federation, to reducing its military deployment in its European territories. Given that this deal was one of the landmark indications that the cold war was over, why would Putin want to provoke the West by threatening to abandon it?

Putin's threat is a pointed response to the U.S. decision to install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The American justification is that NATO needs to extend its defenses against a potential attack from Iran, but few Russians accept that argument. Poland and the Czech Republic are a vast distance from Iran, so Russian public opinion needs little persuasion by the Kremlin to worry that NATO's true aim is to line up bases against Russia. Such fears have been growing since the mid-1990s. Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin had never imagined that NATO would recruit the states of the former Soviet bloc into its membership. But Russia at the time was on its knees economically. It could not afford to fall out with the U.S. and its allies.

Now things are very different. Under Putin, Russia has used fuel rather than military power as its weapon in trying to quell attempts by Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia to wriggle free of its tutelage. The Russian authorities have hinted that countries in Western Europe ought to avoid annoying them, too. Exports of gas and oil, moreover, have balanced the Russian budget and enabled the government to take unprecedented initiatives, which Putin mentioned in his address. As billions of petrochemical dollars pour into the nation's coffers, he seeks to reinvigorate its scientific base. The down-at-heels research institutes are to receive immense subsidies, and the brain drain of scientists to America is to be blocked off. Putin wants the state to play its traditional role of picking which industrial sectors to advance. He has plumped for nanotechnology, betting that Russia can quickly become much more than a seller of its natural resources. Like China and India, it is to be pointed in the direction of ultramodern industry. This is an exciting vision, and at last the Russian economy has the financial wherewithal for its realization.

The Russian President has avoided explaining any new "national idea." This was a dig at the late Boris Yeltsin, who was forever re-explaining what he thought about Russia's destiny. Putin says he does not intend to release a political testament before he steps down in 2008. He insists that what counts is not rhetoric but action.

In foreign policy he is equally assertive. He revealed, for example, that he intends to propose Kazakhstan for the presidency of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Gone are the days when Russia was content to be in the audience rather than onstage. And by playing along diplomatically with Kazakhstan, Putin hopes to enhance both Russia's prestige and authority and his own. Crucial to this end is the revival of Russian armed power. The address to the Federal Assembly touched on this in ways that have tended to escape the attention of foreign observers. Recognizing the inefficiency of a massive conscript army, Putin aims to increase the proportion of volunteer recruits and to modernize their equipment. More strikingly, he has announced a program of shipbuilding to restore the navy to something like its previous strength.

Putin, a former KGB officer, talks about the priority for Russia to move beyond being a supplicant in world affairs. Equally forceful in his own country, he has done dreadful things. Chechnya's soil is sodden with blood and is ruled by a thug who has Putin's approval. The Russian media have been intimidated into submission. The rule of law is widely ignored. Businessmen kowtow to the government or else lose their businesses. Almost a fifth of Russians live in poverty, according to U.S. figures.

Yet Putin rides high in the opinion polls. He has brought stability and pride back to Russia. He speaks tough to foreign politicians. And, as his comments on the treaty on conventional forces in Europe show, he is politically clever. The threat is a veiled one. Putin says he first wants to put his argument to the NATO-Russia Council; he intends to appear as a reasonable negotiator. Whether he really thinks the Americans will back down in Poland and the Czech Republic is not clear. But he appeals strongly to Russians. And he can make a lot more trouble in Europe, East and West, before the end of his presidency.