Putin's return to the presidency should dispel any remaining delusions about the Medvedev era
By DAVID J. KRAMER AND CHRISTOPHER WALKER
The prevailing wisdom is that Vladimir Putin's return to the Russian presidency is bad news. That may be, but there is also reason to welcome his not-so-surprising Kremlin homecoming: It will remove the fiction of Russian reform and modernization that the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev represented. This in turn should allow U.S. and European Union policy makers to see the country as it is, rather than as they would prefer to imagine it.For the past several years, Mr. Putin has served, nominally, as prime minister under Mr. Medvedev. Mr. Medvedev assumed the presidency in 2008 as part of a carefully choreographed process that saw Mr. Putin, the president at the time, anoint Mr. Medvedev as his successor. In keeping with expectations, Mr. Putin then remained Russia's paramount leader while serving as prime minister, calling the shots on virtually all issues of consequence.
While the outside world became consumed with the Kremlin's theater, the two principals were clear about the charade. In announcing his return to the presidency on Sept. 24, Mr. Putin said: "I want to say directly: An agreement over what to do in the future was reached between us several years ago." Mr. Medvedev called the switch "a deeply thought-out decision."
This purposely ambiguous arrangement allowed both domestic and foreign audiences to project their hopes onto the Russian leadership. The West, after years of dealing solely with Mr. Putin's assertive and often belligerent persona, welcomed a more friendly interlocutor in the form of Mr. Medvedev. This good cop/bad cop dynamic quickly took hold, with the youthful, soft-spoken, modernizing Mr. Medvedev playing the foil to the stern, inscrutable Mr. Putin.
In July 2009, shortly before he was to meet with Mr. Putin for the first time in Russia, U.S. President Barack Obama criticized him for his "Cold War approaches" to relations with the U.S., saying Putin had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new." While undoubtedly true, this comment was apparently designed to sharpen a distinction between Messrs. Putin and Medvedev, with the hope of encouraging the latter's supposed ambitions to modernize. In hindsight, it is clear that the distinction was illusory, and that the U.S. strategy was misguided.
Freedom House's recent findings put the Medvedev era into perspective. Russia's performance on democratic accountability grew progressively worse during each year of Mr. Medvedev's presidency. Civil society and judicial independence were eroded. Rampant corruption continued unabated. While Mr. Medvedev has routinely cited the need for dramatically improving the rule of law in Russia, no discernible gains have been achieved.
Meanwhile, despite much talk of creating a more hospitable business environment, Russia today ranks 143rd out of 179 on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. It ranks 154th out of 178 countries in Transparency International's most recent annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
The door is now open for a reset that focuses on the institutional realities—rather than the political stagecraft—of an entrenched authoritarian system. The sooner U.S. and European policy makers come to terms with the prospect of at least 12 more years of Putinism, and devise policies that can effectively deal with this challenge, the better for everyone.
Broadly speaking, the democracies should end their self-censorship on the systematic abuses of civil rights in Russia. Their messages to Russia should include stronger backing for the democracies of central and eastern Europe—natural allies that have watched apprehensively as their interests are overshadowed by Russia's relations with the U.S., Germany and other influential Western powers.
Mr. Putin's return threatens to consign Russia to a decade or more of political stagnation and growing corruption. If recent events in the Middle East are any guide, such prolonged decay could end in crisis and upheaval.
For ordinary Russians, civil-rights activists and anyone hoping to do business in the country under more favorable conditions, the next chapter of the Putin era will surely bring more bad news. It is time for the world's democracies to set aside wishful thinking and confront the challenges of an authoritarian leadership whose only plan for the future is to dig in its heels.
—Mr. Kramer is president and Mr. Walker is director of studies at Freedom House.
