Lee HamiltonVladimir Putin has been Russia’s undisputed leader for 25 years. That is a remarkable achievement. Only a handful of today’s world leaders have held onto power for that long, and only Putin has done so in a nation as large and complex as Russia. Consider this: If Putin remains in charge for four more years, […]
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Vladimir Putin has been Russia’s undisputed leader for 25 years. That is a remarkable achievement. Only a handful of today’s world leaders have held onto power for that long, and only Putin has done so in a nation as large and complex as Russia.
Consider this: If Putin remains in charge for four more years, he will match the tenure of Josef Stalin, the cruel dictator who ruled the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. Putin, 72, is starting a six-year term of office, so it seems likely that will happen.
Unfortunately, Putin’s tenure has been authoritarian and brutal; nothing like Stalin’s, certainly, but bad enough. He has crushed dissent, jailed critics, and eliminated independent news media. Elections have become one-sided, with no opposition able to thrive. His foreign policy has grown more and more aggressive.
It’s easy to forget that the West had high hopes for Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War had ended. Russia adopted a constitution with democratic principles and transitioned to a more capitalist economy. Under Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first elected president, there were problems of economic weakness and corruption, but Western observers remained hopeful.
On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Yeltsin surprised the world by resigning and leaving Putin, a former KGB intelligence officer, as his successor. Including four years when Dmitry Medvedev was a figurehead president, Putin has been in charge ever since.
The initial optimistic response was that Putin would restore order after the chaos of the Yeltsin years. U.S. President George W. Bush, after meeting with Putin in June 2001, said: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder called Putin a “flawless democrat” in 2004.
But Putin is no democrat. Secrecy and intolerance became hallmarks of his regime. Independent news outlets and political groups were shut down. Writers and artists were censored. Critics were jailed or worse. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot to death near the Kremlin in 2015. When Alexei Navalny died last year in prison after multiple episodes of poisoning, then-President Joe Biden said he had “no doubt” Putin was to blame.
Meanwhile, Russia thumbed its nose at Western democracies and acted as a neighborhood bully. It seized part of Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea in 2014, and invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in that war, which hasn’t gone well for Russia.
And Russia has other problems: unemployment, a low birth rate, and high inflation and interest rates. Its standing in the Middle East took a hit in December when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, its ally, was ousted. Western sanctions over the Ukraine war have hurt Russia, although oil and gas exports have kept its economy above water.
Even so, polls indicate Putin is popular at home. He has linked himself to Russia’s proud history, reaching back 300 years to Emperor Peter the Great and including the 20th century, when the Soviet Union made immense sacrifices to stop Hitler. Putin, in 2005, called the breakup of the Soviet Union a “major geopolitical disaster.”
You could say that Putin wants to “make Russia great again” with his geopolitical ambition. And that raises an obvious question: What should we expect in U.S.-Russia relations now that Donald Trump is back in the White House.
Trump criticized Biden’s support of the Ukraine war effort and claimed he could end the war in a day. Of course, he hasn’t done that. Putin, knowing Trump loves flattery, has praised him, even endorsing his claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Both men are canny, ambitious, and unpredictable. It would be interesting to watch their competition play out — if only there weren’t so much at stake for the rest of us.
Lee Hamilton, 93, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.
Lee Hamilton, 93, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.
