Martin Wolf’s Financial Times article on Putin and Russia is not as truly awful as most Western commentary on these subjects, and unlike some of the more ridiculous Putin critics out there he acknowledges a couple of the mistakes of Western policy that aggravated the situation (while ignoring most of the mistakes that matter).  Fortunately, he does acknowledge that there is not a “new Cold War,” which is a marked improvement over most columns about Russia.  Of course, it’s true that Russia’s economic growth over the last nine years is not really the result of Putin’s presidency (the doubling and tripling of the price of oil in the last five years had something to do with it), but it is also true that their government has established relatively greater order compared with the ’90s and so has provided relatively better physical security as well as certainty for investors.  Except when it comes to the oil sector (which, I grant you, is a sizeable exception), investors are more secure in their property than they were.   

One of the persistent problems in Russia is the need for a consistent rule of law.  It appears at present as if Medvedev understands this, or at least understands that he must acknowledge it to reassure foreign investors:

A speech he gave last week, before representatives of the Kremlin-approved great and good, was music to moderate liberal ears. With a straight face, Mr Medvedev talked of the importance of pluralism, freedom and justice. Property rights and free media were essential to building democracy. And Russia must follow the rule of law. At present, he admitted, “Russia is the country of legal nihilism.”

Now there are hard-core Russophobes who are not interested in what Medvedev has to say, and they will declare that all of the above is just rhetorical nonsense.  It may be, but then I have never considered pursuing constructive relations with Russia to be contingent on these things, so it hasn’t been my main concern in thinking about our Russia policy.  If it isn’t nonsense, but represents a gesture towards reform, the Russophobes will find a Medvedev presidency very disconcerting, since it will become harder and harder to use Russian government abuses and excesses as pretexts for meddling and belligerency. 

Wolff is much less persuasive when he falls back on flawed terminology (whatever Russia is today, it isn’t an autocracy, as I have been saying for a long time) and the usual fearmongering:

Mr Putin then is a failure, not a success. But he is a dangerous failure. The regime he has created is unpredictable: nobody can know how the post-election duumvirate will work. But it is unlikely to provide sustained improvements in prosperity.

Of course, “the regime” doesn’t “provide” sustained improvements in prosperity now, so Wolff has ensured that one of his predictions will be proved right.  What he is implying, however, is much less likely: that the supposed unpredictability of the regime will create economic insecurity and weakness in the long-term.  The problem is that Wolf has now way of knowing whether the regime is actually an unstable “duumvirate” or is, in fact, going to run according to its proper structure with Medvedev as the real authority.  Once he holds the reins, Medvedev may surprise us in his willingness to ignore Putin and follow his own counsel, but whether he does or not the charge of unpredictability seems the hardest of all to believe.  If we look at the structure of the Russian state and the interests of the institutions that control it, we can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy what the regime will do.  It will continue to seek greater influence in its near-abroad.  It will continue to wield energy as a diplomatic-cum-geopolitical weapon.  It will continue rebuilding and reinvesting in the Russian military, and it will in all likelihood continue to quash groups or centers of power that threaten to challenge the central government.  Alongside maintaining state control of energy firms, the Russian government will keep encouraging investment from abroad, building up its gold reserves, paying off any debts it still owes and taking no drastic actions that will drive capital out of the country.  The aims of populist authoritarian regimes are, contrary to a certain conventional view, easy to read.

Wolf proposes a course of action that is not so much foolish as it is futile:

The west must again form a concerted policy: it must resist efforts to divide westerners against themselves; it must insure itself against over-dependence on Russian energy; and it must make the price of revanchism high for Russia itself. But it must also repeat a powerful truth: the west is no enemy of the Russian people. On the contrary, nothing would be more desirable than for a vibrant and self-confident Russian democracy to take its place in the world of western values.

This assumes that “the West” has a unified set of interests with respect to Russia, which the second point on his list drives home: western Europe (like many parts of eastern Europe) is dependent on Russian energy, and America is not.  Washington has had the luxury of poking the Russians in the eye, and cannot possibly put together a unified Western policy towards Russia when it does not have to bear the consequences of confrontation.  Meanwhile, Europeans have less interest in McCain-esque hegemony in the Caucasus and sabre-rattling over South Ossetia (!), and they are interested in Georgia solely for its potential as a means for non-Russian pipelines connecting Central Asian supplies to Western markets without Russian involvement.  They do not care about the Caucasus as an outpost of the empire. 

Russia has shown little taste for anything that could be meaningfully called “revanchism.”  The term revanchism itself is meant to summon up spectres of Hitler and Mussolini, as the opening of Wolf’s article also sought to do, but it implies that there was something that was done to Russia deserving of revanche.  Remarkably absent from the entire article was the discussion of U.S. security and military policy in Europe and the Caucasus: the absurdity of possible NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, missile defense in central Europe, NATO expansion to Russia’s borders, and the backing of pro-Western lackeys democrats despots in their near-abroad.  However, in spite of provocation after provocation the actual “revanchist” actions of Russia have been negligible, so much so that one has to wonder what Wolf is talking about.  If the West is no enemy of the Russian people, perhaps “the West” should begin showing that by not taking actions that will be and are perceived as hostile and threatening.  One way to start doing that is by rejecting talk of a mythical Russian revanchism that must be met with stern responses and to start treating Russia as the valuable strategic ally that it should be.  Toning down the vilification of the government backed by 60-70% of the Russian people (the people with whom we have no quarrel) would be a good beginning.  Medvedev’s “election” would be an excellent opportunity to start rebuilding relations with Russia.  Over here, the best thing Americans could do to make sure that U.S. Russia policy does not become even worse in the near future is to make sure that John McCain gets nowhere near the Presidency.