You probably recall the scene in “Key Largo” in which a world-weary, but courageous, protagonist played by Humphrey Bogart confronts the gangster Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G. Robinson. The Bogart character asks the rhetorical question, “What does Rocco want?” and answers it himself: “More.” Rocco agrees.
For some reason, that scene makes me think about Vladimir Putin. The question for today, therefore, is what does Putin want?
On the domestic front, he wants three things: to retain power; stability; and prosperity, in that order. His political system is based on the government’s ultimate control of resources and legal privileges, so any effort to deregulate the economy and thereby increase growth is inconsistent with #1 and #2.
Outside of Russia’s borders, he wants to turn all of the countries that were part of the USSR into vassal states, and he wants Russia to be viewed universally as a world, not a regional, power, as the USSR was.
It is important to note what this list does not include. Russia’s economy is about the size of Australia’s, so dominating the world, or even Europe, is out of the question. Annexing the former Soviet republics and recreating the USSR would be far too risky and expensive; better to dominate them politically and economically without having to take responsibility for them. Finally, there is no reason to believe that he takes his Christian conservative ideology particularly seriously; it is just a weapon to use against his adversaries.
His assets in this battle are a friendly political system, a competent military, nuclear weapons, oil and gas resources, the stoicism of the Russian people, and a security apparatus that remembers the lessons of the Cold War. His principal liabilities are the absence of Russian soft power and the economic weaknesses of his country, which, as Obama frequently points out, doesn’t sell anything that anyone wants to buy except petroleum products.
Based on his own criteria, he can count himself a success, even though the Russian economy is struggling, and his country is little loved abroad. Is this “success” sustainable in the long run? I would say not.