21 January 2016By Amir Taheri
According to a saying attributed to the Russian mystic Alexei Khomiakov,
reality is like a rooster that wakes you up with its crowing when you are in
the depth of a sweet dream.
Khomiakov was a leader of the Slavophiles who dreamt of uniting all ''Slav
nations'' under Russian leadership to realize Russia's ''Manifest Destiny'' as
the ''Third Rome'' and the standard-bearer of Christianity's final victory.
Without quite caressing such illusions, Russia's current leader Vladimir Putin
has his own dream of Russian grandeur; a dream which is perfectly legitimate
provided it does not pose a threat to others. Russia is a big country. In fact
it is the largest in the world, is a great nation and has had a leading role
in global affairs for the past two centuries.
However, there are now signs that in the course of his sweet dream Putin may
have bitten more than Russia can chew at this moment. This is why Putin would
do well to hear the rooster of reality crow under his bedroom.
In a lengthy interview with the German mass circulation paper Bild, Putin
tried to blame his government's mounting difficulties on ''a dangerous drop in
revenues'' largely thanks to the fall in energy prices.'' He also revealed that
in 2015 the Russian gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 3.8 per cent while
the fall in industrial production was 3.3 per cent. With inflation hovering
close to 13 per cent and unemployment edging above 12 per cent, the Russian
economy is in its worst shape for more than a decade. In other words the
''Putin boom years'' may well be over. Looking for a scapegoat, Putin blames all
that on ''hostility by Western powers''; an easy all-purpose excuse for many
incompetent governments trying to exculpate themselves.
Even if we accept Putin's portrayal of Russia as a ''victim of Western appetite
for hegemony'', the fact remains that no country becomes a victim of others
without its own participation in a process that leads to victimization. If
Russia became a victim it was because it had become ''victimizable'' to coin a
word. That, in turn, was the direct result of specific policies that were
bound to lead Russia into rough patches at home and abroad.
To start with, Putin's economic policy was bound to make Russia dependable on
energy exports to Western markets. The history of the past 150 years, that is
to say since Americans started the global oil trade, shows that oil has been
subject to yoyo price fluctuations more than any commodity that has made or
broken many exporters.
When he assumed supreme power in the final decade of the last century, Putin
took to the economic model established under President Boris Yeltsin like duck
to water. Easy money from exports of oil and gas meant that most Russians
could have a taste of the good life without doing much to earn it.
At a time when the global economy was switching to its 21st century model of
almost non-stop technological change, Russia found its comfort zone in
Western-style consumerism not backed by adequate productive energies. In just
a decade whole rafts of Russian industry including cherished sectors such as
armament simply disappeared. Instead Russia tried to venture into a service
economy, developing a financial sector and promoting tourism, an area in which
it had little or no experience. As a result, Russia today has nothing to sell
to anybody and none of the 5000 or so global brands has a Russian owner.
The trouble with depending on energy exports is twofold. First, oil and gas
production is largely automated and thus generates few jobs. The Russian
energy export industry for example accounts for less than four per cent of
total employment in the country. Next, unlike agriculture and industry whose
revenues are distributed through numerous hands, revenue from oil exports ends
up in few hands. That, in turn, generates corruption on a scale never known
even in a nation like Russia that has been used to massive corruption from the
start of its appearance in history.
Thus Putin's Russia is afflicted by the kind of corruption hitherto reserved
for so-called ''developing'' banana republics. As if economic stagnation and
massive corruption were not enough, Putin has led Russia into a series of
foreign adventures that defy any rational cost-benefit assessment. The
invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
produced no tangible economic, political or even security benefits for Russia.
Equally bizarre was Putin's annexation of Crimea. The Peninsula already had a
majority of Russian-speakers and was massively dependent on Russian tourism
and trade for its survival. More importantly, Russia had its largest naval
base there and was the only power with a military presence. In other words,
there was no need to change a status quo that was heavily in favor of Russia.
The attempt to bully Ukraine into closing its doors to the European Union was
also misguided. Russia cannot offer Ukraine what the EU can – a big market
that would allow Ukrainian industry and agriculture to develop and grow.
However, Ukraine is also bound to Russia by historic, cultural and economic
bonds that have stood the test of time. By trying to have it all in Ukraine,
Putin has taken a risk which may result in Russia losing all in the second
most populous ''Slav'' nation.
As if that were not enough, Putin has antagonized Turkey which has always been
a key neighbor, angered Belarus, danced into a deadly deal with the mullahs in
Tehran and entangled Russia into the Syrian hornet's nest.
Entanglement in Syria may be Putin's worst foreign policy error so far. This
is perhaps why Putin is now trying to redefine and reduce his Syrian gamble.
He knows that even if they give him the whole of Syria he would be winning
nothing but a time-bomb. Even dreams of a permanent Mediterranean base in
Syria now look daft. A base that is constantly threatened by attacks from the
hinterland is of little use.
Putin is still popular
enough to change course. And provided he forms a broader-based government
instead of surrounding himself by careerist yes-men as he is now, he may start
hearing Khomiakov's rooster crowing in the dark.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran, London
and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In
1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a contributor to the
International Herald Tribune. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French magazine
Politique Internationale, and the German weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005, he
was editorial writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has published 11
books, some of which have been translated into 20 languages. He has been a
columnist for Asharq Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York.
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