JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia Is Burning Up Its Future” – Foreign Affairs
“How Putin’s Pursuit of Power Has Hollowed Out the Country and Its People”
“… Russia is neither stable nor normal. The [Russian] presidential election brings to maturity the late-stage Putinism that began with the [2020] constitutional referendum … when Putin’s potential mandate was extended until 2036. … Putin has made clear that Russia is fighting a permanent background war with the West … giv[ing] him … an ideological raison d’être and a way for his ruling elite to maintain power. … [T]o keep it … going, he must continually burn up … resources, financial, human, political, and psychological … point[ing] [towards] … political and economic fragility. … Although it retains market fundamentals, the Russian economy is increasingly dependent on government investment. The military-industrial complex has become the overwhelming driver of this unhealthy and unproductive economy …. Russian exports, primarily … oil and gas … provid[e] diminishing returns because of the closure of Western markets and discounted sales. [T]hese nonrenewables are not exhausted yet, and Putin … seems to hope they will … last his lifetime. A larger problem is demography. Along with the … population aging, the demand for soldiers and the collapse of migrant inflows are pitching the country into demographic crisis. … Unable to satisfy the public’s hunger for peace and normality, the regime has resorted to gigantic social expenditures …. Russian society … has been reduced to adapting and surviving, rather than developing. … [C]ivil society, … unable to protest openly, has shown moral resistance …. Putin’s system has been moving in an authoritarian direction ever since it began more than two decades ago. … The difference was that back then, the regime’s antimodern authoritarianism was partly hidden; now, it is in full view. … Putin and his team appear to assume that Russia will have enough reserves of all types — including the forbearance of its population — to last their own lifetimes. …”