Eye on Eurasia: Putin's greatest fear

Paul Goble

Tartu, Estonia, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last month that the post-Soviet states face "up to 2,000" potential ethno-confessional conflicts, any one of which could explode "if we don't do anything about them."

Both that number and the possibility that they will involve violence far exceed estimates made by most Russian and Western analysts. But Putin's expressed belief in them highlights his sense of the fragility of Russia and other former Soviet republics. And it helps to explain his commitment to rebuilding the coercive capacity of the state.

In a partial transcript of the Russian president's meeting with foreign academics and journalists on Sept. 6 provided by Jonathan Steele of The Guardian newspaper and distributed on the Johnson Russia List, Putin provided his clearest statement yet of just how much ethnic and religious conflicts threaten the post-Soviet states.

"In the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union, many conflicts of ethnic and confessional nature have broken out," Putin said, adding, "We do have up to 2,000 conflicts of the type which are in the dormant stage." But, "If we don't do anything about them, they could provide a flare up instantaneously."

Putin then offered his views on why such conflicts could emerge, who is responsible, and the roles democracy and state power have to play to ensure that potential conflicts do not become real.

The Russian president suggested that the conflicts that have broken out did so precisely because of the collapse of state power: Pointing to the violence in Karabakh and South Ossetia, Putin said that "once the state became weaker, separatism, which was very natural, was on the rise. It happened elsewhere. It happened here."

In linking the emergence of such conflicts to the decline of state power, Putin explicitly rejected that Russian policies had been in any way responsible for what has happened in Chechnya. "There is no connection whatsoever, there is no connection between the policies of Russia regarding Chechnya and subsequent events," he said.

The Russian leader indicated that the free play of democracy could not by itself prevent ethnic and confessional flare-ups. Indeed, democracy introduced too quickly or in ways that are not "in conformity with the development of society" could in that event be "carrying a destructive element."

Consequently, Putin said, he and his government will "see to it" that democratic institutions in his country become ever more "efficient" and work closely with those institutions that are rebuilding the power of state rather than weakening them.

Three aspects of Putin's remarks are striking. First, he views his country and its neighbors as far more threatened by ethnic and religious conflicts than almost any other leader or analyst does. And he sees conflicts as potentially having a domino effect, in which the outbreak of any conflict anywhere threatens to spark more conflicts elsewhere.

Second, the Russian president clearly believes that the weakness of the state rather than the aspirations of the people involved is the primary cause of current conflicts and of future ones.

And third, he sees democracy as a a form of government that may trigger such conflicts rather than as a means of managing or even solving them. Consequently, democracy for Putin is a system that must be managed lest democratic arrangements "undermine through counterproductive means" the ideas of democracy.

This set of views helps to explain why Putin is so obsessed with the restoration of the agencies of state power, why he is unwilling to deal with these challenges in a political way, and why he views democracy as a threat rather than an opportunity.

But the experience of authoritarian states, including the Soviet Union, suggests, Putin's approach -- however understandable it may be given his premises -- may prove counterproductive, radicalizing those whose views the authorities are not prepared to listen to and making them more rather than less willing to turn to violence to gain their ends.

(Paul Goble teaches at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)

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