After Putin, who? What?

Politics & Elections
1

Given the speculation (however tenuously supported) about Putin’s health, one wonders who would succeed him? I can’t see him retiring; I expect he’ll cling to power until death or overwhelming disability removes him from it. But then: Who?

Putin strikes me as someone who wouldn’t have an official successor, but I don’t know much about the inner workings of the Russian power structure. Is there any likely candidate for Putin’s successor, whether or not openly designated?

And what of the war in Ukraine? Would it go on as ferociously if Putin is no longer in power for whatever reason? Is that too dependent on whoever takes over to be a question worth asking? How much change overall in Russia’s relations with the rest of the world might be likely?

2

First, agreed, Putin will never have an ‘official’ successor. He would be far too much of a risk, and Putin doesn’t seem to trust anyone, much less anyone with that degree of influence.

As for what happens, I see three main options - another ‘internal security’ member (who knows where the bodies are buried), a plutocrat (who will promise prosperity for all and mostly for themselves) or a military man (more on this later).

The first will be more of the same, although, as with Trump, it isn’t clear if they’ll have the same overwhelming popular support, without which, there will certainly be power sharing to a larger degree. They’ll probably wind down the war with Ukraine because they’ll be busy pushing blame for it to others, and consolidating their own influence.

The second, depending on the lingering economic factors from the ongoing war, will be very, VERY happy to secure a quick break in hostilities in exchange for an immediate ending of sanctions, and will ride a tide of petro-prosperity into a largely popular rule, but will again, be compromised in their power, sharing with internal security and the military.

The military is the big unknown - if there is ever a general that distinguishes himself in the Ukraine, while not being purged by Putin, they could easily become the next leader, at which point they’ll be more likely to complete their assumption of power by making it a priority to grind Ukraine into dust. They’d also be likely to want to break the power of the plutocrats, as a dangerous and unpatriotic faction in their government, which would let them toss some of the wealth to popular interests while keeping the rest to buy support from their own followers.

So, very interesting times ahead.

3

Foreign Affairs magazine had a recent article on exactly this topic. It’s probably paywalled, but as a subscriber I don’t know how their freebie sample policies work, so here it is FWIW. The title for further Googling is “The Power Struggle After Putin”:

Here’s a similar article from early 2020, long before Putin started the current iteration of the hot war in Ukraine. It’s called “The Day After Putin”:

4

Dmitry Medvedev (Putin Lite) is only 56 and has carefully strattled the line between Putin loyalist and reformer for nearly 20 years. Unless Putin goes down hard and the masses demand complete change, Medvedev will be the consensus choice.

5

Personally, I’m hoping for Gary Kasparov. He’s one of a very few popular politicians whom Putin hasn’t been able to “deal with”, because he’s too much of a hero, and he has the smarts to be able to figure out how to maneuver into power. People sometimes talk metaphorically of politicians playing chess… but it’s not metaphorical, here. And he also has the definite advantage of not being psychopathically evil.

6

IMO Medvedev is closer to Pence than to Putin Lite. IOW a bit part actor plucked from obscurity to be a foil for a master, and now well-past his “best by” date. When the master is gone, he’s a nobody, not a somebody. Yesterday’s nobody.

7

Garry Kasparov is a brilliant chess master and has made some penetrating observations about Russian politics but that doesn’t translate into being an effective politician, particularly in a political machine that has almost nothing to do with popular support. Regardless, he currently holds Croatian citizen and while Russian law doesn’t prohibit holding dual citizenship that does invalidate the ability to hold public office as public officials have to have to be Russian-only citizens.

The Russian Federation had its brief dalliance with democracy in the early ‘Nineties to the satisfaction of no one, and aside from a small but vocal contingent of younger people there is essentially zero enthusiasm for a true representative democracy in Russia. It will be at least until the older generation dies off until there is even the potential for democratic reform in Russia but at the rate the country is failing economically it may not make much difference because at that point Russia will be an irretrievably failed state with many of its assets potentially being parceled off to China.

Stranger

8

Thank you, all, for your informative responses. Whoever comes out on top, I fervently hope the process doesn’t involve a collapse into some form of civil war – not within a nuclear power.

9

If they avoid civil war, or at least a bunch of bloodshed amongst protesting ordinary folks and mutineering military units, it will be because somebody from the inner circle comes out on top quickly and decisively.

Said another way, a comparatively smooth and bloodless transition presages a new government delivering more of the same behavior, both aimed at other countries and at their own populace. Stability and continuity is not our friend here.

10

Russia has vast natural resource wealth. Perhaps the most in the world. Unless they squander it there is no reason they have to fail as a state. Indeed, as other resources dwindle around the world Russia will be in a good position. Their government will have to fail them badly to be otherwise.

11

Russia does indeed have an enormous amount of mineral and energy resources as well as being a major exporter of wheat. However, they have never been able to effectively utilize these in their own economy due to corruption, lack of capitalization, economic mismanagement, et cetera, which has often left them selling their resources at pennies on the dollar for hard cash to buy fabricated goods (and at times, even import grain) on the international market. There is no evidence that they are going to turn this around in the foreseeable future and in fact the government has given away access to so many resources to support the oligarchy that is is constantly in deficit despite being one of the world’s largest grain exporters and arms seller. Putin’s Russia went all in on being a petrostate energy provider as their major source of revenues which is going to have a “Do Not Consume Past” date regardless of how much resources they have.

But the real problem that Russia has beyond its perennial inability to make use of its natural resources and seemingly intractable corruption is the coming demographic collapse of its population which will leave it without both a broad tax base or an ability to expand manufacturing (even assuming it embraces automation it will still need people to process and ship manufactured goods, and of course people to staff its military) so its only hope of maintaining solvency is to somehow become a profitable net exporter of some invaluable resource. But quite frankly, Russia is already a failed state in any economic sense—those abundant natural resources are the only thing that has been propping it up since the Stalin era—and whether it can maintain political cohesiveness depends upon the capability and integrity of the Russian military of which recent events have caused the entire world to cast doubt.

Stranger

12

Does Russian leadership not see this or is it that they just do not care? Those at the top (the oligarchs) will pilfer the country for all it’s worth and by the time there is a problem they will be dead of old age or able to use their wealth to escape to somewhere more pleasant.

13

The “leadership” is exactly who’s doing this.

The whole thing is one giant morass of police, big business, and the Mafia as the very same set of people, simply looting everything in sight and figuring they and their descendants will be insanely rich for generations.

And what of Mother Russia? Who gives two shits about that? I’m loaded!!! And that’s all that matters.

14

Yes and yes. The Godunovs replaced the Rurikids, the Romanovs replaced the Godunovs, the Communists replaces the Romanovs, and the Oligarchs replaced the Communists with little actual social change except for people having to change the slogans and dogma they mouth. Russia is very much fundamentally still the feudal society that it was under the Tsars and nobody is all that inclined toward change, particularly when the nascent and ineffectual efforts under Yeltsin for free market reforms were an utter failure.

For what it is worth, I think Putin isn’t just a venal leader interested only in his own enrichment; for what it is worth he sees his legacy tied up with Russia, and thus he wants a strong Russia that dominates its neighbors in the fashion of the former Russian Empire. But as we’ve seen, Russia is in no way capable of dominating any significant opposition militarily, nor in competing economically on the world stage. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it essentially become a vassal state of the Peoples Republic China in a few decades if the PRC itself doesn’t collapse under its own demographic and social problems. In fact, any nation that isn’t well poised to adopt and maintain automation, and has an economy that cannot pivot away from the growth-as-success model is going to have significant problems as populations age and globalization becomes increasingly problematic in terms of maintaining reliable production and supply channels.

Stranger

15

Well, it looks like it will be awhile:

I thought I read some articles which said he was seriously ill?

16

“People are saying…”

There has never been any real evidence that Putin is deathly ill or suffering maladies beyond those typical for a ~70 year old man. And, of course there is a long tradition of autocrats in general, and Russian leaders specifically, holding control well into senility and terminal decrepitude. Putin isn’t going anywhere until he keels face down into his porridge or some upstart takes a successful shot at him.

Stranger

17

And given how fanatically paranoid he is about any threat to his life or health, I can’t see any assassin getting to him. Not unless someone suborned a person very close to him, but for that person it would be a suicide mission.

18

MSNBC just showed Putin getting approved by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for his new term as president. The power structure was laid out in the open. Being American, I didn’t know what to make of it. Whatever it meant, Putin is still there.for sure.

19

I don’t know, but I so very much want to get to that point!

My feelings about Putin