Russia: the choice grows starker by the day...

What makes Putin tick? 

A primer for presidential candidates

by Leon Aron

Foreign policy is traditionally not a hot topic for presidential primary candidates this early in the game, so I was surprised to receive a request recently to talk about Russia from one of the often-mentioned candidates. But, of course, it is not too early. The United States no longer has the luxury of ignoring Russia. For the first time since the mid-1980s, it has become one of the most pressing national security concerns, and presidential contenders will be asked what they plan to do about it.

So what — in the traditional “two-pages-or-less” campaign format — should a putative candidate know?

First and most important: The Russia the next U.S. president will have to engage with for four or eight years will be Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Having just turned 62, Putin, his periodic denials notwithstanding, is well on his way to a presidency-for-life, with or without elections. Reportedly swimming two hours in the morning, lifting weights, playing hockey, Putin is fit and trim. His personal control over Russia is the most complete by any leader since Josef Stalin.

What, then, does Putin want? What is his overarching agenda? What does he aspire to for his country and himself — the two undoubtedly merged inexorably in his mind? What makes Putin tick?

The ultimate goal, which has motivated and guided him since he took over the presidency 14 years ago and which he has pursued with remarkable consistency and persistence, is to recover most, if not all, key assets — political, economic and geostrategic — lost in the collapse of the Soviet state. I call this overarching agenda the Putin Doctrine.

Translated into policies, it has meant a gradual but relentless restoration of the state’s control, or outright ownership, of national politics, the courts, the media and, most important, national television channels. 

It also includes most institutions of civil society. In economic terms, the doctrine dictates the re-occupation and control of what Vladimir Lenin called the “commanding heights of the economy,” particularly the oil and gas industry.

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Read more: www.latimes.com