by Michael Harvey | Nov 12, 2009 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, Europe and Central Asia, North America, South Asia
– With President Obama embarking on his visit to Asia, John Plender examines the nature of China’s challenge to US dominance. Cheng Li and Jordan Lee suggest what the President has to do in striking the right tone for US-China relations going forward. Kishore Mahubani, meanwhile, views Asia’s rise through the prism of Francis Fukuyama’s End of History twenty years on.
– In a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev talks about Stalin, democracy and the rule of law, his relationship with Vladimir Putin, and ongoing Western entanglement in Afghanistan.
– Elsewhere, Stefan Theil argues that, aided by the financial crisis, the EU’s global standing is on the rise:
“The EU’s modus operandi — sharing power, hammering out agreements, resolving conflict by endless committee — can be boring and even frustrating to watch”, he argues, “[b]ut in an increasingly networked and interdependent world, it has become the global standard.”
Julian Priestley, meanwhile, suggests four conditions if the EU is to get the most from its “institutional architecture”.
– Finally, writing in the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh explores US concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal amid growing instability.
by Jules Evans | Apr 6, 2008 | Economics and development, Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks
I recently interviewed Sergei Markov, who is a key spin-doctor to the Kremlin. He told me that the West had completely underestimated the extent to which things will change under Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev.
He said: “Most western observers expect no change because Medvedev is the new president. On the contrary, Putin chose Medvedev precisely because he believes Russia needs to change. He has decided that Russia has now completed the previous stage, the stage of stabilization. For that stage, you needed a KGB guy to consolidate state structures and to consolidate the state’s control over the oil and gas sector. Now, Russia has come to a new stage, the stage of development. The country needs to develop new sectors of the economy, such as the hi-tech sector, and this form of development needs a new type of leadership, run by technocrats rather than KGB guys, with less state control and more innovation.”
Medvedev himself stated this new direction in his key speech in Krasnoyarsk in February, when he made an implicit criticism of the state-driven economic policy of Putin’s second term. He said: “We have to admit that we have been running the economy in manual over these last years. The time for this kind of hands-on decision-making in the economy is over. The new economy calls for a completely new approach: incentives for innovation and not directives from above. It is private initiative…that must be the foundation for the new economy.”
Medvedev has called for a number of liberal reforms to create this new hi-tech, entrepreneur-friendly and innovative economy: less red-tape for new businesses, fewer civil servants, less bureaucrats in charge of state corporations, more independence for the judiciary, more protection for small businesses from corporate raiders, lower VAT.
He has also called for more people with private sector experience in the top echelons of the government. The only time I’ve spoken to him, at a press conference in 2006, he said: “I would like to see more people with a background in business working in the government.” We shouldn’t forget he is the first ever leader of Russia to have experience of working in the private sector.
But this programme is setting Medvedev on a collision course with the Siloviki, or security services, who as a group have seen their interests furthered more than any other group during the Putin years.
Professor Stephen White of the University of Glasgow and Olga Kyrshtanovskaya of the Centre for the Study of Political Elites estimate that Siloviki account for around 23% of the political elite under Putin, compared to around 11% under Yeltsin and around 4% under Gorbachev. So they’re actually more powerful now than they were in the USSR.
Markov says he believes Medvedev can pursue his new direction without upsetting the Siloviki: “I don’t think the KGB will resist too much. They will accept Putin’s decision, not Medvedev’s. The old guard will not lose their positions. New people will come in and take new positions and new government structures, such as an agency to promote small businesses.”
But this doesn’t sound like a genuinely new direction or genuine administrative reform, but instead like the proliferation of more government, more civil servants, more agencies. You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and you can’t reduce the role of the state in the economy without upsetting some interest groups.
Professor White tells me: “The security services are at the moment in control of both the political structures of society, and the commanding heights of the economy, and the reports are that they have used this position for enormous personal enrichment. They’re not going to give that position up without a struggle. So there’s alot of room for instability in the mid term.” (more…)
