P
olitics
The Day After Putin
Russia’s Deep State Holds the Key to Succession
by Stephen Sestanovich Who will rule Russia when Vladimir Putin is gone? The Russian president recently reignited speculation about his succession plans by proposing a series of constitutional changes, on which parliament will vote next week, and by installing Mikhail Mishustin, a near-anonymous technocrat who for years headed the country’s tax service, as his new prime minister. Some experts predict Putin will step down before his fourth and final term ends in 2024; others insist he aims to create a new position enabling him to evade term limits and rule indefinitely. Everyone wonders whether Mishustin is the cipher he seems or a successor in waiting. Nobody, to say the very least, has any idea. One reason so much analysis of Russia’s future reveals so little
is that journalists, businesspeople, diplomats, and scholars— myself included—have too often asked the wrong questions. We focus too much on Putin himself, on his personality, his wealth, his approval ratings, his secret schemes. And we pay too little attention to the institutions that today define the Russian state. Putin’s single biggest achievement in two decades in power—his true legacy—has been to reempower the state bureaucracy. He has paid salaries on time, increased budgets, let the government control a larger share of the national economy, and looked the other way as officials abused their power. No part of this bureaucratic apparatus matters more than the national security establishment—the vast, hydra-headed complex of military, intelligence, and law enforcement ministries. These institutions may well determine not only who becomes the next president of Russia but what
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13/03/20
