In an unscripted part of his speech Saturday in Warsaw, Biden said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power!” Biden and his aides quickly walked back his comments, denying that the President was actually calling for regime change in Russia.
In the multi-level chess game of internal Russian power dynamics, the last thing those within the Kremlin who might consider moving against Putin need — whether to alter his direction on the war or remove him outright — is public encouragement from an American president. If the US’ strategic goal is influencing Russian behavior, rather than regime change, then President Biden’s remarks were not helpful.
For over 34 years as a member of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, I worked to persuade those serving under the often-brutal dictatorships of America’s international adversaries to spy for the US. Those who agreed might have welcomed the material benefits that came with cooperating with US intelligence, but most accepted compensation only reluctantly.
In fact, most such spies agreed to cooperate based on ideological dissidence with their illegitimate governments. Few took the enormous risks to themselves and their families out of kinship with the United States.
Rather, in their minds, they acted in the interests of their own country, not from serving the agenda of what many considered an imperialist foreign power.
American policymakers have historically failed to understand that people’s contempt for their autocratic rulers does not necessarily translate into an embrace of the US or its political values. They assume wrongly that whatever regime might rise from the ashes of a fallen despot or anti-American rival will share our global agenda or exalt democracy.
Across the masses in Russia and among populations similarly under the yoke of dictatorships in China and Iran, appreciative as some might be of the freedoms they believe Americans enjoy, few see the US government as a noble force for good. That does not mean, however, their common interests when aligned with ours won’t offer mutually advantageous political opportunities.
Preserving power
Russians in positions of power today do not necessarily subscribe to Jeffersonian democratic ideals or see America as the world’s shining beacon of light. They are focused on the attainment and preservation of power and privilege.
By nature, those who profited under Putin have been opportunists, not purely ideologues. The most successful keep their cards close to their vests, trust few, are careful not to make enemies and operate within carefully monitored coalitions. To succeed, they forge, and when necessary, forsake, alliances based on mutual interests.
Consider those who Putin advanced over the years. They did not achieve his patronage for their morals, ethics or even merit. Rather, Putin empowered and enriched those who loyally and ruthlessly did his bidding. This network extended his control and profit across all critical aspects of Russian society, government and industry.
These siloviki are not friends of the US, closet pluralists or defenders of human rights. But neither do they necessarily place dogma before self-interests. The cleverest abandoned government positions as the Soviet Union collapsed. They profited from the empire’s dismemberment and rode Putin’s coattails joining his institutional kleptocracy.
The new elite shared its patron’s view of the US and the West as Russia’s principal adversary and competitor for the most practical of reasons: their own opportunity to secure power and privilege.
This is the target audience of the pressure the US and its allies are applying. And the goal should be aligning their interests with those of the West to facilitate Putin’s departure from his Ukrainian campaign, whether by influence or through his removal.
Russian officials who favor ending the war in Ukraine can say they are acting out of concern for Russia over the consequences of Putin’s folly. In contrast, any Russians who advocate Putin’s removal can be painted as being in league with, or puppets of, the US and NATO.
Any suggestion of regime change by the West empowers Putin to use it as a rallying call for unity and resistance. It plays to Putin’s theatrical use of victimization, casting himself as the heroic defender saving the nation from the whims of hostile foreign powers out to destroy Russia.
Conspiracy and consensus
A rather more enlightened strategy, however, is working within the conspiratorial nature of internal Russian power dynamics. Russian politics is the business of conspiracy and consensus.
In its history as the Soviet Union, even the ostensibly all-powerful and unchallenged leaders maintained a Politburo which provided counsel and executed policy. When leaders were challenged, however, it was behind closed doors and achieved through consensus. Individuals acting alone had less luck.
During the ensuing power struggle, Beria used his formidable tools to seize control, but was defeated by a Politburo coalition that resulted in his death and the succession of consensus candidate Nikita Khrushchev.
Opportunism and self-preservation could yet induce those close to Putin across the intelligence, security agencies and military components to press him to alter his position, or by their own accord, remove him should he not. But the last thing the siloviki wish to appear, or would ever be, are US allies. What they can be, however, are actors in a more carefully scripted and soundly executed US and allied strategy.
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