Window on Eurasia: Is Putin at Risk of a Coup? Ryzhkov Asks

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, December 2 – Ever since Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the United Nations that “the main goal of Western sanctions is regime change in Russia,” it has become an article of faith in Moscow that the West is trying to achieve exactly that, even though no Western officials has declared that to be the policy of their countries, according to Vladimir Ryzhkov.

 

            Such conspiracy theories, long the focus of marginal elements in Russian politics, the Russian historian and liberal politician says in an Ekho Moskvy blog post today, “have become the official position of Moscow,” raising serious questions about “the adequacy” of those at the top (echo.msk.ru/blog/rizhkov/1447794-echo/).

 

            Since 1968 when Edward Luttwak published his “Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook,” many have examined such actions of regime change. There have been coups in “more than a hundred countries of the world, and since 1991, there have been coups or attempted coups in many post-Soviet states, including Russia, and there may be more in the future.

 

            But coups have not happened everywhere, Ryzhkov notes, and that is something that Russians should reflect upon. “After 1945, there has not been one successful coup in any of the victor countries or in a state in the nuclear club.”  The only exception was Pakistan, but that is a special case, and since 1999, there hasn’t been a coup there either.

 

            As Luttwak noted and as history has confirmed, coups happen only in “weak, unstable and failed states and societies. States in which power is divided among a multitude of institutions and levels of power, where there is a strong civil society, where parties, unions, associations, organs of local administration, leaders of public opinion, and independent media are active, where regular and honest elections are held and where there is a strong and stable economy are practically immune from coups.”

 

Countries without these things, however, are at risk. Ryzhkov points out that Luttwak identified three favorable conditions for a successful coup “in a country with a strong bureaucracy and a weak society” – a prolonged economic collapse, with mass unemployment and high inflation; “a lengthy and unsuccessful war or a serious military or diplomatic defeat of the regime;” and “chronic political instability in a multi-party system.”

 

The fatal trap such authoritarian regimes find themselves in is one of their own making: “the more they oppress society, the more arbitrary the power of a narrow ruling group becomes … the simpler it becomes to replace a narrow group at the top, in the hands of which has been concentrated all power.”

 

            “If Putin and his command really want to secure Russia from any coup attempts (both from abroad and from within) and also to ensure the country’s sovereignty,” Ryzhkov says, “they need to actively support the development of a strong civil society and democracy rather than  suppress them and also conduct an effective economic policy … while avoiding dangerous foreign policy adventures.”