Posted on 05/11/2006 11:48:50 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
President Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, and there are several things that make this year’s presidential address notable. One is that it comes very close to outlining the contours of Putin’s desired political legacy, which could be described as the New Deal and the Great Society mixed together in one strategy for securing a more just and effective distribution of Russia’s new wealth among its people.
It is no coincidence that Putin opened his speech with a strongly worded quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt: “We have stepped on toes, and we will continue to tread on them in the future. They are the toes of those who seek high positions or wealth, or perhaps both, by the short path, at the expense of the general good." The words were meant as a warning to those oligarchs who have profited unfairly from Russia’s resources. Putin then proceeded to outline a very pragmatic political and cultural framework for building a more just and prosperous society; one which would command international respect and be capable of defending its democratic achievements.
For the first time in his tenure, the president laid out a very specific program for combating Russia's catastrophic demographic decline. Although Putin has mentioned the demographic problem in each of his previous State of the Nation speeches, this was the first time he outlined a comprehensive program for combating the declining birthrate.
Perhaps it was because he knew at the time that the state lacked sufficient resources to launch a program massive enough to make a difference. Not any longer. The government has over $50 billion at its disposal in the Stabilization Fund, not to mention the budget surplus and the hard currency and gold reserves of the Central Bank in excess of $225 billion. The Ministry of Finance estimates Putin's proposed "fertility spending" will total around $1.5 billion in 2007 – hardly a back-breaking burden.
There are also some political calculations built in. Russia's demographic crisis is an issue that has been brought up by Russian nationalists with increasing frequency, and has demonstrated that it has electoral potential to a degree that would be capable of seriously upsetting Putin's National Projects agenda. In January, the Rodina party unveiled a National Project of its own – "Preserving the Nation" – which contains a very similar mix of proposals for fighting the demographic decline and increasing the fertility rate.
The Kremlin realized it could no longer ignore the issue and yield this highly combustible agenda to its most serious political opponents only a year before parliamentary elections. Putin's successor simply has to inherit an established mechanism that is already demonstrating some real success in confronting the nation's most alarming problem head-on.
Although most of Putin’s proposals for increasing the birthrate and improving childcare sound rather traditional, such as cash benefits that steeply increase with each additional child born to a family. But these ideas are truly revolutionary in the Russian political and cultural context. The main proposal is to provide every woman giving birth to a second child with an individual investment fund of 250,000 rubles (slightly less than $10,000 at the current exchange rate), which could be used for long-term investments in mortgages, education or even for the woman's individual pension account. This will have a highly liberating effect on many women in rural areas and particularly in the traditional societies of the North Caucasus.
The second important aspect of Putin’s speech concerned the economy. The president continued to caution against excessive state involvement in economic policies and provided careful guidelines for investments in new technology, communications and transportation infrastructure projects. In a subtle swipe at Western critics of his support of Russia as an energy superpower, Putin even called for private and state investment in future energy technologies such as thermonuclear and hydrogen energy.
Predictions beforehand were that Putin's speech would largely focus on foreign policy, clarifying Russia's rather tangled relations with the United States and the EU following the increasing criticism of Russia's internal development of democracy and its policies in the CIS. In fact, a day before the speech, some leaks from the Kremlin indicated the President might use the speech to deliver a sharp retort to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's controversial speech in Vilnius last week.
This did not happen. Putin was, as always, pointedly restrained when addressing sensitive foreign policy issues. He did not advance any new breathtaking ideas on foreign policy and only moderately criticized those in the West who "remained mired in a Cold-War mentality." However, he reasonably defended Russia's right to reassert itself on the international stage after years of decline by outlining an ambitious strategy of military modernization and reform as a guarantee against decisions that infringe on Russia's sovereignty.
There were two main foreign policy ideas in the president's speech. One has to do with Russia's strategic objectives in the former Soviet Union. Contrary to some expectations, he did not endorse any specific framework for integrating former Soviet republics, nor did he push for preserving the CIS at all costs. Rather, Putin proclaimed the creation of a system of sustainable development for all post-Soviet states as Russia's final strategic objective in the area – a goal no G8 member can disagree with.
The second idea concerned UN reform. He advocated improving the effectiveness of the UN while at the same time broadening international support for the reformed institution – two objectives that might be hard to fulfill since they are in conflict with one another.
Then there was the section of Putin's speech on defense. Some pundits have claimed that this was a subtle indication that, by lauding the success of the Army's modernization effort, Putin has finally chosen his successor and heir-apparent to be Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. Maybe that was his intention, but it is impossible to say for sure.
There was an element of pride in Putin's tone as he described the distances traveled by the Russian military during his tenure from the complete wreck of the late 1990s, scrambling to assemble 65,000 combat-ready troops from an army of 1.4 million, to a leaner and gradually modernizing force, fielding new advanced weapons systems, maintaining the viability of its nuclear deterrent and having enough fuel and cash to train the air force and the navy. In short, Putin outlined the revival of the Russian Armed Forces during his tenure – a legacy of which he deservedly feels proud.
The next Russian leader won't be as cuddly.
"Putin is facing a declining birth rate, a declining life expectancy rate, unbridled corruption, organized crime, terrorism, large environmental problems, an aging military infrastructure. "
And that has changed from the 1980's how?
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Wonder why he quoted FDR when there were so many good Russian Bolsheviks he could have quoted?
"Under Communism, the problems were hidden behind a veil of lies and the sunny delusion the country would move on to better things. "
Funny, the DNC says the same exact things.
$10,000 goes a long way in Russia.
From what I can remember of reading about the subject, I believe that would put Russia number one in the world with respect to the amount of "happy" money that any government gives for a birth.
That's certainly a long way from the Soviet days, when I don't believe that the USSR could have guaranteed every child even a month's supply of bread, much less a sizeable investment fund.
"...Wonder why he quoted FDR when there were so many good Russian Bolsheviks he could have quoted?..."
From a purely rhetorical POV, I think this was the best thing about the speach. Other media have glommed onto the Putin vs. Cheney sparring by describing the "... wolf doesn't care who he eats..." bit. But I think that, if they only want to play this exchange off as sparring- they missed the fact that the FDR quote criticizing corporate greed was the best jab in the match.
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