Kremlin policy: Strategic or like the music of a jazz group?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/opinion/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-russia.html

According to Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin is "still enigmatic, but no longer strategic." Kremlin policy is now "fashioned rather like the music of a jazz group; its continuing improvisation is an attempt to survive the latest crisis." Pavlovsky thinks Putin "lost interest in day-to-day decision making" after the accession of Crimea to Russia when he won the support of more than 80 percent of the population.  He wants to be "informed about everything, but is reluctant to play national housekeeper." He doesn’t order, he only listens."  So far so good on the facts, but I think Pavlovsky's interpretation of the facts is seriously mistaken. "Jazz group" is a good metaphor, not just for Russian government but for governments everywhere. No government anywhere follows strategy in any serious sense of the word? Yes, there are State of the Union Addresses, Speeches from the Throne, and other policy statements.  But these are rarely strategy in any serious sense. They are typically broad statements of aims, sometimes containing descriptions of how proposed policy aims will be carried out. Even legislation lays out frameworks for policy, rather than strategy. Actual policy, usually worked out behind closed doors, is more likely to spell out how a government agency expects to get from "a to b" but policy-making is typically closer to "muddling through" than to actual strategy. Most of what modern governments do consists of management, coping with unanticipated crises, and carrying out ceremonial functions. Viewed from this perspective, Russian government today is no different and may, under Putin, be acting even more strategically than most governments. 

Russia, Pavlovsky thinks, is "driven not by a search for external power but by internal weakness."  What does he mean by "internal weakness?" He says it means "a lack of vision" for Russia's impending post-Putin existence." Since Putin has "made any alternative unthinkable," the country is "trapped by his success." Putin's "enormous popular support is a weakness not a strength — and Russia’s leaders know it."  The Russian political system "functions on the assumption that its president is immortal."  Pavlovsky's argument seems to be that a country that lacks a vision of its existence after its current leader has no future.  This may sound alarming, but it happens to be a pseudo problem, or at least less alarming, less uniquely Russian than it appears to be.  

No country ever has a clear vision of its future beyond its current leader, or even before the current leader leaves the scene.  Every country experiences uneasiness facing the prospect of a new leader. So much depends on events that cannot be foreseen. Even when the identity of the next leader becomes known, so much will depend on unforeseeable aspects of that leader's capabilities and style.  So much will depend on unforeseeable characteristics of the system that emerges from the new leader's appointments to positions in his/her administration. So much will depend on unforeseeable reactions of the permanent bureaucracy and general public to the new administration.  It is not only Russian officials who are nervous about their futures after Putin. Officials everywhere get nervous as a change in leadership looms on the horizon.  

Is there then nothing unusual about Russia's particular lack of a vision of its post-Putin existence?  Yes there is something unusual.  Whether or not one likes Putin, it must be admitted that he is an extraordinary leader, and that it is unlikely that he will be followed by a leader of comparable stature.  Most Russians must realize this, even if subconsciously.  It must be somewhat unnerving for Russians to think about their country without such an extraordinary leader. This is why so many Russians who do not like Putin say they do not see an alternative.  True, there are some who believe Putin is the root cause of Russia's problems.  But I wonder how seriously they have thought about this assumption.  When I ask Russians if they see an alternative, they usually can say what they don't like about Putin.  But I have I have yet to hear anyone present a credible alternative.  

Mikhail Gorbachev, reflecting the view of a large part of the Russian public, once said that Putin literally saved Russia.  Yet the difficulty of imaging a country after the departure of an extraordinary leader is not unique to Russia under Putin.  Think of the French trying to imagine France after de Gaulle? What about imagining the successions of other towering figures like Stalin, Ataturk, Gandhi, Bismarck, Masaryk, Roosevelt, and Mao while they were still in power? Russia's turbulent past, especially memories of the chaos of the 1990s, aggravates the uncertainty.  

There are more holes in Pavlovsky's argument that suggest that, while he may have some sense for what is going on in Putin's administration, his knowledge of other countries, of political theory and political history is weak.  What he writes is often a mixture of brilliant insight and nonsense. "Putin has made any alternative unthinkable" thinks Pavlovsky, ... because "his political system has destroyed the legitimacy of elections as an instrument for the peaceful change of power." Putin's United Russia party is a "valuable instrument for winning rigged elections, but unlike the Chinese Communist Party, it lacks the autonomy and ideological coherence needed for securing power succession." 

What does this all this mean?  Has Putin so thoroughly destroyed the legitimacy of elections that Russians are no longer able even to think about alternatives? Of course not.  Even with Putin in power, Russians continue to discuss flaws in the conduct of elections and how such flaws might be remedied.  Even if Putin were adamantly opposed to "clean" elections, (which he is not), his regime does not have anywhere near the repressive capabilities to prevent gradual reform.  Has Putin so thoroughly destroyed civil society that peaceful change will always remain impossible, where violent revolution will always remain the only alternative? Most likely not.  More likely is that a Russian public with increasing political awareness and political maturity will become better able to influence the affairs of the Russian state.   

Pavlovsky thinks that, far from having a grand strategy, what "animates Mr. Putin’s Kremlin is the assertion of its right to break international rules." In fact, he says that breaking the rules without being punished is the "Kremlin’s peculiar definition of being a great power."  What does Pavlovsky mean in saying that a right to break international rules is the central driving theme underlying Russian foreign policy?  Was it really breaking rules that was the Kremlin's driving motive, or might the Crimean affair not have had something to do with vital national interests?  Furthermore, what does he mean by "without being punished?"  Hasn't Russia suffered as a result of Crimea?  What more would have to be done to Russia in order to say it had been punished?   

I doubt that Putin has "lost interest in day-to-day decision making." What Pavlovsky says about his change in role may be factually correct, and yes Putin has been looking tired for a long time. But his shift from giving orders to listening is likely part of a long-term program. At the beginning of his first Inaugural Address in 2000 Putin said: "I know the head of the state in Russia has always been and always will be a person who is responsible for everything that happens in the country." Although the speech implies that this way of thinking about the head of state is an eternal Russian tradition, I suspect that Putin's aim was to identify Russia's Czar-based system as a problem.  Words and actions over the years suggest that Putin has been striving to gradually transform the regime into one based on laws and institutions rather than a Czar, "responsible for everything that happens in the country." In a state based on laws and institutions, although the head of state is the source of many policy initiatives, policy initiatives also come from government agencies, legislatures, and from organizations outside government.