Over the past decade, Russia has undergone extraordinary changes and views in the West have never been so polarized as today. 

In order to put together a mosaic of possible Russian futures, in the spring of 2007 Dr. Andrew Kuchins organized a working group of leading experts with diverse perspectives and expertise and their contributions helped to inform this report.  Alternatives Futures for Russia to 2017 examines drivers for the future, potential scenarios, and key signposts for scenario trends.

Russia today is a hybrid regime that might best be termed "illiberal internationalism." From being a weakly institutionalized, fragile, and in many ways distorted proto-democracy in the 1990s, Russia under Vladimir Putin has moved back in the direction of a highly centralized authoritarianism, which has characterized the state for most of its 1,000-year history. But it is an authoritarian state where the consent of the governed is essential.

Given the experience of the 1990s and the Kremlin's propaganda emphasizing this period as one of chaos, economic collapse, and international humiliation, the Russian people have no great enthusiasm for democracy and remain politically apathetic in light of the extraordinary economic recovery and improvement in lifestyles for so many over the last eight years. The emergent, highly centralized government, combined with a weak and submissive society, is the hallmark of traditional Russian paternalism.

That Russia is a hybrid regime should not surprise us only 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The vexing question is how sustainable is this system, and if it is not, how will it develop. There are many different views on this question, some of them reflected in this report. The report, based on analysis by Andrew Kuchins and members of his Russia 2017 Working Group, examines the significant drivers of Russia’s future—economic, political, demographic, and geostrategic—and then offers some possible scenarios for that future through 2017.

Download Alternatives Futures for Russia to 2017

PDF format, 1.8MB, 71Pages.

Author: Andrew C. Kuchins
Foreword: Charles Ryan

© 2007 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Preface:

The inspiration for this study has deep roots going back to my undergraduate days at Amherst College in the late 1970s. The more proximate spark was the sense arriving back in Washington in 2006, after two and a half years based in Moscow directing the Carnegie Moscow Center, that discussion of Russia in U.S. policy circles was coming unhinged, as perceptions of contemporary Russia were clouded by old stereotypes and inadequate appreciation of change.

I am grateful to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and its president, John Hamre, for providing the ideal environment to think hard about the complexities and seeming contradictions of Russia, how its development may unfold, and what those scenarios may mean for U.S. interests. I want to thank the Ryan Charitable Trust for the generous support that made this study possible. I was fortunate to become close friends with its trustees, Charles Ryan and Caren Lambert, during my stay in Moscow, and I am also grateful to Charles for our many lively conversations about Russia and U.S. foreign policy, as well as his writing such an elegant and insightful foreword to this report.

I want to thank the members of the Russia 2017 Working Group, which met several times during the spring/summer of 2007—Anders Åslund, Ed Chow, Toby Gati, Thomas Graham, Nikolas Gvosdev, Henry Hale, Sarah Mendelson, Lilia Shevtsova, Dmitri Trenin, Judyth Twigg, and Cory Welt—for their very insightful contributions, comments, and criticisms. This process greatly benefitted from a set of memos prepared by working group members Anders Åslund, Thomas Graham, Henry Hale, Sarah Mendelson, and Cory Welt. These memos, written in spring 2007, were so interesting and well done that we have published them virtually as is in the appendix to this report. Thanks also go to Masha Lipman for her helpful suggestions and critical reading of a draft of the report.

The report would never have been completed without the extraordinary management and tenacious research by CSIS research associate Amy Beavin and CSIS intern Hilary Drew. “Hurrah” to them and also to James Dunton and the crack CSIS publications team.

While I hope readers find some illumination in this report, we have only scratched the surface of the eternally vexing question “Whither Russia.” I look forward to reconvening and expanding our team for more rigorous examination of the many drivers that contribute to Russia’s future, not only because it is intellectually captivating, but because it will remain for a very long time to come a key factor in the successful pursuit of U.S. national interests.

Visit Alternatives Futures for Russia to 2017 CSIC Website

About the Author:

Andrew Kuchins is a senior fellow and director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. From 2000 to 2006, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he was director of its Russian and Eurasian Program in Washington, D.C., from 2000 to 2003 and again in 2006, and director of the Carnegie Moscow Center in Russia from 2003 to 2005. Kuchins conducts research and writes widely on Russian foreign and security policy.

He is working on a book titled China and Russia: Strategic Partners, Allies, or Competitors, and coedited, with Dmitri Trenin, Russia: The Next Ten Years (Carnegie, 2004). Kuchins has taught at Georgetown University and Stanford University. From 1997 to 2000, he was associate director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also served as a senior program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from 1993 to 1997, where he developed and managed a grant-making program to support scientists and researchers in the former Soviet Union. From 1989 to 1993, he was executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford Program on Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies.

He is a member of the editorial boards of Pro et Contra and Demokratizatsia and was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1995 to 2000. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University.

About CSIS:

In an era of ever-changing global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decisionmakers. CSIS conducts research and analysis and develops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change.

Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for America to survive as a nation and prosper as a people. Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent public policy institutions.

Today, CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. More than 220 full-time staff and a large network of affiliated scholars focus their expertise on defense and security; on the world’s regions and the unique challenges inherent to them; and on the issues that know no boundary in an increasingly connected world.

Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn became chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 1999, and John J. Hamre has led CSIS as its president and chief executive officer since 2000.

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