Dictatorships appear stable. Until they don’t. That was the laconic assessment of Jonatan Vseviov, one of Estonia’s most senior diplomats, of the fall of the Assad dictatorship in Syria. The unspoken implication is that Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia may be just as brittle. It certainly seemed that way 18 months ago, when Yevgeny Prigozhin’s motley mutineers were marching on Moscow. When the Wagner boss’s coup fell apart the confident predictions of Putin’s downfall ended as quickly as they had flourished. Now we assume, again, that the Russian leader’s iron grip and personal paranoia prevent any plausible successor gaining the political and institutional momentum needed to challenge him.
Maybe. But life is full of surprises. What seems obvious in retrospect looks highly unlikely until it happens. Just because nobody is predicting something does not make it impossible or even unlikely. Lenin was, to put it mildly, an outside candidate to be Russia’s leader. For that matter, so was Putin. The safest prediction in a closed, highly-stressed society is that tomorrow will be like today. But when change comes, it tends to be abrupt.
One reason is that fear creates consensus. Take the conventional wisdom that opinion polls in Russia show overwhelming support for Putin. Rephrase that. “Russians mostly display public and private obedience to the regime.” When the fear ebbs, the consensus shifts. In the event of Putin being toppled by a putsch, a majority of Russians would (my prediction) support the trial and imprisonment of their former leader. That does not mean that they will revile his crimes at home or abroad. But when the wind shifts, the weathervane moves.
The endemic secrecy of totalitarian regimes clouds outside scrutiny. Nobody outside the innermost circles of power in Moscow knows Putin’s state of mental or physical health, for example. Rumors abound: the Russian leader is dead, mad, comatose, or enjoying near-immortality because of a strict sugar-free diet featuring quail’s eggs, beetroot and horseradish. Take your pick.
What we do know is that Putin obsesses about the downfall of other dictators. He hated the sight of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, disheveled and pleading, being captured by US troops in 2001. He was particularly upset by the torture-murder of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011. Indeed, the invasion of Ukraine may have stemmed at least in part from his deranged fears of a similar insurrection in Russia. So it is a fair bet that Putin is troubled by the fate of his Syrian protégé Bashar al-Assad.
As John Gerson, an eminent visiting professor at King’s College London, tells me, Putin will now wake up each day haunted by fears that the edifice of his power may similarly turn from concrete to meringue. His hugely costly war in Ukraine meant that he could not help the beleaguered Syrian regime. The price: Russia is now set to lose its only military bases in the Mediterranean, a strategic setback and an international humiliation. Putin will have to work hard to prevent that denting his domestic reputation too.
Before settling in to watch the box set of “Dictators’ Downfall” over the holiday season, it is worth remembering that the aftermath of these epic dramas is often disappointing. Mostly, a mixture of deadlock, chaos and bloodshed ensue, through a wearying number of sequels. It is theoretically possible that Putin’s downfall, whether it comes in hours, days, weeks, months, years or (just possibly) decades, brings peace and prosperity to Russia and its neighbours. But other options include more of the same, an even worse dictatorship, phoney reform or outright chaos. Don’t be surprised at that, either.
Edward Lucas is a Non-resident Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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