All sorts of rumors are flying about regarding Putin’s health. The most recent due to the cancellation of Japan PM Noda’s visit to Moscow: Noda supposedly blamed the cancellation on Putin’s health. The restricted travel schedule-and the lack of macho stunts-do suggest that Putin has suffered some sort of injury. The excuses given-notably, Putin doesn’t want to leave his dacha because of his concerns about Moscow traffic-strain credulity, so something is amiss clearly.
I wonder though if that the main issue is not physical health, but political. The current spate of accusations of corruption-Serdyukov and others in the MOD, the head of Rostelecom, the head of GLONASS-have been portrayed as an attempt by Putin to co-opt the opposition (Navalny in particular), or as a means of reorganizing the cadres upon his resumption of power. But another interpretation is that it is symptomatic of a breakdown in the equilibrium between contending factions-clans, if you like-in the elite.
In Russia, everyone in the elite is corrupt. Corruption is a way of providing incentives to play along (you play along, you get a slice of the spoils) along the lines of what Douglas Allen describes as the role of corruption in early-modern Britain. And corruption is not just carrot, but stick: everyone is dirty, and therefore vulnerable to corruption charges if they don’t play along. It is a form of MAD-mutually assured destruction.
If that equilibrium holds, everyone is corrupt but no corruption charges are ever filed agains the elite. If that equilibrium breaks down-which can occur if the political longevity of the leader comes into question, as is plausible for Putin given the unexpected rise of the opposition and the perhaps surprising discontent with his way of reassuming the presidency-one plausible effect is a series of tit-for-tat corruption allegations/charges. So the spate of corruption allegations is potentially politically portentous.
The breakdown in the MAD equilibrium-or even the suggestion that the MAD equilibrium is tenuous-makes it very dangerous for Putin, whose main job is to maintain that equilibrium, to travel abroad for extended periods. No doubt he remembers that the 1991 coup against Gorbachev occurred when he went to Crimea on holiday.
It could well be that Putin is willing to put up with rumors about his bad back because admitting the real reason for staying close to Moscow almost continuously-a highly unstable political situation among the elite-would have cataclysmic effects. Nothing destabilizes a regime like an admission that the regime is potentially unstable. As I wrote long ago, a regime like Putin’s depends on exploiting the difficulty of the opposition to coordinate and coalesce. The main way of increasing this difficulty is to convince those dissatisfied with the regime that their opposition is futile because the regime is popular and united. If it becomes evident that the regime is in fact vulnerable, this can become self-fulfilling. Opponents-and not just the Navalnys, but people within the elite thinking of seizing their main chance-become emboldened, and that can unleash a feedback loop that spirals out of control.
Putin’s reluctance to go outside-his agoraphobia, if you will-therefore may have little to do with his physical condition, although that may provide a convenient (if denied) excuse. It may have much more to do with his political condition.
I don’t know for sure, but it bears watching.