1. Latest developments. The Beslan tragedy cast a shadow on the past week's developments. The all-out grief in no way precluded citizens' questions and claims to the authorities. They are accumulated in huge quantities, as we have noted earlier. The powers that be have been found wanting. Top government officials are carried away by flashy but meaningless rhetoric rather than discuss the roots of the tragedy and the ways to avert future terrorist attacks.
Let us look at Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. The past few days saw him repeatedly and forcefully say that "war has been declared on Russia." But professional military watchers noted that the Defense Ministry have made no moves normally concomitant with a declaration of war - introduced no higher degree of alert, initiated no mobilization procedures, sent no additional orders to military units. Hence follows the expert conclusion that the Defense Minister's flashy announcement is none other than a PR move.
President Putin's meeting with foreign political science experts was similarly PR oriented. The President was consistently working toward improving his own image and that of his government - and succeeded quite well. In any event, most of the Western responses to the meeting were highly favorable. But did the President really say anything new and of import?
Many noticed that Putin placed the blame for the Chechnya conflict at his predecessors' door. True, in respect to Chechnya that was definitely new. As for the Yeltsin regime's other political errors and economic failures, Putin repeatedly had gone over them. It would have been unlike Putin not to take advantage of the opportunity under the circumstances. It is worth recalling that for the past five years Putin has held the levers of managing the Chechnya situation - time sufficient to correct the past mistakes.
Still, Putin has to reckon with the sentiments pervading society. The President reversed himself and authorized a parliamentary investigation into the Beslan attack, the first time he has agreed to such a probe during nearly five years in power.
At a meeting with Western political scientists he seemed to be going out of his way to show his allegiance to classic liberalism. But, according to him, classic liberal ideas cannot be borrowed into Russia because they allegedly cannot take root there. It actually means he'll do nothing to help translate liberal ideas into life. Clearly, such liberalism is not worth a brass farting.
Putin's initial instinctive response to the recent terrorist attacks that simultaneously had downed two Russian airliners was very significant in that he made a typically anti-liberal decision. He proposed to replace private security agencies charged with examining luggage and passengers at airports with the federal transport police units. But there is no guarantee that a raw policeman newly discharged from the military, lacking expertise, earning beggarly wages and susceptible to corruption will perform better and more effectively than a security force veteran with a position at a security agency where he works since his resignation, has lots of experience and enjoys a high salary.
Following the Beslan tragedy Putin demonstrated his penchant for addressing emerging problems with bureaucratic methods. The new top-down anti-terrorist force management system headed locally by high-placed Interior Ministry officials seems to be well established. The North Ossetia interior minister and the Federal Security Service (FSB) provincial chief have been relieved of their duties. The time looks ripe to report the staff changes. But who will vouch that the new structure and a different crop of second-tier officials will perform better than the ones dismissed? Putin's staff moves have not affected the top brass of the secret services that make up the inner circle of Putin's retinue.
The ability of many Russian Olympus official residents to stay afloat is truly astounding. Take, for example, former head of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin. His tenure was marked by no impressive victories either in the military reform, or in the sphere of the war craft. Russia's military history will remember him for his stubborn standoff against all the defense ministers - his higher ups. He succeeded in gobbling up two of them - Igor Rodionov and Igor Sergeyev, but choked on the third - President Putin's close friend Sergei Ivanov - and was ordered to resign commission.
Now the President has appointed Kvashnin - with no experience of political leadership whatsoever - as his envoy to the Siberian Federal District. He is made the actual master of an enormous territory boasting a tremendous natural resource potential and a substantial political significance to Russia. It is doubtful that Kvashnin is truly ready for this new role. But the President will never discard his loyalists. Putin's personnel resources are not that big.
The economic situation has favored President Putin, thus far. However, new alarming symptoms have started to crop up. World oil prices plunged somewhat. In contrast, inflation in Russia in August topped 1 percent, primarily due to surging fuel prices. This questions the implementation of the government's plan of harnessing inflation within annual 10 percent. The populace's lack of confidence in the country's economic prospects aggravated by the ongoing fuss around Yukos is resulting in the repudiation of the ruble. The past July saw Russians buying hard currency to the tune of $7 billion. It is the absolute maximum in Russia's post-Soviet history.
Naturally, domestic investments in economy stay tepid, which in its turn undermines the prospects of Putin's mapped-out plan to double GDP inside of one decade.
Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of Yevgeny Volk and do not
necessarily represent those of the Heritage Foundation and The Hayek Foundation
(Moscow).