Category: Vladimir Putin

The name of Niccolò Machiavelli is often heard on our lips when referring to a certain situation or someone ‘Machiavellian’ (being clever but dishonest and immoral to achieve some means) used to address the different varieties of men (as in mankind) that behave in a not so ‘moral’ way. It is true that Machiavelli was no saint, no lawyer is, but this poor Florentine man did nothing but writing a book full of guidelines for rulers to keep ruling. To be fair, he did propose some ideas considered rather arguably harsh, none the less they are useful not to the common folk but to the leaders of a country. The echo of his work has lasted through time until our days, his ideas can be seen in the way some politicians talk and act.

To illustrate this, we should remember all the times a government has made many promises to its people before an election, and after it, they were just wet paper with no value at all, yet the head of state had many ‘good’ reasons to not fulfill them, which reminds me of a quote from The Prince, a ruler will never be short of good reasons to explain away a broken promise’ (Machiavelli, 1532). Something quite impressive I must say is that words with an antiquity of five hundred years are still relevant today, it is because of that that he fascinates me, seeking power and a way to keep it is not something necessarily bad, it is the actions we follow to achieve that goal that will corrupt us in the end.

In this paper, I will use the vision of politics and power provided by Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ to look into the political behavior of different rulers in our current times, and how his teachings can be linked to our reality.

In fiction, a Machiavellian character can be seen as someone that empathizes little with others and have a hard time connecting emotionally, know how to handle deception and alter the image others perceive of them, they constantly search for their own benefit, control every action they do, starting with their impulses and emotions, they usually have very ambitious and long-term goals, they are relentless when it comes to achieving their goals and they might even appear to us readers or watchers as charming. Characters with these traits are Francis Underwood from House of Cards, Lord Baelish from Game of Thrones, or the Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Inside books and movies it is easy to recognize that said characters are acting with some distance from the moral ways of behaving, we might even call them evil, yet how do we identify who is the antagonist in our political environment when every politician hides their true nature? I believe the answer is by looking closely at their actions and overlooking their fancy and elegant words.

The now Supreme Ruler, Vladimir Putin

I will now introduce a big Machiavellian politician, someone to be both admired and feared, Vladimir Putin. This man similar to the fictional examples cited above has always had an inspiring ambition, and we see this from his origins until now. Putin started off from very humble beginnings, he lived his first years in a communal apartment in Leningrad. He studied at School No. 193, located in front of his residence, in the Baskov alley, known for being a poor area, and there he began to practice judo and sambo. Some years later in 1970, he entered the Law School of the Leningrad State University, where he graduated with honors in 1975 with a thesis about the policy of the United States in Africa (Putin and Guevorkian, 2000). He went from being recruited by the KGB, earning the degree of officer (lieutenant of Justice) to becoming the President of Russia and more recently being named ‘Supreme Ruler’ (REUTERS, 2020).

Now, this ruler is a very good example of being both political animals, according to Machiavelli one must have the qualities of the lion and the fox. To illustrate this by tracing back to the years 2013 – 2015, when the Ukrainian Crisis happened, at that time he declared for the first time, in a meeting at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), that he supported the presidential elections in Ukraine and that the secessionist referendum scheduled two days later should be postponed, urging the pro-Russians to make that decision to facilitate dialogue with Kyiv (Marples, n.d.).

He was the lion, attacking fast and fatal when he tried to annex Ukraine to Russia and he was the fox, acting cunningly and smart when proposing this meeting. So while in the OSCE Putin advocated for dialogue and discouraged the provocation of the referendum, he arranged great paraphernalia of power in a territory that was illegitimately annexed and managed the controversial concept of “historical justice” that seemed to allow him to disregard the borders and skip all international agreements and laws without the slightest trouble.

Putin also followed the Florentine’s advice of when having to do damage, the ruler should try to be forceful and fast so that it is forgotten soon, alternatively, try to do good in a way that lasts over time with promises and small ‘gifts. He showed the world how would threats be managed in Russia when in 2002, a crowded Moscow theatre was assaulted by a group of patriotic fanatics demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. The President then only requested their surrender, and when the group refused, he called the Alpha group of the Federal Security Service and introduced a narcotic gas through the sewers. What happened later was absolute terror but a very fast solution, the sleeping offenders were shot one by one in the back of their necks ending the situation (Nedkov and Wilson, 2003). Although the whole quarrel cost 130 innocent lives, Putin patented this direct action as a success, brutal but efficient.

Not only he has been able to keep ruling since the year 2000 with four consecutive presidential terms, but he made a poor and corrupted Russia, the legacy of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, resurface from the ashes and become the strong country that is today. Under Yeltsin’s mandate, the Soviet empire lost its pride and the West lost its fear, but now the status quo has changed, and Russia has recovered its brightness.

Sources

1. Machiavelli, N. and Parks, T. (1532). The prince. Glasgow: Penguin random house UK.
2. Marples, D. (n.d.). Ukraine in Conflict: An Analytical Chronicle. 1st ed. E-International Relations.
3. Nedkov, V. and Wilson, P. (2003). 57 Hours: A Survivor’s Account of the Moscow Hostage Drama. Toronto: Viking Canada.
4. Putin, V., Gevorkjan, N., Timakova, N. and Kolesnikov, A. (2000). First person. London: Hutchinson.
5. REUTERS (2020). Kremlin confirms the new title of SUPREME RULER for Vladimir Putin is being considered following his recent changes to Russia’s constitution. Daily Mail online.
6. Vidal, G. (2019). Why the Right has failed. El Pais. [online] Available at: https://elpais.com/politica/2019/04/28/actualidad/1554643522_520230.html [Accessed 13 Jan. 2020].
7. Nytimes.com. (2016). Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women. [online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].
8. Stephanos, D. (2011). Trump, card. [online] Nypost.com. Available at: https://nypost.com/2011/04/03/trump-card/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].
9. Delaney, K. (2016). Trump bragged at the debate about not paying taxes and taking advantage of bankruptcy laws. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/792408/presidential-debate-donald-trump-bragged-about-not-paying-taxes-and-taking-advantage-of-bankruptcy-laws/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].

What is a leader?

According to oxforddictionaries.com (lexico), a leader is a person who commands a group, organization, or country and leadership is the action of leading a group of people or an organization.

What is leadership?

There are many different views and perceptions on leadership and what it exactly means. This is because there are many different types of leaders and many different views on them, but it can be concluded that leadership is the ability and skill to motivate, influence, and inspire a group of people, an organization, or a country to have governmental success. A leader should focus on the followers and put out an outline of the overall goals that need to be achieved and should be able to influence the followers to readily and unreservedly achieve these goals.

After reading and researching more about Vladimir Putin’s road to an effective governmental leader in Russia. One of the biggest reasons that Vladimir Putin was elected President is because he understands Russian citizens based on culture, values, and norms. Vladimir Putin can be considered a perfect Russian role model because he was one from humble beginnings, Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad. To mother Maria Shelomova and Father Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin. president Putin met his wife Lyudmila Shkrebneva through a mutual friend. Lyudmila worked as a flight attendant on domestic airlines and had come to Leningrad for three days with a friend. Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin were married until 2013.

In 1985, before their departure for Germany, Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin welcomed their first daughter, Maria. Their second daughter, Katerina, was born in 1986, in Dresden.

Both girls were named in honor of their grandmothers, Maria Putina and Yekaterina Shkrebneva. According to their mother, Lyudmila, Mr. Putin loves his daughters very much. “Not all fathers are as loving with their children as he is. And he has always spoiled them, while I was the one who had to discipline them,”.

Education

From 1960-1968, Vladimir Putin attended Primary School No. 193 in Leningrad. After the eighth grade, he entered High School No. 281

In the sixth grade, Vladimir Putin decided that he needed to achieve something in life, so he began getting good grades, which came easily to him.

“It became clear that street smarts were not enough, so I began doing sports. But even that was not enough for maintaining my status, so to speak, for very long. I realized that I also needed to study well,” Vladimir Putin says. In 1970, Vladimir Putin became a student in the law department at Leningrad State University, earning his degree in 1975. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Putin studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow. Even before he finished school he wanted to work in intelligence so he went to the kgb office to find out the requirements for working in intelligence and from that moment he decided he would complete a law degree. In 1970, Vladimir Putin was admitted to the law department at Leningrad State University. He is a very well-educated man with a Ph.D. in economics that identifies the country’s resources and makes sure that these are efficiently used.

How the leader came to occupy the office –

After returning to Leningrad from Germany in 1990, Vladimir Putin became assistant to the rector of Leningrad State University in charge of international relations. In 1996, he and his family moved to Moscow, where his political career began. n 1996, Vladimir Putin moved with his family to Moscow, where he was offered the post of Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Directorate. Putin’s career rose rapidly. In March 1997, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and Chief of Main Control Directorate. Busy with work as he was, he still found time to defend his doctoral thesis on economics at the St Petersburg State Mining Institute. In May 1998, Putin was made First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, and in July 1998, he was appointed Director of the Federal Security Service. From March 1999, he also held the position of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

On 9 August 1999, Putin was appointed one of three First Deputy Prime Ministers, and later on, that day was appointed acting Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Yeltsin. Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor.

Role of the leader in the office

Vladimir Putin’s role in the office is president.

Nato was formed in response to the power of the USSR to provide a military response if necessary. Russia has always looked at this alliance with suspicion and considers its existence a threat to its political and military hegemony. Vladimir Putin has sought to establish Russia as a global presence and often comes into conflict with western powers. Despite having signed an agreement with NATO, Russia was eventually suspended because of its aggressive acts against Ukraine and specifically the annexation of Crimea in 2004(?) In some ways, Putin resents NATO because it represents a countervailing presence against Russia’military power.

Putin, as a leader, is seeking to reestablish Russia as a leading world power, using its ownership of nuclear weapons and other arsenals to intimidate smaller countries and form alliances with others. This was most recently seen by its actions in both Syria and Venezuela.

Tasks

The President determines Russia’s position in international affairs, alongside the Prime Minister and the Government of the Federation, and represents the state in international relations, conducts negotiations, and signs ratification documents.

The leader’s vision

President Putin’s First step was to state a clear vision for the future state of Russia that clearly based on the demands of the Russian citizens. In his Address to the Federal Assembly on May 26, 2004, Putin said, “Our goals are very clear. We want high living standards and a safe, free, and comfortable life for the country. We want a mature democracy and a developed civil society.

We want to strengthen Russia’s place in the world. But our main goal, I repeat, is to bring about a noticeable rise in our people’s prosperity.

We have better knowledge today of our own potential and we know what resources we have at our disposal. We understand the obstacles we could face in reaching the goals we have set and we are actively modernizing the state in order to make sure that its functions correspond to the present stage of Russia’s development – that of achieving a real rise in living standards.” He proved a clear orientation between his vision, strategy, and behavior. Moreover, he created an easy and transparent structure for the Russian government based on honesty and trustworthiness to fight corruption.

Skills

He has very accurate problem-solving skills, and analysis and is a hairsplitter who does not jump to conclusions. Vladimir Putin has certain skills, qualities, and traits such as his conceptual skills to understand Russia as a whole country and the relation between the society, community, and the government as the world at a large and how it influences its country helps him to plan out situational factors that might happen and how he should influence on these decisions.

Vladimir Putin’s relationship with his followers

Putin is actively promoted as a charismatic leader, where he can be seen fighting with tigers and bears. Vladimir Putin knows extremely well how to use his charisma in giving his interviews His immense self-confidence, fearless behavior, authority, and determination complete the whole package that has made him who he is and impresses his friends and foes. Followers of Charismatic leaders are assuming their leader possesses special skills or gifts and are captivated by their ideas. Compared to previous presidents in Russia, Boris Yeltsin for example who is considered a clown by the majority of the Russian people, Vladimir Putin makes a very good example that he is perceived as someone who is charismatic yet at the same time considered as one of the most driven, intelligent leaders of leaders Russia, who shows no fear against the Western sanctions and threats, he remains popular among people of Russia. Vladimir Putin’s approval rating remained above 80% for a long time. Even though it has dropped he is still depicted as a superhero and even as Judah in an art exhibit dedicated solely to him, called SUPERPUTIN . it seems he cannot do anything wrong in the eyes of the Russians

Type of leader / leadership style

Megalomaniacs like Putin are known for an autocratic leadership style, He controlled most of the important decisions made within the government and was most of the time not open to the opinions and insights of others. This has his strengths and weaknesses, since Putin is a visionary who wants to build up a greater Russia and is perfectionistic this played out very well for him. He knew if he wanted to realize his vision of a greater Russia he had to take control into his own hands.

He was known to be a very intimidating, influential, and feared leader therefore he dominated and controlled the government completely. This type of leadership centralizes power and decision-making. Usually, this sort of leadership would be considered negative because it can lead to frustration and unhappy employees but his employees and team believed in him and had the same vision they followed him totally to show loyalty that they would be highly rewarded for as well.

As mentioned, Vladimir Putin is an autocratic leader, and based on the Continuum Model, he was the only one to make the decisions, there was no little team involvement. he is the only one to make the decisions, and there was not little team involvement. Vladimir Putin’s decisions are first reviewed based on logic and equanimity, he always reviewed his option in the degree of the aims, and issues and prioritized his time to accomplish if he will take the decision or let his management team go over it first and then he would take the final decision In most cases his teams do not have an influential role on the decision making but he still listens to his employees and team absorbs the opinions and views but at the end, he makes the final decision.

The situational leadership model designed by Hersey and Blanchard regarding leadership styles is divided into four levels; S1-S2-S3-S4 which corresponds with the four stages of follower readiness referred to as D1-D2-D3-D4.

The leadership style relevant to Vladimir Putin during his presidency is delegating style S4. President Vladimir Putin of Russia by setting a vision and goals and giving clear direction to his colleagues whilst carrying out important tasks on both national and international political levels.

The leadership style relevant to Vladimir Putin during his presidency is delegating style S4. As president Vladimir Putin delegates Russia by setting a vision and goals and giving clear direction to his colleagues whilst carrying out important tasks on both national and international political levels. Whereas his prime-minister Medvedev for example is to some extent S3 – where he facilitates the President, Vladimir Putin, in supporting and assisting him in running the office through communicating ideas, guiding him when needed, as well as keeping his followers within Crimea and its citizens engaged.

How he deals with opportunities and challenges

President Putin does not hesitate to seize opportunities. for example when he was offered the position in office by Yeltsin. Putin recalled, “Mr. Yeltsin invited me to come and see him and said that he wanted to offer me the prime minister’s job. Incidentally, he never used the word ‘successor’ in his conversation with me then, but spoke of becoming ‘prime minister with prospects’, and said that if all went well, he thought this could be possible”.

Vladimir Putin accepts any challenge that comes his way that he thinks he can overcome. Vladimir Putin judo as a child so that from a tender age he would understand how to approach different challenges. For example isis, this group of terrorists was a worldwide problem. isis took a lot of Syria and claimed it as part of Iraq. Isis was a real threat to President Assad.

Conflict

President Putin is a very relentless leader he does not back down from a challenge and therefore tries to handle conflicts as bravely as possible. a perfect example is when he annexed Crimea, Crimea is a peninsula connected on the northwest to the mainland of Ukraine. According to Grant, T. (2015). Annexation of Crimea. American Journal of International Law, the Russian Federation, by a municipal law act dated March 21, 2014, annexed Crimea, an area of Ukraine. This act followed armed intervention by forces of the Russian Federation, a referendum, and a declaration of independence in Crimea. Outside the context of decolonization, few claims of annexation following the use of force have been made during the United Nations era; this is the first by a permanent member of the Security Council against a United Nations member. The present article examines the annexation of Crimea in view of the legal arguments that the Russian Federation has articulated in defense of its actions. It then considers the international response and the possible consequences of nonrecognition.

Is he a failure

President Putin is one of the most effective Russia has seen in a while he is well on his way to achieving the vision he set out to do from the beginning of his term. According to (Country Economy) the Gross Domestic Product of Russia grew 0.2% in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the previous quarter. This rate is the same as in the previous quarter.

The year-on-year change in GDP was 0.8%, 2 -tenths of one percent less than the 1% recorded in the first quarter of 2019.

The GDP figure in the second quarter of 2019 was $334,420 million, leaving Russia placed 10th in the ranking of quarterly GDP of the 50 countries that we publish.

Russia has a quarterly GDP per capita, of $2,560, $189 higher than the same quarter last year, it was If we order the countries according to their GDP per capita, Russia is in 41st position. According to this parameter, its population has a low level of affluence compared to the 50 countries whose quarterly GDP we publish.

Conclusion

Vladimir Putin understood fully what the country needed and what was required of him in order to achieve his vision for Russia. When he was elected, despite what he promised to the powerful families that supported him in his rise to the presidency, Putin took control of activities within Russia such as the media and free press to push his own agenda. He understood that public opinion mattered in the image that he wanted to portray and took command in the eyes of the general public by crushing the opposition in Russia. At the cost of freedom, Putin brought stability and a sense of security to Russia.

In this report, I concluded that although Putin has his own plan, changing the way that Russia was viewed internally and universally was one of his aims and also part of his vision. Therefore, he may not be the most orthodox political leader we know and it remains a fact that it was Putin who brought back Russia from its lost glories and back to the world stage

The Ukraine Crisis. Who is at fault?

The Ukrainian crisis refers to the Euromaidan protests from 2013 to 2014 associated with the emergent social movement for the integration of Ukraine into the European Union. The Crisis began on the 21st of November 2013 when the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych suspended preparations for the implementation of an economic deal with the European Union and decided to accept a $15 billion Russian counteroffer instead. The decision sparked mass protests from supporters of the agreement that escalated over three months and led to the deaths of some 100 protestors. Western emissaries flew to Kyiv to resolve the crisis. On February 21, the government and opposition struck a deal that allowed Yanukovych to stay in power until the new elections were held but it immediately fell apart and he fled to Russia the next day. The USA backed the coup and the new government in Kyiv was pro-western and anti-Russian (Mearsheimer 2014).

The expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) were major causes of the crisis. When NATO began expanding in the 1990s it brought in many different countries and Russia saw this as something that would provoke a war between itself and NATO. In April 2008 NATO considered admitting Georgia and Ukraine and Putin maintained that this would represent a ‘direct threat’ to Russia because Ukraine shares a border with Russia and Putin would not want it to be influenced by Western ideas. The EU provoked Russia’s reaction by moving eastward and in May 2008 unveiled a program to foster prosperity in countries such as Ukraine and integrate them into the EU economy. Russian leaders were against this because it did not go according to their interests and they were worried that Russia might be next.

The almost simultaneous expansions of the two organizations and the similar interest in incorporating Ukraine in their ventures is what sparked a fire with Putin because he feared that Ukraine would get engulfed by Western ideas and not recognize Russia anymore. It was part of the Russian empire; later part of the Soviet Union and was perhaps the most important Soviet republic after Russia (Parallels 2020). Putin’s reaction was out of fear that if Ukraine agrees to be part of NATO it might get into deals that are beneficial for it to a point that it does not need to keep its relations with Russia tight. “Attempts had been made to tear states which had been parts of former USSR [Soviet Union] off Russia and to prompt them to make an artificial choice between Russia and Europe”, said Vladimir Putin to Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper (Express 2020). This shows that the crisis was Putin’s reaction to knowing that a country that used to be his satellite will be joining hands with the West.

This crisis is a mode of reeling back Ukraine into Russia’s nest as though it were part of it and not sovereign. It is a result of Putin’s dictatorship rule, denial, and game plan all in one; hence he feels the need to control it. The West did not seize to push Putin’s buttons because they backed up the coup and a leaked telephone recording revealed that Nuland, the USA ambassador in Ukraine advocated a regime change and wanted Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be prime minister of Ukraine and it turned out to be that way. This pushed Putin to order Russian forces to take Crimea from Ukraine and soon after that incorporated it into Russia. Taking away Crimea was a warning sign, proof of Putin’s rage, and evidence that Russia is willing to take action against any perpetrator. All in all, the Ukrainian Crisis was terrifying because protests and army violence were involved. However, the expansion of NATO and EU were baby steps to its build-up. Initially, Putin stated that if the expansion included Ukraine, it would provoke him to act negatively and he stuck to his word.

References

1. Parallels, npr (Express 2020). 2020. Politics and Policy. Accessed November 26, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/02/21/280684831/why-ukraine-is-such-a-big-deal-for-russia.
2. Express, Express: Home of the Daily and Sunday. 2020. News: World. Accessed December 28, 2020. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/557065/Ukraine-Vladimir-Putin-West-caused-crisis.
3. Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault.’ The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin 77-89.