Let's back off of Putin.

There is a growing mass of articles lately in the western media bemoaning the strong-armed tactics and nationalist rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Americans are beginning to perceive his policies and statements to be reactionary and anti-democratic.

They’re absolutely right. Perhaps, however, the problem isn’t with Putin but with our perception of Russia and democratic movements abroad. Americans need to understand that a secure economy and high morale are the best medicine for a democratic future in Russia. In this context, Putin’s moves might very well be what’s best for his country.

A democracy has to be the most difficult form of government to create. This is largely true in any country but especially so in the former Soviet bloc where citizens are used to living under an iron fist. They aren’t used to free markets or choosing their own leaders. Despite this, many Eastern European countries have been successful in developing democratic governments over the last fifteen years. The path for Russia has been more difficult for multiple reasons.

In a December 1997 article entitled “Was Democracy Just a Moment,” Robert Kaplan theorized that two prerequisites must be satisfied in order to bring about a successful democracy. First, a nation must have economic stability and a secure middle class. Second, it must have a literate and educated electorate. If either of these elements is missing, a democracy may quickly become a tyranny:

“Because both a middle class and civil institutions are required for successful democracy, democratic Russia, which inherited neither from the Soviet regime, remains violent, unstable, and miserably poor despite its 99 percent literacy rate. Under its authoritarian system China has dramatically improved the quality of life for hundreds of millions of its people. My point, hard as it may be for Americans to accept, is that Russia may be failing in part because it is a democracy and China may be succeeding in part because it is not. Having traveled through much of western China, where Muslim Turkic Uighurs (who despise the Chinese) often predominate, I find it hard to imagine a truly democratic China without at least a partial breakup of the country. Such a breakup would lead to chaos in western China, because the Uighurs are poorer and less educated than most Chinese and have a terrible historical record of governing themselves. Had the student demonstrations in 1989 in Tiananmen Square led to democracy, would the astoundingly high economic growth rates of the 1990s still obtain? I am not certain, because democracy in China would have ignited turmoil not just in the Muslim west of the country but elsewhere too; order would have decreased but corruption would not have. The social and economic breakdown under democratic rule in Albania, where the tradition of precommunist bourgeois life is nonexistent (as in China), contrasted with more-successful democratic venues like Hungary and the Czech Republic, which have had well-established bourgeoisie, constitutes further proof that our belief in democracy regardless of local conditions amounts to cultural hubris.”

Russia has a similar ethnic burden to that of China. But unlike China, as a democracy it must unite ethic groups spanning from the Ukrainian border to the Bering Strait. This means boosting national morale, building the economy, and fighting separatist movements. Upon becoming Acting President in 2000, Putin allowed a series of interviews that later became a biography with the title First Person. In it, Putin comments on the threat of separatism and why it must be stopped:

“I’ll tell you what guided me and why I was so convinced of the threat that hung over our country…I have never for a second believed—and people with even an elementary level of political knowledge understand this—that Chechnya would limit itself to its own independence. It would become a beachhead for further attacks on Russia.

After all, the aggression began there. They built up their forces and attacked a neighboring territory. Why? In order to defend the independence of Chechnya? Of course not. In order to seize additional territories. They would have swallowed up Dagestan, and that would have been the beginning of the end. The entire Caucasus would have followed—Dagestan, Ingushetia, and then up along the Volga River to Bashkortostan and Tartarstan, reaching deep into the country.

You know, I was frightened when I imagined the real consequences. I started wondering how many refugees Europe and America could absorb. Because the disintegration of such an enormous country would have been a global catastrophe. And when I compare the scale of the possible tragedy to what we have now, I do not have a second of doubt that we are doing the right thing.”

The point is simply this. We cannot export democracy as a product. Proper democratic formation takes time and conditioning that often comes from within a country. What we can do is help to shore up future democracies with economic initiatives aimed at solidifying a middle class. In the mean time, it is little more than armchair quarterbacking for comfortable westerners to presume they know the proper path for the future of Russian democracy.