Andrew Kuchins, Director of the CSIS Russia Program, who authored the report "Alternative Futures for Russia to 2017" , humbly admits that "when it comes to Russia, prediction has proven to be a particular perilous endeavor...
For the last 20 years, not only have we failed to predict what has happened (in Russia), but we have failed to seriously consider the possibility of what did happen."
True indeed! Who could have mapped out the Russia of today in the fall of 1999?
That year, Russia was reeling from the aftershocks of the financial meltdown of 1998 and a terrorist attack in Dagestan. The country was barely governable and its ailing president was increasingly unpredictable. The war in Kosovo destroyed the pretense of U.S.-Russia partnership and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was fired upon in broad daylight.
Many in Washington were dismissing Russia as a viable international player and some even entertained the idea of "a world without Russia."
The report maps out three very different scenarios for Russia's future. After this week's nomination of Dmitry Medvedev as a presidential candidate who received Putin's public endorsement, at least one of those scenarios is already in play.
Putinism without Putin
Putin steps down in 2008 as promised and his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev (the authors of the report initially speculated that it would be Sergei Naryshkin) is elected to the Presidency in a landslide. Putin becomes chairman of United Russia and is elected to the boards of Russia's biggest state companies, including Gazprom and Rosneft. Putin also gets to chair a multibillion dollar hedge fund set up with start-up capital from Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska and some other oligarchs who reportedly staked him to a 25 percent equity position.
A True Dictatorship
Another scenario projects the emergence of a KGB-driven nationalist dictatorship after Putin is assassinated on Christmas night, Jan. 7, 2008. Sechin, Patrushev and Viktor Ivanov take over the country's leadership as the caretaker, President Zubkov, virtually disappears from the scene. The siloviki, never quite happy entirely with Putin's Plan for Russia, put forward Vladimir Yakunin who takes leadership of the United Russia Party (which is renamed Glory to Russia) and easily wins the presidential election.
Democracy Rising
The final scenario emphasizes the role of incompetence and mismanagement in destroying the great accomplishments of the Putin era.
