{"id":12716,"date":"2020-11-12T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T20:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12716"},"modified":"2020-11-11T18:05:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T02:05:19","slug":"a-new-putin-worse-than-the-old-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-new-putin-worse-than-the-old-putin\/","title":{"rendered":"A new Putin worse than the old Putin?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vladimir Putin<\/a> is mortal. Russia, sooner or later, will have to navigate the transition from his 20-plus years of rule to someone else. It now appears that \u201csometime\u201d could come as early as January 2021, if ill-health rumors denied by the Kremlin<\/a> should prove to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do not be hopeful for a democratic Russia, whenever it happens. Putin\u2019s inner circle would preserve the Putin system even without Putin; Russian voters would have little or no voice in the matter. It would be a process closely \u201cmanaged\u201d by a coterie of Kremlin insiders. They will not (and cannot) allow a democratic Russia that offers a variety of candidates with different electoral platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kremlin has a historical precedent for managed transition \u2014 namely, the 1999-2000 transition from President Boris Yeltsin<\/a> to Vladimir Putin. A key building block of the Yeltsin transition was the grant of immunity from eventual prosecution for the outgoing president and for his family. A second key ingredient was enforcement of the agreement by a credible guarantor. That guarantor happened to be the security services, headed at the time by one Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill Vladimir Putin is mortal. Russia, sooner or later, will have to navigate the transition from his 20-plus years of rule to someone else. It now appears that \u201csometime\u201d could come as early as January 2021, if ill-health rumors denied by the Kremlin should prove to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3j6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12857,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/navalny-proves-too-hot-for-poisoner-putin\/","url_meta":{"origin":12716,"position":0},"title":"Navalny proves too hot for ‘poisoner Putin’","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill On Feb. 2, the Moscow City Court sentenced Russian opposition leader\u00a0Aleksei Navalny\u00a0to two years and eight months in jail. 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Putin addressed two audiences \u2014 the Russian people and his external enemies,\u00a0namely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Putin"","block_context":{"text":"Putin","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/putin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12917,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/do-bidens-tough-new-sanctions-give-putin-nord-stream-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12716,"position":3},"title":"Do Biden’s ‘tough new sanctions’ give Putin Nord Stream 2?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill Western\u00a0media\u00a0is greeting the Biden administration\u2019s Russian sanctions as \u201csignaling a tougher stance on Russia than under former President Donald Trump.\u201d\u00a0Vladimir Putin\u00a0likely thinks otherwise. 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