Stephen Kotkin: Russia’s Murky Future | Foreign Affairs Interview

A 'choiceless election' differs from a 'fake election' in that a fake election allows candidates to run but falsifies results afterward (which can trigger mass demonstrations if people expected honest counting), whereas a choiceless election excludes opposition candidates and regime critics from standing in the first place.

“A fake election is kind of when, no matter what the results are, you just falsify them. So, you could be voted out, but you falsify. That sometimes precipitates, for example, mass demonstrations, because people assume that the results won't be falsified, and when they are falsified, they can get angry. So, they're capable certainly of falsifying, but what he did was just make it choiceless. Those people who either oppose the policies of the regime, for example, the war in Ukraine, or oppose the regime itself, were not permitted to stand in the election.”

You can win a war and lose the peace (Afghanistan) or lose a war and win the peace (Vietnam), making the question of how to consolidate military advantage into a durable peace settlement the central strategic problem rather than battlefield dominance

“You can win the war and lose the peace. We just did this in Afghanistan. And you can also lose the war and win the peace. We did that in Vietnam, arguably, in the fullness of time.”

China cannot permit North Korea to collapse because it would result in Korean Peninsula unification under a US ally with a mutual defense treaty, placing US forces at the Yalu River, an outcome that would represent a full defeat of Chinese strategic objectives, so China is trapped into supporting North Korea indefinitely

“If the North Korean regime goes down, the Korean Peninsula is unified under South Korea, an American ally, with a treaty, a mutual defense treaty with the United States, and MacArthur not only gets to the Yalu, he stays there and is not pushed back. And in the fullness of time, Mao, having sacrificed seven figures of Chinese lives, loses the Korean war. And Xi Jinping goes into the history books as the guy who lost the Korean war in the fullness of time. So, he can't do that. He can't let that let that happen in North Korea.”

Alexei Navalny represented the one genuine political alternative to Putin on the horizon, and his death in the Arctic Circle prison camp in February 2024 eliminated that alternative, which is partly why the March 2024 election became choiceless rather than merely rigged.

“Navalny was killed or died, if you prefer, in the Arctic Circle prison camp in February, about a month before the election was held. That was the one political alternative on the horizon that was genuine that he feared.”

The West cannot realistically blockade Eurasian supply routes to Russia because they would require blockading multiple countries (North Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and others), which is impossible geographically and diplomatically.

“We can't blockade Eurasia. Blockade North Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and others that we could name. It's not possible to blockade Eurasia.”

Authoritarian regimes like Russia's can fail at everything—mismanaging wars, losing wars, and being incompetent—yet survive indefinitely as long as they suppress political alternatives, because the absence of a credible political alternative is the defining factor for regime durability, not performance on other dimensions.

“The most important thing about authoritarian regimes is that they can fail at everything. They can mismanage a war, they can even lose a war. They're not losing, but they can. As long as they suppress political alternatives. And if they succeed at suppressing political alternatives, it doesn't matter how bad they are at all the other things.”

Some U.S. Cold War regime-change operations were strategically counterproductive or crossed moral lines (assassinations of foreign leaders, Bay of Pigs, support for repressive regimes), but removing regime-pressure tools entirely is also strategically flawed; the answer is more careful calibration, not abstinence.

“sure, sometimes we did stupid things and sometimes we did self-defeating things and sometimes we crossed lines that in prospect, let alone in retrospect, you know, attempts to assassinate Castro and Bay of Pigs and one could go on about all the things that you'd be cautious about. I think we need to play that game, too. And I think that needs to be part of our deterrence, diplomacy combination.”

The Biden administration failed to clearly communicate U.S. foreign policy to the American people, allowing others (including Russian disinformation) to define the policy narrative, which creates vulnerability to Trump or others redefining the Ukraine policy through less favorable frames.

“The president needs to explain what the policy is so that Americans can say in a line or two what it is that the policy is. Foreign policy in a democracy has to be understood by the voters. It has to be clear as day what it is that they think we're doing. And I don't think the administration has succeeded in communicating what we're doing and why we're doing it sufficiently to the populace, the voting populace. That provides an opportunity for someone else to define it on your behalf. Maybe even being susceptible to Russian disinformation campaign and using that as their talking points.”

Russia's missile factories are producing 2.5 times or more missiles than they did before the war, indicating that Russia's productive capacity has actually increased despite Western sanctions and intervention.

“Their missile factories are producing two and a half times, or maybe even more than two and a half times as many missiles now as they did pre-war.”

Russia's fantasy of being a multipolar pole is unsustainable because: it has burned all bridges to the West, has minimal soft power and attractive model, exports only commodities and human talent, has lost its machine tool industry entirely (now dependent on China), has few genuine friends versus opportunistic partners, and controls a shrinking world with brittle influence.

“They're a commodity export with tech wasteland at home. Their high-tech private sector is in Tel Aviv. Russia no longer even has a machine tool industry. This is astonishing. The Soviet machine tool industry was immense. It was colossal...And now look the other way around. Russia is entirely dependent on China for machine tools. And so you have burned every bridge to the west. You have little to no soft power. You've lost the whole new economy to emigration or expulsion. You are dependent ever more so on the good graces of the Chinese who look down on you as a failure.”

Cold war tools alone are insufficient; the West must also maintain attraction and popularity such that others voluntarily choose to join the Western sphere rather than the rival sphere, creating a voluntary non-hierarchical order rather than one requiring coercion, as Cannon wrote.

“But, all of that is not enough, Dan. Because you have to have a positive story. You have to be compelling. You have to be something that other people want to join voluntarily. It's about attraction. It's about the other side knowing that you're more popular than they are. That others want to join you rather than them. That they need coercion for their sphere of influence, whereas your sphere of influence is voluntary, non-hierarchical, open, and mutually obligatory because of your treaty negotiations and treaties that you sign. And so, you need, as Cannon wrote and as everybody understands, you need to invest in yourself and make yourself something that others want to emulate and join.”

The 'Free France' model of supporting an opposition government in exile and rallying a nation against an occupying regime is more effective historically and more aligned with democratic and legal values than the 'Stauffenberg model' of attempting to assassinate a leader, as demonstrated by the failure of the 1944 plot against Hitler compared to de Gaulle's success in rallying France.

“For me, it's Free France rather than Stauffenberg. If you know the 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, which failed, it came close, was very close, but it failed. It was organized by a group of uh military men in a conspiracy...That model, known as the sort of shorthand as the Stauffenberg model, the attempt to assassinate the leader, is one way that you think you can solve this problem. The Free France model, which refers to de Gaulle and the government in exile and rallying the French nation against the collaborationist regime that was in place in France in the Nazi occupation. I think that second model fits more with our political, legal, and moral structures and has generally been more effective in the course of history.”

Experts often speculate about what Putin thinks based on public statements, spokespeople's statements, and actions, but without direct access to leadership (which the speaker previously had before the pandemic and war), assessments are educated guesses informed by intercepts and intelligence about second-echelon officials speculating about first-echelon intentions.

“I don't actually know what Putin thinks. I have his public statements. I have the statements of his spokespeople. I have his actions, but I don't have lunch with him regularly. I didn't have dinner with him last night. I don't have the kind of access to the first echelon that actually I used to have, whether it was the prime minister or the defense minister. You can engage those people in conversation, sometimes even one-on-one. That's gone now...we're guessing about his objectives. Sure, we have intercepts, electronic eavesdropping. Often we have electronic eavesdropping of people who are in the second echelon speculating about what they think is happening because they're not in the first echelon, either.”

The war in Ukraine is simultaneously a business and social mobility opportunity in Russia: at the elite level, Western companies leaving Russia hand their assets to Russian oligarchs for free, enriching the elite through self-dealing; at the lower end, the state recruits 30,000 soldiers monthly (350,000 annually without mobilization) by offering 7-9 times median wage, with $90,000 equivalent in rubles paid to families of those killed—a compelling incentive in impoverished Russian provinces.

“This war It's big business for Russia. The war economy has enriched a huge part of the elite. Those who are already rich and new people through self-enrichment. So, a Western company leaves Russia and the business is handed over to a Russian who gets all of these assets for free because there's a war. And so, who wouldn't support that level of self-enrichment?”

The Soviet machine tool industry was historically immense and colossal, supporting the Soviet military-industrial complex, while Mao's China was initially dependent on Soviet machine tools; now Russia is entirely dependent on China for machine tools, representing a complete reversal.

“Their high-tech private sector is in Tel Aviv. Russia no longer even has a machine tool industry. This is astonishing. The Soviet machine tool industry was immense. It was colossal. People say the Soviet Union was an economic They don't know what they're talking about. They had a colossal military-industrial complex supported by a huge machine tool industry. Mao had no military-industrial complex to speak of for most of his rule. He was dependent on Russian machine tools. And now look the other way around. Russia is entirely dependent on China for machine tools.”

If the Ukrainian counteroffensive in summer 2023 had been successful, it would have turned a 600-mile front into a 1,200-mile front, which Russia would not necessarily have conceded, and Ukraine would have faced a problem of how to consolidate territorial gains into a stable peace.

“If the counteroffensive had been successful, that Hail Mary counteroffensive had been successful, This is the Ukrainian counteroffensive in summer of 2023. They would have turned a 600-mile front into a 1200-mile front. Because Russia wouldn't necessarily concede.”

Putin's need to simulate elections through choiceless elections—where opposition candidates who oppose either the war or the regime itself are barred from running—reveals his structural weakness as a 'new czar,' because a real czar would not face succession crises or feel obligated to stage electoral legitimacy.

“Putin styles himself as a new czar, but a real czar would not have to worry about a looming succession crisis, and what it might do to his grip on power in the present. Putin does. That is partly why he must simulate elections.”

The West is complicit in strengthening Putin's grip on power by removing regime change from the table—refusing to foment color revolutions or support covert operations to undermine the regime—because this reduces pressure on the regime and allows it to believe it can 'get away with murder,' while paradoxically the West is still blamed for intervention anyway.

“We take regime change off the table. We say, 'Oh, no, we're not going to foment a color revolution, we're not going to support covert operations to undermine the regime.' We think it's excessively escalatory...And the problem with that is that they blame us anyway. So we get charged for the crime, which we don't actually commit. So, we don't put the kind of pressure on these regimes that they understand, which is the survival of their regime. That's the number one issue for every one of these regimes. And so, if you're not pressuring the regime sufficiently, the regime feels it can get away with murder.”

Despite regime strength, every day is existential for authoritarian regimes like Russia's because they are brittle; a single opposition figure, opposition party, mass gathering, viral social media post, or breach of information monopoly can trigger a cascade that destabilizes the regime.

“every day is existential for a regime like that. That's what I mean that it's really strong, but hollow. It's brittle. Anything can happen triggering a cascade. And so, one opposition figure, one opposition party, one big gathering of Falun Gong, one viral post on social media, on Telegram channels, or breaking China's firewall, monopoly on the public sphere, and they get thrown into a tizzy.”

In a war of attrition, only two variables matter: will to fight and capacity to fight; if one side maintains both while eroding the opponent's either will or capacity, it can win; Russia has eroded Ukraine's both dimensions while maintaining its own, and the West cannot realistically destroy Russia's production capacity or blockade Eurasia.

“Every war of maneuver when somebody attacks, if they don't win a victory right away, it gets transformed into a war of attrition. And a war of attrition only has two variables. The will to fight and the capacity to fight. And if you maintain your will to fight and your capacity to fight, and you erode the other side's will to fight or capacity to fight, you can win a war of attrition.”

The Biden administration achieved four colossal early victories in Ukraine: Ukraine's defense of its sovereignty, revitalization of the Western alliance and partners, humiliation of Russia's military competence, and Europe's shift away from Russian energy dependence and closer alignment with the U.S. on China policy; however, by refusing to consolidate these victories and instead keeping them at risk for territorial gains in the Donbas and Sea of Azov, the administration let a window for a favorable armistice in fall 2022 close.

“We've won four colossal victories in Ukraine. Ukraine's defense of its sovereignty, the very beginning of the war. Rallying the West, NATO, and all of our partners, including the first island chain partners in East Asia, in ways that people were saying was no longer possible. NATO was brain dead and everything else. So, tremendous revitalization of the West, which is an institutional matrix, not a geographical concept, and includes all of our partners and allies. That's the second big victory. Third big victory, humiliating Russia. Not a strategic defeat imposed on Russia, but a humiliation of Russia. Clearly, Russia was corrupt, incompetent. Putin was no strategist. All of that was revealed. And then, of course, Europeans discovering that their dependence on Russia for gas might resemble their dependence on Chinese markets and trade with China as well, and China losing its wedge between America and Europe on China policy. Europe coming much closer to America on China policy.”

Russia is called the 'continental cul-de-sac' because its strategy of imperial Eurasian dominance has failed repeatedly: Tsarist Russia dissolved, the Soviet Union collapsed despite post-WWII territorial expansion, and now Russia is farther from Europe than at any time since Peter the Great, with the Baltic Sea becoming an internal Russian lake but neighbors rejecting the Russian sphere.

“And here are the problems with that future and why in the essay in Foreign Affairs, we call it continental cul-de-sac. It's because they've tried it and it's failed multiple times. Tsarist Russia dissolved. Was lost. Yes, the Soviet Union put back and as a result of World War II put back even more of that continental imperial contraption, but that's gone, too.”

The most optimistic scenario for Russia is becoming like France: a state that retains pride in its monarchical tradition and statecraft but becomes a rule-of-law democracy with a dynamic open market economy that no longer threatens neighbors; this requires building an impartial professional judiciary, civil service, genuine legislature, competitive party system, and free media over a long period.

“If Russia ever became like France, that would be pretty spectacular. A stable, prosperous, rule of law, democratic polity that no longer threatened its neighbors, but was still proud of its monarchical tradition, still proud of its state, and still, in a way, proud of the revolutionary tradition despite the fact that it was even more murderous in Russia than in the French case.”

China and Russia are achieving the opposite of their intended goal through their opposition to the West: they are strengthening the West, rallying it, and making more people want to join it, because 'all power's relative' and if Russia and China hit a wall, the West's problems matter less by comparison.

“Of course, they're achieving the exact opposite, the perverse and unintended consequences. They're strengthening the West, rallying the West, making more people wonder if they'd want to join the West. Remember, Russia and China all power's relative. And if they have problems, shortcomings, they hit a wall, if the West also hits a wall, if the West is decadent, in decline, defeating itself, undermining itself with the assistance of China and Russia, China and Russia can muddle through, no matter how deep their problems are.”

Between great powers, there are four policy options: hot war (undesirable due to catastrophic casualties), capitulation/appeasement (self-defeating because it delays hot war under worse conditions), Pygmalion transformation (attempting to change the other side's system, generally fails and produces hostile leaders like Putin or Xi), leaving only cold war/managed competition as viable.

“Between great powers, Dan, there are four policy options. You study history, and we could we could talk for another 3 hours about every historical case. I'd be happy to go into the details. There are four options. One of them is hot war...Another option I have is capitulation...And then you have Pygmalion...And so, what does that leave you? You don't like hot war. I agree with you. You don't like capitulation...And Pygmalion has a poor track record. What's left, then?”

Russia is culturally European but institutionally non-Western; Western refers to rule of law, real elections, market economy, and free society—institutional features—not geography or ethnicity; Japan is non-European but institutionally Western.

“Russia is European, Dan. But it's non-Western. Cuz Western is an institutional matrix. Right? It's rule of law, it's real elections, it's a market economy. It's a free society. That's Western. Russia is European culturally, but not Western. It's non-Western. Japan is not European. But it's Western. It's institutionally Western. And so the West is not a cultural or geographic term.”

Russia's grand strategic mistake is repeatedly assuming it must be anti-Western to survive and maintain great power status, rather than figuring out how to be non-Western (culturally and institutionally distinct) while maintaining beneficial relations with the West.

“Russia's grand strategy is how to be itself in a world that's Western dominated. And their mistake again and again is that they must be anti-Western to survive. Rather than figure out a modus vivendi with the West that's mutually beneficial and prosperous.”

Western Cold War policy had an effective tool in anti-communism that allowed management of illiberal allied regimes without requiring democratization; now with a liberal international order, there is no equivalent organizing principle for managing relationships with illiberal non-aligned states like Russia, Iran, and China.

“In the Cold War, we had it easier, in fact. Why? Because we had anti-communism. And so, when you had illiberal regimes in the liberal international order, you didn't necessarily have to transform them, democratize them, provided they were anti-communist. They could be nasty as hell, but if they were anti-communist, they were yours. It was quite the device. Now, we have a liberal international order. What's the place of illiberal regimes? What place do they have in our created and still dominated international order? Do they come in on our terms, or do they come in on their terms? We don't have the instrument, the anti-communist instrument.”

China views Russia with suspicion and wariness regarding excessive Russian dependence; China prefers Russia to remain somewhat dependent but not become a complete basket case, because total Russian dependence would make Russia China's problem to manage and sustain.

“And China is wary of excessive Russian dependence on China. We think China would love Russia to be 100% dependent on them. But then Dan, you're responsible. It's on your shoulders then. In other words, if it's a basket case, it's then your basket case. And so China is very happy under Xi Jinping...to be in a comprehensive strategic partnership”

Capitulation/appeasement creates an illusion of peace but results in self-humiliation plus eventual war in worse circumstances; it postpones rather than prevents conflict while weakening the appeasing party's position, as Churchill critiqued appeasement policy.

“I don't like capitulation. And the reason I don't like capitulation is the same thing that Churchill mentioned...You think you're getting a peace, but you're actually just getting self-humiliation plus war in the end ultimately. So, capitulation just gives you the hot war at some point later on in a worse position than you were before.”

The American-led international order had three territorial vulnerabilities that were deliberately positioned but not protected: Crimea/Ukraine, Israel/Middle East, and Taiwan/South China Sea; these are borders of defeat for Russia, Iran, and China (territories they lost or claim), making them inherently revanchist pressure points.

“The American led international order, warts and all. It's achievements plus its shortcomings. Was vulnerable in three places territorially. This was not a secret. You didn't necessarily need a globe. You could see that the three points of vulnerability were Crimea, Ukraine, Israel, South China Sea, Taiwan. You could see that those places were partially protected on the frontier with a potentially revanchist great power or would-be power sitting right next to them.”