Vladimir Putin and the Making of Modern Russia

Putin, as of this writing, is universally condemned in the West. He is written off as an unscrupulous and untrustworthy dictator, a tyrant, and as one who wishes to recreate an empire that will threaten lands as distant as France and Great Britain.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that we’ve spent more time condemning leaders we saw as the enemy, rather than trying first to understand them. Unfortunately, such an approach of condemnation without understanding hinders our ability to understand those we see as adversaries on the world stage.

This presentation takes a different approach. It seeks to answer the following questions: what can we say with certainty about Putin’s career path that led him to the pinnacle of political power in Russia? How did the collapse of the USSR shape him? What made Putin so different, if anything, from Boris Yeltsin who preceded him as Russia’s (first) president, and what accounted for Putin’s initial popularity? Based on the considerable length of time that Putin has been in power, what can we say about Putin’s objectives domestically and internationally?

To get at these questions, this talk is expected to take the following shape:
1. Putin, the Soviet years, 1952-89.
2. Soviet collapse and its impact on Putin, 1989-1999
3. Russia under Yeltsin, 1991-1999: the rise of the oligarchs.
4. What made Putin so popular in his early years especially, after 1999?
5. Putin in power, domestically.
6. Putin in power, internationally.