After the Fall

The 15 countries of the former Soviet Union have taken radically different political paths over the last two decades.

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | JUNE 24, 2011

RUSSIA
Current leader: President Dmitry Medvedev

Freedom: Not free (ranked by Freedom House)

History: For the heart of the former Soviet empire, the decade following the fall of communism was the best of times and the worst of times: a period of unprecedented political liberty, economic chaos, rampant corruption, the rise of a new class of oligarchs, and a brutal war in the North Caucasus.

When President Boris Yeltsin appointed prime minister and KGB veteran Vladimir Putin as his replacement in 1999, the conventional wisdom was that he would keep the country on the roughly the same path. Instead, Putin reined in the oligarchs -- jailing oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky when he began to exhibit political ambitions -- to consolidate power during a period of explosive, oil-driven economic growth. At the same time, he dramatically rolled back freedoms for the political opposition and independent media. Putin gave way to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2008, but has continued to pull the strings from the prime minister's office.

Under the Putin-Medvedev tandem, Russia has pushed back against NATO expansion and the deployment of a U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe, joined with China to form a counterweight against U.S. and European interventionism on the U.N. Security Council, fought a successful war against Georgia in 2008, and continued its brutal campaign against the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus.

Current state: The future of Russia's tandem remains murky. Putin would be constitutionally eligible to return to the presidency in 2012, but neither he nor Medvedev has yet made his intentions clear. The world economic crisis has taken its toll on the Russian oil boom, along with the government's popularity, but with most of the country's democratic opposition either fractured or co-opted by the ruling United Russia party, it's highly likely that Putin's star will remain ascendant, whichever office he holds.

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

 

Joshua E. Keating is an associated editor at Foreign Policy.

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MALICEIT

5:46 PM ET

June 30, 2011

i see what you did there.....

....with that bias.

 

DORIS V

5:42 PM ET

July 2, 2011

Interesting article.

Enjoyed the article. Most Americans, myself included, are not knowlegable about most of these countries.

 

ZHANGIR

9:49 PM ET

July 3, 2011

It's just a short summary

Way too short to give a full, in-depth picture of what is going on in the former Soviet Union and things like causality, interstate relations, etc., etc.
You might have as well listed the wikipedia links to the former 15 republics and got 15 pictures of each.

 

NICOLAS19

5:00 AM ET

July 14, 2011

Freedom House rating...

... could be substituted by: "how much the US likes them" rating.

 

AUKPERSPECTIVE

12:11 PM ET

July 21, 2011

Worked out better than everyone feared at one stage

You may recall the great concern in the past about the nuclear, terrrorist and nationalistic threats the break of the Soviet Union might create for the West. A very nasty cocktail by any standards. Now whilst a host of problems have cropped up (and some such as Chechnya remain) in retrospective many of the West's fears proved to be unfounded. That is a good thing. So far.

 

EILENE175

2:07 AM ET

July 23, 2011

After the Fall

The 15 countries of the former Soviet Union have taken radically different political paths over the last two decades. You may recall the great concern in the past about the nuclear, terrrorist and nationalistic threats the break of the Soviet Union might create for the West. A very nasty cocktail by any standards. Now whilst a host of problems have cropped up (and some such as Chechnya remain) in retrospective many of the West's fears proved to be unfounded. That is a good thing. So far. best psychics Way too short to give a full, in-depth picture of what is going on in the former Soviet Union and things like causality, interstate relations, etc., etc. You might have as well listed the wikipedia links to the former 15 republics and got 15 pictures of each..

 

PERSON_GUYZZ1

8:53 AM ET

July 23, 2011

You may recall the great

You may recall the great concern in the past about the nuclear, terrrorist and nationalistic threats the break of the Soviet Union might create for the West readymadeinternetbusiness. A very nasty cocktail by any standards. Now whilst a host of problems have cropped up (and some such as Chechnya remain) in retrospective many of the West's fears proved to be unfounded.