Those who expected Russia to languish on history's slag heap after the fall of the Soviet Union were stunned to watch Vladimir Putin quarterback the payoff of the nation's international debt and accumulation of the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves, largely by becoming, in short order, the world's largest petroleum exporter.
So in spite of widespread criticism he has endured in recent years, Marshall Goldman writes in Petrostate -- Putin, Power, and the New Russia, Putin's a central player in world geopolitics and will continue to be so. His account cites the Russian leader's "determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era." Today, Putin, "his cohorts, and oil have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow.....(all accomplished through)....discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism and power."
Marshall Goldman is Professor of Economics Emeritus at Wellesley College and Senior Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard.
