'..The obsession with stability at home and abroad is also symptomatic of concerns about regime survival .. The confident don’t fear open expression of discontent..'<blockquote>'..Putin is clearly obsessed with regime change. Look at his rhetoric on color revolutions and the Arab uprisings. He sees dark plots everywhere, most of them emanating from the US. His fears are matched by actions. Putin’s resumption of the presidency, and the relentless campaign to control civil society and eliminate independent media especially in the aftermath of the late-2011 protests are the clearest examples domestically, and the hysterical response to Ukraine, Syria and even backwaters like Montenegro are the foreign policy manifestations of this fear. The obsession with stability at home and abroad is also symptomatic of concerns about regime survival.
The domestic reactions are classical authoritarian responses to anxieties about brittleness. Controlling information enforces the preference falsification equilibrium. The confident don’t fear open expression of discontent. Those who know that stability depends the shared belief that the regime has near universal support, do.
Obsession with regime survival is an acknowledgement of brittleness: that’s why these concepts are related (though Kofman does not connect them, which is revealing). Michael Kofman may not believe that Russia is brittle, but Putin’s behavior strongly suggests that he does.
Again, the whole point about brittle regimes is that the timing of their demise is almost impossible to predict, as that brittleness is a non-linear process that involves the risk of a large and sudden change in equilibria in response to a modest shock. Non-brittle systems muddle along. Brittle regimes don’t: they sometimes fall to pieces all at once..'
- Streetwise Professor,
Is Russia Like the One Hoss Shay? December 26, 2015</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
'..it will be critical for Russia's new leaders to eliminate the Chekist mindset.''..even Mr. Stoltenberg pressed Mr. Poroshenko and the government in Kiev to address the issue of corruption.'(Russia) 'GDP .. now $1.2 trillion .. back to the level of 1998 when it was $700bn.'</blockquote>