Is Russia Like the One Hoss Shay?

This piece in War on the Rocks challenges seven common beliefs about Russia. Two were of particular interest.

The first challenges the view the Russia is brittle. As someone who long ago advanced this hypothesis, I challenge the challenge. The basic problem is that I don’t think author Michael Kofman really understands the concept of brittleness. Here’s what he says:

With each new outbreak in what has become an almost routine series of political, economic, or foreign policy crises, a segment of the Russia-watcher community invariably begins to make predictions of Putin’s imminent demise. Unfortunately, the science of predicting regime change seems to lag significantly behind astrology. We should remember that few predicted the Soviet Union’s rapid demise, the start of the Arab Spring, or anticipated the rapid fall of Victor Yanukovich in Ukraine following the start of the Maidan.

There are two ongoing case studies on the merit of such predictions. The first is Pakistan, a country that by the same theory should have collapsed long ago under the weight of its many problems. The second is North Korea, which soldiers on despite decades of predictions and estimates of the regime’s imminent implosion. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates remarked on our ability to predict the nature and location of the next conflict, “our record has been perfect” given that “we’ve never once gotten it right.” The same should be said of our ability to judge regime brittleness. The point is not that neo-Kremlinology or assessments of political stability are a waste of time, but that this is a single layer of analysis that should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.

The point about brittleness is exactly that the process is not linear and that collapse occurs suddenly and unpredictably. Brittle systems survive most things, but when they fail, they fail completely and suddenly . . . like the USSR, Arab regimes, and Yanukovych.

Brittleness arises from coordination games in authoritarian regimes. Preference falsification is one mechanism. Coercive mechanisms and social pressures induce people to claim allegiance to an authoritarian regime, or remain silent, even when they don’t like it. This can be self-reinforcing, because people don’t receive contradictory information, and think that their own dissatisfaction is not widely held, and thereby remain silent (or feign support) which convinces others that their dissatisfaction is not widely held, and on and on. This system is stable, until some shock (a military adventure gone wrong, for instance, or an economic calamity, or an incompetent response to a natural disaster) induces enough people to express their opposition to convince the remainder that their dissatisfaction is indeed widely shared. The equilibrium then flips from uniform support or acquiescence to widespread opposition.

Preference falsification is a brittleness mechanism that works through the broad populace. Natural state mechanisms work through the elite. Elite support for the regime is predicated on the beliefs that it commands control over enough resources that can be distributed to the elite, and that this control will endure for some time. When an adverse economic shock reduces the stream of rents that is used to buy elite support, or if the durability of the regime comes into question (due, for instance, to a health crisis at the top of the regime), the elite can suddenly withdraw support or challenge the existing leadership, leading to regime collapse.

Both of these mechanisms are non-linear. Small shocks can lead to large changes. Since the shocks are unpredictable, the shattering of a brittle regime is unpredictable as well.

Highly personalized and institutionally impoverished systems tend to be more brittle, in large part because these systems are more dependent on the vagaries of individual health, personality, and sanity. In this respect, it is interesting to consider the case of Stalin. The Soviet system survived Stalin’s death in part because it did have developed institutions that facilitated succession. Putin, in contrast, has followed the more traditional authoritarian approach of becoming the indispensable person. Such as system is inherently more brittle.

The second point I’d like to challenge is related to the first, namely, whether Putin (and the Russian government generally) is obsessed with regime survival. Kofman argues that this is an empirically empty hypothesis.

This is incorrect. 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 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, like the one hoss shay.