the policies emerging under Russian President Vladimir Putin hold the potential for building stronger democratic institutions as well as for growing repression of political opposition. The conviction of Putin and most of the Russian elite that only a market economy and closer links with the West will provide a basis for prosperity and international stature gives the United States substantial influence over how the fluid political situation in Russia develops. America’s approach to such deeply controversial issues in Russia as NATO enlargement and national missile defense should be crafted to convincingly invite Russian participation, demonstrate that U.S. support for Russia’s integration into the West is more than rhetoric, and undermine anti-American elements in the elite who argue that Russia is not welcome and has nothing to gain. At the same time, the United States can take the lead in forging a united front among its European allies in convincing Putin that his government’s actions against independent media and other voices of opposition are diverting Russia from the path toward integration.
Russia made dramatic progress toward a democratic order-that is, toward real elections, protections for civil liberties, and a rule of law-in the last years of the USSR and in the first years of an independent Russia under former President Boris Yeltsin. But observers inside and outside Russia agree that progress toward democracy stalled by the mid-1990s. The ratings assigned to Russia by Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that tracks the progress of democracy across the globe, have gradually eroded since then (see figure 1).