An Autocrat's Dilemmas: Putin's Power and Its Limits

Timothy Frye begins his fine book, Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the question of whether the United States should have militarily intervened in 2014. The book is intended to “improve our public conversation” about Russia (p. vii). His argument is that Russia is a personalist autocracy and an “opportunistic power that uses its military and economic might to influence weaker countries in its neighborhood while picking its spots against more powerful rivals like the European Union, United States, and China” (p. 200). Even so, Frye (correctly, in my view) both highlights the significant limits to Putin’s power and also suggests that “Russia’s next few years will likely be rocky” because of “deep economic crisis” and public fatigue with Putin (p. 200). This analysis sounds like a view written in spring 2022, but Frye wrote his book well before Moscow’s renewed invasion of Ukraine in February. The ongoing relevance of his intention to improve our public conversation is being proved as the West debates Putin’s rationality, the desirability and nature of a military intervention in the war, and even the possibility of an escalation to World War III and the use of nuclear weapons. The great-power competition that became part of policy and public discussion in the West in the mid-to-late 2010s is now very real. Informed public conversation could hardly be more timely or important. To enhance public understanding of Russia, Frye seeks to answer the main questions that have dominated Western debate about Russia since the mid-2000s. Book chapters cover Putin’s popularity; the role of elections, repression, and media manipulation; fluctuations in Russia’s economy; and Moscow’s great-power posturing and assertive foreign policy, including in the cyber realm. Thus, Frye aims to show how Russia “actually” works and how it does not, what Russian politics is and what it is not. Helpfully, he also compares Russia with other autocracies to place it into the wider context. Frye’s analysis to demonstrate how Putin is a “weak strongman” is admirably concise, well-organized, and accessible. The most valuable insights are in how Frye takes us beyond “Putinology,” reflecting instead on