RUSSIA:US officials are worried that Vladimir Putin is moving towards one-man rule in Russia and that, as a result, international disputes over Kosovo and Georgia are more likely to flare out of control.
Washington sees this week's announcements that Mr Putin would be asked to serve as prime minister by Dmitry Medvedev, his preferred successor, and of Mr Medvedev's likely succession itself, as signs of the outgoing Russian president's ever-greater personalised dominance of Russian politics.
In the wake of Russia's pull-out this week from a landmark arms control treaty, tensions over US plans for missile defence in Europe and American criticism of Russia's recent parliamentary elections, relations between Moscow and Washington are markedly worse than at the start of President Bush's time in office. In 2001 Mr Bush declared he had looked into Mr Putin's eye and gained "a sense of his soul".
"I keep thinking of centralisation that goes on until there's only one-man rule," said one senior US official. "If there are no strong institutions, then every succession, every transition, is a systemic crisis."
Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, said this week: "It's not an environment in which you can talk about free and fair elections."
Although Ms Rice described Mr Medvedev as belonging to "another generation" of Russian leaders, the question of whether he is more properly identified as a reformer or as a champion of Gazprom, the energy company that he chairs, is seen as a secondary issue when compared to the prospect of Mr Putin's continued power.
"A strong nation has strong institutions, not just a single strong leader," said Dan Fried, US assistant secretary for European affairs. "Americans have debated the concept of a relationship between a country's internal developments and its external behaviour and certainly this administration is of the view that there is a relationship."
Mr Fried also highlighted US concerns over the dispute about Kosovo.
"Many of us are worried by the sense that Russia has an enemy image of the US and the West," he said. "It worries us, because I don't have a solution to that . . . [Otherwise] we would feel far more comfortable of our ability to keep this a disagreement over Kosovo rather than a crisis over Kosovo."
- (Financial Times)