Vladimir Putin's Grand Strategy

%people1% - In the barrage of comment on the recent arrest of Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, much attention has been paid to Khodorkovsky's political activities and to Russian president Vladimir Putin's brand of crony capitalism--but the essence of the scandal lies deeper. The imprisonment of the richest man in Russia has to do with more than the parliamentary elections coming up in December and the greed of second-tier KGB officers who think they got less than their share of the spoils in the 1990s. Rather, the move to eliminate Khodorkovsky as a political and economic force is part of an unfolding strategic plan, whose goal is a regime neither accountable to the people nor constrained by autonomous political actors. The author of this blueprint for dictatorship is Putin. And to date, it is succeeding.