New Russia emerges

Russia is resurgent — politically, economically and militarily.

Just like the strike, block and blow techniques in karate, President Vladimir Putin, a karateka, has shown that Russia has the strength to leap to a pre-eminent position in the comity of nations.

The maverick politician, whose two terms as president end in 2008, has been flexing his muscles that are powered by rising prices of oil and sustained by a steady rate of economic growth at home.

The president has underscored his desire to restore Russia's place in the emerging world order and has taken aggressive, and at times belligerent, steps to juxtapose his country as a counterweight to checkmate America's march into Moscow's orbit of influence, especially in East Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In doing so, Putin has clearly delineated the boundaries that the US can cross in those countries that were “satellites'' of the former Soviet Union.

This year, he made it very clear that despite the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the world is not unipolar and Russia is not a nation on its knees to obey the dictates of the US.

He challenged the concept of the US as the “sole'' superpower and disparaged America's hegemonistic and imperialistic policies. In February, at the 43th Munich Conference on Security Policy, Putin took the US by its horns and demolished the myth of a unipolar world. He remarked: “What is a unipolar world?

No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master.'' Continuing in the same acerbic tone, he denigrated the US administration for acting like a bully.

“The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres- economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states,'' he said.

The world was shocked at Putin's outburst for using the forum to launch his foreign policy on the landscape of the erstwhile Soviet Union and as a defender of its former allies.

At that time, there were mixed reactions to his statement. Some said it was the beginning of a new Cold War, but others contended that Russia was too weak economically and militarily to pose any challenge to the US.

Subsequent events and the tough posturing by Putin, however, proved that the Russian president meant business. He opposed the Bush administration's arm-twisting tactics in North Korea and Iran, and its policies in Iraq — the so-called “axis of evil'' states.

At the same time, he used his influence to reach an agreement with the US and North Korea to dismantle the communist country's nuclear programme.

When the US unveiled plans to build a missile defence shield near Russia's borders in the Czech Republic and Poland, Putin compared it to the Cuban missile crisis and announced that Russia would counter the move by establishing its own anti-missile system.

He later proposed a counter-proposal to allay the fears of the US and its Nato allies to shield them from “missile threats'' from Iran.

However, he made it clear in no uncertain terms that Russia would oppose any American military solution to Iran's nuclear programme. In order to re-establish and cement ties with the Middle East, the globe-trotting Putin has paid goodwill visits to among other countries in the region, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In its endeavours to assert itself as a global power, Moscow also ruffled a few feathers when it claimed a vast swathe of territory in the Artic by planting a flag on the seabed of the North Pole.

Several countries, especially the US, Canada and Denmark, opposed the move as they too have launched competing claims to the region that is believed to be rich in oil and other minerals. In global diplomacy, Putin may have scored a point, but at home, Russia still has to set its house in order.

Despite a healthy economy, growing unemployment, inflation and corruption are corroding the social-economic fabric of the Russian Federation. Russia has also not done much to settle some of its territorial disputes and the status of Chechnya, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Time is running out for Putin since he cannot be re-elected in 2008 under Russia's constitutional limit. But as far as his country is concerned, Russia is rising again from the ashes of the Soviet Union.