President Putin is officially back, but this time he has a problem. The Russian masses have started to see through the political mist of the Kremlin; they don’t like what’s on show. Few doubt that serious reform is required for Putin to make it to 2018 (and beyond), but ‘quick fixes’ also tend to help. Although Putin’s ‘Eurasian Union’ has already flopped as an external strategy to garner support, he still has one vehicle available that can seriously enhance Russia’s global economic and political stake: the BRICs bloc. That’s not in the conventional sense of acting as a structural hedge against G8 economic ‘activities’, (everyone is bored with that gig given G20 developments), but as a serious energy unit. Given the fundamentals involved, energy isn’t just one potential policy area where BRIC cooperation could be made to work, but the core issue that will make or break the BRICs in future. Russia is best placed to push its ‘alphabetical allies’ in this hydrocarbon direction – especially because Moscow has no choice but to make a virtue out of its own hydrocarbon necessity. Energy is the way of the future; both for the BRICs and a Putin 3.0 Presidency.
|