Vladimir Putin: the man, the myth, the … next president of Russia? In the post-Clinton age, if there’s one person who appears on the Drudge Report more than Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, it’s Mr. Putin. If it’s not in relationship to international affairs and Russia, he appears there in some daring, manly activity, occasionally bare chested and buff, unsmiling and tough.

He is, by some accounts, Putin, the “action man.”  It isn’t enough to sit on top of the world’s second largest arsenal of  nuclear weapons (or is it the largest?); apparently Vlad must be able to show his ability to best anyone in mortal combat, as well.

Martial arts? He’ll take you on. Riding on horses? In cold weather or summer heat?  Hockey? He’ll score. Hunting? Shirtless.

And he’s strong, too. Arm wrestling or pan bending, he’s game.

Or maybe you want to go to Monte Carlo and race? Watch out, Tony Stark: Ivan Vanko isn’t the only Russian you should watch for there.

But Putin isn’t all kill, thrill and speed. He’s also a combination of tough and tender. For example, take the time when he visited and examined a tiger with the Russian academy of science. He’s a conservationist with a taste for dangerous animals, too. Or assisted in Arctic Circle climate change research.

As if that wasn’t enough, Putin is also an amateur archaeologist, discovering submerged ancient pottery while scuba diving near Greece.

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In short, he is the most interesting man in the world–a concert pianist, a motorcyclist, outdoorsman, hunter, climatologist, martial artist (and maybe a ninja?), dog lover, horse whisperer, pilot (of jets, tanks, and firefighting planes, too), and submariner. I wouldn’t be surprised if he drinks Dos Equis, too, though vodka would seem more stereotypical of this man of men.

Indeed. From spy hunter in the KGB’s counter-intelligence arm, Putin has risen to become one of the most powerful men in Russia, if not the world. In the last week he has been nominated for a third term as President of Russia, and he looks likely to take  the job. Dmitry Medvedev was only ever a place holder, and now will step down to take the place of Prime Minister (a job he had while Putin was President three years ago).

As speculated by one journalist, though, we are only mid-way through Putin’s political career. There are feats of strength for him to accomplish yet :

The year is 2024[...]

Only one leader has defied the iron law that all politicians eventually leave office. His name? Vladimir Putin. Now 71, Putin has served two more terms as Russia‘s president – bringing the tally of his stints in the Kremlin up to a remarkable four – the final two lasting a total of 12 years. He is fitter and more vigorous than ever: Russian first state TV channel has recently shown him wrestling heroically with a python after it “escaped” from a Moscow zoo.

In theory, this is the moment when Putin should finally step down after a quarter of century at the apex of Russian power. He has already outlasted Leonid Brezhnev (18 years) and is closing in fast on comrade Stalin (a whopping 31).

If that last comparison seems strange in this day decades after the fall of communist Russia, take a moment to examine Putin–if you, or anyone, knows much about his politics, it is irrelevant. What matters is that he is creating an image that is not unlike the cults of popularity that surrounded the megalomaniacs and dictators of the last century.

It’s a bleak prospect. Liberals in Moscow and St Petersburg were yesterday posting a photo of Putin mocked up to look like Leonid Brezhnev – complete with military uniform, patriotic Soviet medals and a hammer and sickle. Putin even got Brezhnevian eyebrows.

Actually, the comparisons with the Brezhnev era are spot-on. Brezhnev presided over another era of political and economic stagnation, the 1970s, sustained by a commodities boom and high oil prices. He also had a war – he sent the Red Army to invade Afghanistan. In 2008 Putin did the same thing. He sent Russian tanks into Georgia, promising to hang Georgia’s pro-western leader Mikheil Saakashvili “by the balls”. It was a brutal lesson in neighbourhood geopolitics.

Like Brezhnev, Putin will have his Olympics, too, in 2014 when the Winter Olympics go to Sochni. With a former KGB officer at the head of the Russian state, is it hard to believe that little has changed in Russia? Further, is it hard to predict that the United States might expect trouble from a resurgent Russia under a “strong” man Putin?

With the geopolitical macho Putin returning to a more internationally prominent role (and Medvedev shunted to the diminished prime ministry, essentially, an economic management slot), Mr. Obama and other Western leaders will have to deal with the longest-serving leader among theG-8. Putin will command the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world. And he will have Russia’s massive economic resources, including a $400 billion cash cushion, oil and gas reserves, and a cornucopia of raw materials, at his beck and call.

Most importantly, Putin simply doesn’t trust the United States, calling it a “parasite” on the world economic body. He accuses it of bringing about the Arab Spring and “velvet revolutions” by expanding hard-to-control social media. He resents the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. And he alleges that US foreign policy disregards international law.

If the past is any predictor of the future, than  the future where we find Vladimir Putin is one where Russia sees itself as a rival to US power and influence, a state that looks as much to its tsarist past for guidance as to the west for technological theft, and where leaders rule by personality cults and competition-less elections. He may bill himself as the most interesting man in the world, but Putin is an Emperor who, clothes or not, is no friend of democracy, transparency, or the rights of the people.

[Atlantic Monthly] [The Guardian] [Christian Science Monitor]

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