CourcyInt

COURCYINT SPECIAL BULLETIN

To: All Courcy's Intelligence Service members

Date: 1 August 2003

From: Joe de Courcy, Chief Executive, Courcy's Intelligence Service

Subject: RUSSIA: THE REGIONS v THE CENTRE

SUMMARY

In this week's Courcy's Intelligence Review (CIR), we focused on the power struggle between the Kremlin and the "oligarchs" - that is those who control federal-level business in Russia.

We quoted extensively from an analysis - admittedly self-interested - by exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky in which he identified the five main elites in Russia today.  He listed these as being the bureaucracy, the special services, the regional elites, the army, and the oligarchs.

Although this week's CIR dealt principally with the contest between the Kremlin and the oligarchs, we concluded that the struggle with longer term significance was that between the centre and what Berezovsky terms "the aggregate of regional elites", that is the governors, regional politicians, and associated businesses, whose main strategic interest according to Berezovsky is "the retention and expansion of political and economic power in their own region".

ANALYSIS

The struggle between the centre and the regions has been going on since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and under President Putin it is the centre that has been making the gains.  Nevertheless, this power struggle has not yet fully worked itself out, and in this continuing contest between the regions and the centre, the position of the Russian Far East (RFE) has particular importance.

One of the key areas of difference between the Kremlin and the RFE concerns relations with China.  For larger geopolitical reasons, President Putin has sought very close relations with Beijing.  However, the further east you go in Russia the more suspicion there is of China, and the RFE has an interest in developing a much broader "foreign policy", seeking close economic relations with Japan, South Korea, and the west coast of the US to counter the threat of domination by China.

The attached Special Report - published last November by our associated service: the Asia Intelligence Service - looks in depth at the economic and political interaction between the Russian Far East and the rest of Asia.  It makes particularly interesting reading in the light of Berezovsky's comments about the role the regional elites in Russia today.

To access this report (which is normally available to Asia Intelligence Service members only), just click on the following link:

http://www.asiaint.com/special/secure/AsiaRFE-DEI.pdf

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