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It is important to understand what Putin represents. Putin is not a Stalin who feels obliged to destroy anyone who might potentially at some future point disagree with him. Putin is somebody who wants to amass the power needed to accomplish his immediate task. Therefore we do not observe a general assault on civil liberties. We do see the infringement of civil liberties of groups who, in his view, threaten the regime. The process is uneven. Television is controlled; newspapers are substantially free. But the idea that America has the power to change Russia's domestic structure by threats is an invitation to permanent crisis.

For Americans it's hard to get into the Russian psyche. If you take the great Russian reformers, like Peter the Great or Catherine the Great, they were very autocratic at home and yet progressive by contemporary Western standards. Catherine the Great had close relations with the philosophes. Peter the Great lived in Europe for a year and constantly sent missions to Europe. Yet internally they thought Russia had to be organized so that the maximum abilities of the society could be concentrated on the state. If you look at Putin in this context, he thinks he is a reformer. He probably will be considered a seminal figure in his country's history, but he is not a democrat.

How will he be rated? Too early to tell. Certainly as significant. Great? Well, we'll have to see. A leader becomes great if he institutionalizes a system, if it doesn't become totally dependent on one person. It remains to be seen whether Putin is able to do that.

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