Letters | Why overthrowing Vladimir Putin is a bad idea
- Removing Putin from power would risk repeating mistakes made in other autocratic countries, including Iraq, and might bring further instability to Russia
Putin is an autocrat who has been linked to organised crime in Russia. His waging wars in Syria, Georgia and Ukraine is understandably troubling. However, “getting rid of” Putin is not a good idea.
It seems we have learned nothing from the past few wars. Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and other dictators have been ousted only for the country to plunge into chaos. When you uproot a government overnight, it is never a good idea.
This is especially so when that government is centred entirely around one individual. When you remove that individual, all the dominoes fall. Every military commander, politician, and oligarch will be vying for power. Think back to Yuan Shikai and the Warlord Era in China, except with thousands of nuclear weapons lying around.
If Putin is “taken out”, Russia will fall into infighting that will make the West nostalgic for the Putin era. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, we saw a failed coup d’état that nearly brought Russia to civil war. In the chaos that surrounded the transition, armaments flooded the black market as commanders went rogue. All this occurred even while Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were clearly in power. Imagine what would happen if no successor was put in charge.