Time Is Right -- Putin is the Person of the Year

Time has chosen Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year for 2007. The magazine notes as it usually does that this does not connote endorsement. The selection rather recognizes a person who Time's editors believe had the greatest impact in one way or another in the world.

For reasons different from those Time lays out, I agree with the choice. The biggest is that Putin has forced the world to take Russia seriously. Just a few years ago, it would have been regarded as absurdist to suggest that Russia would have its current voice in global politics and business.

It's irrelevant that he's done so on the back of high oil prices, and that Russia's influence no doubt will wane when those prices inevitably do. One place where Time is wrong is in saying that Russia possesses an inherent central role in world affairs -- on the basis of what? Its nuclear weapons? It's Putin's personality that has put Russia at center stage.

Oddly enough, and perhaps more importantly, Putin has also brought a much-needed balance to global diplomacy. He has rightly pointed out that the unipolar world that's followed the Soviet collapse has put global diplomacy off-kilter, especially given the rigid Bush administration view of the world.

Some of Putin's actual policies -- such as energy domination in Europe -- are decidedly contrary to Western interests. But because of his very belicosity, Putin has made the ordinarily dismissive Bush actually engage, and that can only be positive.

Time's selection highlights the world now faced by the other countries on which this blog mainly focuses -- the eight states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Putin's disciplined determination means they face a tougher prospect in terms of weaning themselves away from Russia's economic embrace. The next year will bring a continued battle of pipeline politics between Putin and U.S. and Europe, with Central Asia -- specifically Turkmenistan -- the key prize.