This Podcast is based on a book by Timothy Thomas titled "Kremlin Kontrol: Russia's Political-Military Reality". Apparently, Vladimir Putin has spent the last 20 years preparing to prevent his ouster. This book shows how he set up controls to monitor the population, and prevent moves against him by internal intelligence agencies and the military. If there is enough interest, I will narrate the full book and make it available on Audible.com. If you would like to encourage this effort and provide support to the effort, please consider becoming a Patron on Patreon. Information on how to do that can be found on our web site USGOVPUB.COM.

Authoritarian regimes are, by their very nature, insecure. They tend to view Western democracies as an existential threat to their way of rule and they fear the development of any type of opposition or protests in the streets. In Russia’s case, the latter fear of protests leading to a “color revolution” often appears as important as the ISIS threat to its southern border. Lacking political legitimacy, they rely on two factors to sustain their leadership, patriotism and control. This study discusses the latter issue from both a civilian and military point of view.