This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world.

I'm Farid Zakaria.

Today on the program, from the Zars and Zarena's to Soviet-era commissars, to President Putin,

we delve into the nature of power in Russia, looking at the best to help us understand the present.

I'll talk to the New Yorkers, David Gremlich, and new school professor Nina Khrushcheva.

Also, the Prime Minister of Barbados are getting the west to pay for damage from climate changes,

rising seas and wild weather.

Two degrees is a death sentence.

And the President of Kenya, on why many nations in the global south are not taking a side on the war in Ukraine.

But first, here's my take.

In his important book, The Third Wave, Samuel Huntington pointed out that division among the ruling elite is a key sign of weakness in authoritarian regimes.

When prominent members of the establishment break with the system, it often triggers a larger set of changes.

Conversely, when you do not see such defections, it means the order-crack will probably be able to survive.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad offers one example of this principle at work.

So how would we apply that to Russia today?

If any progozians failed attack, it has revealed some dissent within Russia's ruling elite.

But Vladimir Putin was apparently able to snuff it out within a day or two.

It appears that progozians got no public support from any key figure in the Kremlin,

which could be why he ended his quick-sotic march on Moscow.

Putin has spent much of his tenure crushing dissent from liberals, now he is subduing his challengers on the nationalist side.

Power struggles within the Russian state take place in a black box.

As the lines often attributed to Winston Churchill go, Kremlin, political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug.

...