How do leaders learn from their mistakes -- and how do they decide which mistakes require correction most urgently? In recent days, the non-democracies of Myanmar and China have illustrated how differently two tightly-controlled societies respond to natural disasters. Myanmar's isolated dictators gave little consideration to human suffering or international opinion, and let their own citizens die rather than accept international help, on the other hand, a less iron-fisted regime, the People's Republic of China, has shown that it has learned from past cataclysms, both natural and man-made, how important it is to demonstrate a purposeful disaster response both to the world and to one's own people. With the Summer Olympics coming in less than three months, China was already under a spotlight. Now its leadership faces the challenge to recover from the Sichuan earthquake. It's early days in the relief effort, but China may emerge with greater international sympathy and understanding -- ironically -- than when she was only dealing with the public relations disaster over her handling of Tibet.

Handling disaster while the world watches can make a leader famous or unpopular -- just ask President Bush, who won tremendous world sympathy in the wake of 9/11, then lost it just as quickly following the invasion of Iraq, the treatment of “enemy combatants,” and a domestic natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina.

But the most useful (though not by any means exemplary) case study in learning from disaster may come from Russia, where Vladimir Putin has turned himself from an example of a leader beleaguered by man-made disasters into a strong-man noted for turning disasters around. Recall that shortly after he became Prime Minister for the first time, in August 1999, he was confronted with five apartment building bombings in Moscow and two other towns that killed 300 civilians. Moreover, the Russian economy had only begun to recover from its 1998 meltdown. In the course of the next four years, Putin would face a range of “disasters.” Military setbacks in Chechnya. Then, a nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was lost at sea, and another submarine nearly lost. Terrorists struck a theater in downtown Moscow in 2002, and another terrorist band attacked a school in Beslan in 2004. Such incidents framed Vladimir Putin's early years as Russia's most powerful official, and could have marked him as an ineffective leader. Instead, at the end of two terms as President and enjoying unprecedented popularity, Putin has now become Prime Minister once again, with more power than any of his predecessors and poised to remain as powerful and popular a Prime Minister as he was a President.

What kind of lessons did Putin learn from Russia's man-made disasters?

The first lesson, a la Putin, for those who have held the reins of power in Russia is that Russia should not be weak lest her neighbors take advantage of her weakness. The extremes of the Soviet period, including Soviet aggression and dictatorship, as well as lack of freedom and repression at home, were not nearly as shameful to Putin as were Russia's weakness and economic implosion in 1998. Russia's economic turnaround, which blossomed under Putin, was accompanied by a backsliding on human rights, but this was of secondary importance to him, in his reading of Russian history, human rights and freedoms were not as important to most Russians as economic and physical security. Provide economic and physical security and -- according to the logic of Putin's behavior -- most Russians would accept more restraints on media and political opposition.

Putin's second lesson, drawn from Boris Yeltsin's Presidency, was to tolerate no rival sources of power and authority. Thus, as he moved against Chechen extremists on the security front, and regained control of state-owned broadcast media, Putin centralized decision-making and intimidated or eliminated business and media oligarchs. Berezovskiy, Gusinskiy, Khodorkovskiy were exiled or arrested and, while there was an outcry, most of it came from outside of Russia, since Putin had correctly calculated the Russian public's willingness to accept less freedom and transparency in exchange for economic growth and security.

A final lesson, perhaps obvious in Russia's recent presidential transition, was to show respect for the institutions of a strong state. For Putin to have remained President beyond the end of a second term would have necessitated changing the Russian constitution, thereby weakening it and the symbol of the Presidency. Yeltsin's struggles in 1993-4 with an opposition-controlled Duma had risked political catastrophe as both sides defended their positions by citing the old constitution. Putin saw no reason to change the rules if he could still control the game by playing a new position. By accepting an “invitation” to head the only political party left standing, United Russia, Putin sees that he can control the activities in the Duma both as party leader and as Head of Government. And, by having “chosen” his successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin is in a position to strongly influence what Medvedev will request of the Russian (read Putin) government.

So is there a lesson that Prime Minister Putin has not assimilated? In “disaster” planning, as in military planning, the fallacy often lies in preparing to fight the last war. Despite her record income from oil and natural gas, Russia has invested little in infrastructure, from public transportation to utilities. Russia continues to face a demographic crisis and epidemic-sized phenomena of HIV and alcoholism. The wealthier Moscow becomes, the greater the wealth disparity. Putin has avoided many “disasters” in securing and consolidating his power, but several more crises loom. Any failure to address them, either individually or collectively can only be blamed on Putin, since he has eliminated all opposing viewpoints. And this, in the long run, is Russia's disaster waiting to happen.