Russia’s Dual Response to the West Creates Policy Confusion
Does the West understand Russia? Perhaps the better question is: has it ever understood Russia? At the moment of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the policy consensus was that the USSR was solid as a rock. Yet while the West was praising Russia’s transition to democracy and the market, Boris Yeltsin was restoring personalized power and building institutions of oligarchic capitalism. As Russia experts in the US searched for a 'common strategic purpose' and European colleagues pursued a 'partnership for modernization' with Moscow, officials in the Kremlin were treating the West as an opponent and accusing it of humiliating Russia.
The West was then serially shocked by the Kremlin’s gambits in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, and tried to conceal its embarrassment by intoning the mantra that Russia is inherently unpredictable.… Seguir leyendo »