Getting Russia Right

New Thinking for a New World · Nov 9, 2023 · 35m

Thomas Graham on how to cope with Russia today as well as tomorrow.

Winston Churchill famously said that Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. After the end of the Cold War, many in the West thought the puzzle was solved. The Soviet Union had collapsed. Russians would embrace free markets and even liberal democracy. And President Obama could dismiss Russia as merely a “regional," not a great power. Case closed; time to pivot to Asia.

But reality has a way of complicating simplistic thinking. First, President Putin consolidated his domestic control, then allied his country…