![]() ![]() Europeans have their own national concerns to worry about, and the EU is barely taken seriously as a strategic power. He abandoned his allies and sees only China as a strategic rival. Biden fled Afghanistan in September, like Trump in Syria before him. The West is currently showing sufficient weakness for Putin to flex his muscles. His method is destabilisation of neighbouring states, as is happening in Belarus and Kazakhstan. The goal: to be seen as a world power again on an equal footing with the great Western powers, even though Russia is a demographically shrinking country living purely on commodity exports, with a GDP the size of Spain. He intends to restore that Empire by expanding the Russian sphere of influence. Putin (and, more broadly, the Kremlin) suffers from phantom pain: the Soviet Empire, which perished 30 years ago. ![]() The two sides should, instead, lower tensions and address together several longstanding issues at the heart of current international instability Putin and the ghost of Empire Albrecht Rothacher argues that Putin’s power play over Ukraine, while driven by the West’s current weakness, serves neither Russia nor the West. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |