What Is Putin’s Game?

The latest in Ukraine is a revival of the treacherous long game he’s been committed to all along.

Jed Babbin December 10, 2018

Between America’s most dangerous adversaries — Russia and China — it’s a toss-up which is the single most dangerous. The threat an adversary poses is best gauged by determining its intentions and capabilities. That analysis makes China, which has much greater capabilities than the Russian Federation, the greater danger.

We have to add to the measurement of those nations’ capabilities and intentions the personal characteristics of those nations’ leaders and their governments, the nation’s proximity to America’s vital national security interests, and the difficulty in determining the nation’s intentions. The scale tips in favor of Russia because of the nature and personality of Vladimir Putin.

The late Walter Laqueur’s book Putinism is a study of both the man and the government he has formed around him. History is replete with military dictatorships and monarchies that ruled by a claim of divine right. As Laqueur demonstrates, the Putin government is neither of those kinds of autocracies. It is a government of the “siloviki” and, while it may not be unique in history, it is unique today.............To Read More.....