Vladimir Putin

What Drives Vladimir Putin?

Aggressors often attack weaker neighbors to restore a sense of pride.  by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a disaster of a declining population, corruption, authoritarianism, a warped economy, and a high rate of alcoholism. Why, then, would Putin want to ruin additional territory in Crimea and Ukraine the way

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The Perils of International Idealism

American foreign policy could use a does of hard-nosed realism. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas  United States foreign policy has been defined lately by serial failures. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and appears to be preparing a reprise in eastern Ukraine, and possibly in the Baltic states. Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad is

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Obama’s Enlightened Foolery

He views Putin, the 21st century, and himself as in a fun-house mirror. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  President Obama talks about Vladimir Putin as if he were a Pennsylvania “clinger” who operates on outdated principles, who is driven by fear, and whom unfortunately the post-Enlightenment mind of even Barack Obama cannot always

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Of Pre- and Postmodern Poseurs

Obama’s postmodernism has met its match in premodern Putin. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  Vladimir Putin thinks he has a winning formula to restore the global clout of the old Soviet Union. Contemporary Russia is a chaotic, shrinking, and petrodollar-fed kleptocracy. It certainly lacks the population, the vast resources, and territory of its former

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The Hitler Model

Why do weak nations like Russia provoke stronger ones like the United States? by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas  An ascendant Vladimir Putin is dismantling the Ukraine and absorbing its eastern territory in the Crimea. President Obama is fighting back against critics that his administration serially projected weakness, and thereby lost the ability to deter

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Western Arrogance and Decline

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine  For three centuries the West built up enormous economic, cultural, and military capital that dwarfs and dominates that of the rest of the world. Other countries may hate and resent Europe and the United States, but they still have to imitate, adapt, or steal the technology, financial systems, and

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