Russia's War Against Ukraine
Michael McFaul: Putin the (not so) great
Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a celebration of the 700th anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the Trinity St. Sergius monastery in Sergeiv Posad outside Moscow, July 18, 2014.
Wlladimir Putin is everywhere in the Western media these days – glaring at us from the cover of magazines, psychoanalyzed daily on television, lampooned as a bullying tyrant in cartoons. Most portrayals assign sinister intentions to the Russian ruler. Yet, a subtext in many accounts is that Putin is also succeeding. As Time magazine put it, "each new crisis makes him stronger." Putin may be a bad guy, so this story goes, but he is also shrewd, tough, strategic and smart, outmaneuvering the hapless Western alliance seeking to counter this judo master in the Kremlin.
