Two schools have vied at center stage in recent years seeking to explain the foreign policy behavior of Putin’s Russia. One essentially places the blame almost entirely at the West’s door: The annexation of Crimea and the war on Ukraine were responses to the West’s insufficient sensitivity to Russian “national interests.” American and European mistakes and misreadings have “provoked Putin”, the line goes, instilling in him an overwhelming fear of, among other things, NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders. The other line of reasoning, while assigning the responsibility to the Kremlin, explains its actions as a sudden urge to retaliate, to punish, and to humiliate Ukraine after the revolutionary overthrow of a pro-Moscow regime.
Both arguments are problematic, especially the former. Yet even if one or both explanations were flawless, the conceptual framework that emerges from such reasoning is clearly reductionist and hence of little predictive value to Western decision-makers. In these analyses Russia’s behavior emerges as almost entirely reactive, informed by exogenous factors. The only difference is whether these causes are of longstanding concern—as in NATO’s posture toward Russia—or not—as in a revolution in Kiev.
Certainly it is reasonable to think that Putin’s tactics, like those of many dictators or generals, are shaped by the contingencies, pressures, and emotions of the moment. But his strategic direction may nonetheless be traced by marking the nodal points in the evolution of domestic imperatives—economic, ideological, political—that have molded his behavior and will almost certainly continue to do so. There is sufficient evidence to trace the development of Putin’s strategy to a Weltanschauung, a set of tenets and convictions, that have coalesced into policymaking guidelines. What is this credo?
To read the full article click here.
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1fLg9oP
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment