Putin’s ‘prelude to a purge’?
The arrest on June 24th of Nikita Belykh (above), the liberal-minded governor of the Kirovsk region, was headline news on Russian state television. It even preceded the report on… Read more »
Tag: Stephen Sestanovich
Russia: Same Game, New Tactics
For some observers, Vladimir Putin’s re-election in 2018 is a foregone conclusion; they see him as a virtual “president-for-life,” secure enough to ignore pressures that might force another leader to… Read more »
The truth about populism and foreign policy
Last week in Foreign Affairs, Richard Fontaine and Robert D. Kaplan analyzed the impact of this year’s campaign populism on U.S. foreign policy, notes Council on Foreign Relations analyst Stephen Sestanovich. Domestic… Read more »
Russia’s ‘hollow men’ locked in dynamic of failure
Far from formidable, Vladimir Putin and those around him in the Kremlin have made themselves prisoners of the past, argues Andrew Wood, an associate fellow of Chatham House and a… Read more »
Putin experiencing ‘the impotence of omnipotence’
Many of the apparent contradictions in Russia today can be explained by the fact that Vladimir Putin and his regime have entered what political scientist Guilliermo O’Donnell called “the impotence of… Read more »
Will the Putin regime crumble?
Yes, says Stephen Sestanovich, the George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a board member of the National Endowment for… Read more »
The Obama Doctrine: from ‘democratic messianism’ to ‘passive progressivism’?
Experience has taught President Barack Obama to temper his idealism with a pragmatic, realist approach to foreign policy, leading him to reject liberal Democratic interventionism. Yet he remains a democratic… Read more »
Russia – a ‘hollow superpower’
Vladimir Putin was losing legitimacy even before the economy shriveled [but] with action in Ukraine and Syria, he has made it appear that Russia is the equal—and rival—of America, The… Read more »
Saudis facing similar problems to collapsing Soviet Union
Saudi Arabia has ordered the segregation of men and women in local council meetings, in a setback to women’s rights in the ultraconservative kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reports. The… Read more »
Putin says Lenin was wrong, Stalin right: US says Putin ‘corrupt’
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday criticized Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, accusing him of placing a “time bomb” under the state, and sharply denouncing brutal repressions by the Bolshevik government,… Read more »