ForeignAffairsMag在2022-08-22~2022-08-28的言论
296: Fiona Hill and Angela Stent: The World Putin Wants. How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future, submitted on 2022-08-26 01:13:13+08:00.
—– 296.1 —–2022-08-26 01:23:50+08:00:
[SS from the essay by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. Hill is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, From 2017 to 2019, she was the Senior Director for Europe and Russia on the U.S. National Security Council. Stent is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Professor Emerita at Georgetown University.]
The Russian president has made it clear that his country is a revisionist power. In a March 2014 speech marking Crimea’s annexation, Putin put the West on notice that Russia was on the offensive in staking out its regional claims. To make this task easier, Putin later took steps that he believed would sanction-proof the Russian economy by reducing its exposure to the United States and Europe, including pushing for the domestic production of critical goods. He stepped up repression, conducting targeted assassinations and imprisoning opponents. He carried out disinformation operations and engaged in efforts to bribe and blackmail politicians abroad. Putin has constantly adapted his tactics to mitigate Western responses—to the point that on the eve of his invasion, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, he bragged to some European interlocutors that he had “bought the West.” There was nothing, he thought, that the United States or Europe could do to constrain him.
So far, the West’s reaction to the invasion has generally been united and robust. Russia’s aggressive attack on Ukraine was a wake-up call for the United States and its allies. But the West must understand that it is dealing with a leader who is trying to change the historical narrative of the last hundred years—not just of the period since the end of the Cold War. Vladimir Putin wants to make Ukraine, Europe, and indeed the whole world conform to his own version of history. Understanding his objectives is central to crafting the right response.
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