Putin as a Russian Modernizer
Speculation about Russia’s foreign policy motives are a cottage industry in its own right. Are Russians paranoid? Inherently expansionist? Intolerable to democracy and dissent? Such views have shaped how American and European governments have dealt with Russia for the last century. When set against other former Russian modernizers, Putin is more imagined as a nascent Stalin, rather than a Peter I, Nicholas I, or Alexander II. I think Andrei Tsygankov, professor of International Studies and Political Science at San Francisco State University and Program Chair, International Studies Association, has given a sober explanation for why Russia currently acts the way it does. According to him, Putin is likened more as a Russian leader like Prince Alexander Gorchakov, who after Russia’s defeat in the Crimea in 1856, called his country with brutal honesty, a “great, powerless country.” Such an assessment paved the way ..read more
