The West Just Doesn’t Get Putin

U.S. reactions to President Vladimir Putin’s article in the New York Times this week, from outrage to ridicule, show just how badly much of the Western policy elite are misinterpreting Russia.

This is largely the product of dashed and unrealistic expectations that many in the West held after the collapse of communism. They thought Russia would reform itself and become a junior partner to the U.S. in global affairs. Instead, the country was re-established as an authoritarian and fiercely independent state. Putin has been demonized as the symbol of this disappointment, leaving Western elites dangerously ill-equipped to read him.