An Unarmed Putin Wants a Culture War With the West
He’ll discover that Russia has even less soft power than the Soviet Union.
Is that a Frappuccino, comrade?
Photographer: Pavel Golovkin/APEven as his troops retreated in disarray in eastern Ukraine last week, Vladimir Putin opened a new front in his war against the West: a “battle for cultural supremacy.” The Russian president declared his top foreign policy goal would be to lead a global counteroffensive against the “imposition of neoliberal views by a number of states.”
Russia, he claimed, is uniquely qualified for this task because it can offer the world an alternative to liberalism. “Centuries of history have given Russia a rich cultural heritage and spiritual potential that has put it in a unique position to successfully spread traditional Russian moral and religious values,” the statement said.