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Could Putin Win? — Yes, if the West Becomes Complacent
The EU has announced its 14th sanctions package against Russia. The US has managed to pass military aid to Ukraine after a gridlocked Congress postponed that assistance by a few months.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to have to repel Russian advances even on its second largest city, Kharkiv, with 1.3 million inhabitants.
The West has been complacent, let’s be honest. At the same time, some of that complacency is due to the checks and balances that make liberal democracy so insufficient in the first place.
It prevents authoritarians from coming in power — when it works — but at the same time it postpones the good intentions of democrats.
Let me explain.
For Putin, who was just a young KGB officer in Berlin at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the USSR was supposed to triumph in the ideological struggle in Europe.
When the USSR collapsed and the ideological struggle ended, Putin was devastated. The KGB was dissolved and was later reinstated as the FSB, but still left many of its operatives outside Russia to fend for themselves.
In recounting this history, Putin often portrays Ukraine as the main benefactor due to the land it “gained” from the USSR. Paradoxically, the USSR’s collapse left…
