Russia is Remaking Itself as the Leader of the Anti-Western World (Masha Gessen) from the Washington Post
"Over the past two years, a new ideology has taken shape at the Kremlin. Insistently pushed out over the airwaves of state-controlled television, it has taken hold as Russia’s national idea — and is the driving force behind its newly aggressive international posture. Russia is remaking itself as the leader of the anti-Western world."
On one level -- it's great to see the MSM begin to say now what we've been saying here at the News Nuggets for years: that authoritarian and anti-western regimes have been coalescing into some type of still inchoate alliance or common cause -- simply to take pressure off their usually badly failing regimes.
It will be interesting to see if Putin can somehow "firm up" these states into anything more situationally meaningful. The biggest challenge faced by these kleptocracies is that most of them are, simply stated, economic "boat anchors" (my favorite term of art lately for this crowd). Putin now seems set on not just accepting that this will be Russia's fate but actually accelerating Russia's pace into the economic dumper.
But we will have to see. This week, Europe seems to be backing off the pressure they were talking about applying last week. Bad move on their part.
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