From renowned foreign policy expert Angela Stent comes a dissection of how Putin created a paranoid and polarized world--and increased Russia's status on the global stage. "
Putin's World is the definitive guide to understanding the tangled history of post-Cold War Russia and its place in the world. Angela Stent offers a thoughtful, sober, and elegantly-written perspective that could not be more timely." --US Ambassador William J. Burns
How did Russia manage to emerge resurgent on the world stage and play a weak hand so effectively? Is it because Putin is a brilliant strategist? Or has Russia stepped into a vacuum created by the West's distraction with its own domestic problems and US ambivalence about whether it still wants to act as a superpower?
Putin's World examines the country's turbulent past, how it has influenced Putin, the Russians' understanding of their position on the global stage and their future ambitions--and their conviction that the West has tried to deny them a seat at the table of great powers since the USSR collapsed.
This book looks at Russia's key relationships--its downward spiral with the United States, Europe, and NATO; its ties to China, Japan, the Middle East; and with its neighbors, particularly the fraught relationship with Ukraine. Putin's World will help Americans understand how and why the post-Cold War era has given way to a new, more dangerous world, one in which Russia poses a challenge to the United States in every corner of the globe--and one in which Russia has become a toxic and divisive subject in US politics.
