How to Empower Violent Extremism

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National Review:

ot too long ago, most Russians were reportedly unhappy with Vladimir Putin. His crackdown on freedom and his kleptocratic economy were hardly popular. Most likely, given their druthers, Russians were not all that interested in Putin’s risky and costly dream of gobbling up former Soviet Republics to create some grander version of Russia’s mess.

 

But now? As the ruble crashes, as Russia’s oil income dives, and as sanctions start biting the man in the street, Putin, in counterintuitive fashion, is apparently more popular than ever.

 

Why? Because he has become an easy mechanism for ordinary Russians to vent frustration and anger over what they perceive as a too-powerful and bullying West. In a fairer world, Western decadence and self-indulgence would not have earned Americans and Western Europeans singular wealth, leisure, influence, and an overall good life — at least not more so than an Orthodox, politically proud, and historically illustrious Mother Russia. Add in the fact that Russians prove covetous of Western things, especially an elite that, like a moth to a flame, seeks to replicate exactly the sort of good life that it condemns as Western decadence.