Vladimir Putin and The Russian Soul

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Hoover Institute :

Vladimir Putin and The Russian Soul

by Ralph Peters

Thursday, December 8, 2016

 

A skilled miner is useless without a seam of ore. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, czar in all but name, has a genius for mining the ore of Russian nationalism, but the crucial factor is that the ore was there, waiting to be exploited. A ruler perfectly fitted to Russian tradition, Putin is the right man at the right time to dig up Russia’s baleful obsessions, messianic delusions, and aggressive impulses.

 

The short answer to the question “Why is Putin so aggressive?” is because aggression works. The twenty-first century is revisionist: After the collapse of European empires in the twentieth century, old imperial and crusading (aka jihadi) forces have reawakened in Orthodox Russia, in post-Ottoman Turkey, in Shia Persia, and among Sunni Muslims entranced by romanticized caliphates. History didn’t end. It just rolled over. The human chronicle reverted to forms dating back millennia (the geographic aspirations of today’s rulers in Iran match those of Cyrus the Great).