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What Putin Wants
In this final excerpt from my conversation with Michael McFaul — America’s ambassador in Moscow up until as recently as the Sochi Olympics — I put to him the question we’ve all been nursing these past few months: just what, exactly, is Vladimir Putin up to? And when will his appetite be sated? His answer below:
Published in General
He will go as far as the lack of opposition will allow him.
But note the implications of McFaul’s theory: McFaul thinks that Putin is waiting to see how things develop. But that, in turn, means that Putin acknowledges (implicitly, but still definitively) that Putin will stop if he thinks the opposition is strong enough. He’s not a blind despot; he’ll go as far as he thinks he can get away with, but it means he is willing to stop, given the appropriate opposition.
And besides, from all reports, Russia really doesn’t have the military it once had. Russia moves because of the lack of opposition, not because it can overcome any.