by Angela Stent (Author)
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.
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.
