Picturing Putin’s Russia
By Mark D. Steinberg
Winston Churchill famously called Russia “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”—a phrase that makes me cringe when it shows up in contemporary journalism or student papers. Part of the problem is that we forget Churchill’s point: there IS a key, “Russian national interest.” We are left with a dismissive cliché about Russia as strange and incomprehensible—and thus probably dangerous. Yet this may be less harmful than clichés about how Russians love a strong ruler; Russians have no historical experience with democracy so cannot understand it; Russia will always be alien to “western” values. Frankly, if we want to understand Russia, we may be better off finding Russia mysterious—knowing that there are no easy answers or certainties.