The Russian state presents perhaps a unique case in modern history of a state surviving by means of paradox—turning weakness into strength, tactics into strategy, exceptions into rules, defeat into victory, and a civilizational foe into a source of life. It should be clear by now that the Trumpian world—even if we are still not sure precisely what that world will be—has bestowed on the Russian state the promise of crafting new life-sustaining paradoxes. But while the Trump Administration could broaden the field of maneuver for the Russian system of personalized power in the short term, sooner or later it …read more
Source: The American Interest
