Hüsker Dü
DA
Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.
Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.
On the global chessboard, there has been no more deft and brilliant (and of late, lucky) player than Putin. From the early days of his presidency a decade and a half ago, he began to signal that he intended to make Russia great again, and that he saw this imperative as a zero-sum game: As the West gained friendships among post-communist states, Russia lost, and so everything possible had to be done to force Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan states out of a Western liberal orientation and back into the greater Russian orbit.
Meanwhile, the damage to liberalism in Europe was also being driven by a more brutal form of Russian intervention—in Syria. Russia’s bombing campaign there has not only tilted the war in favor of the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who along with his allies has killed more civilians than either ISIS fighters or rebels, but it also dramatically accelerated the flow of Syrian refugees (now nearing 5 million) into other countries, including European ones. While Europe’s refugee crisis has many sources and causes, roughly 30 percent of European asylum-seekers last year were Syrian refugees, and the human exodus from that civil war has incidentally further helped to feed right-wing (pro-Putin) populist parties and movements across Europe, while undermining liberal leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/russia-liberal-democracy/510011/
Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.
On the global chessboard, there has been no more deft and brilliant (and of late, lucky) player than Putin. From the early days of his presidency a decade and a half ago, he began to signal that he intended to make Russia great again, and that he saw this imperative as a zero-sum game: As the West gained friendships among post-communist states, Russia lost, and so everything possible had to be done to force Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan states out of a Western liberal orientation and back into the greater Russian orbit.
Meanwhile, the damage to liberalism in Europe was also being driven by a more brutal form of Russian intervention—in Syria. Russia’s bombing campaign there has not only tilted the war in favor of the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who along with his allies has killed more civilians than either ISIS fighters or rebels, but it also dramatically accelerated the flow of Syrian refugees (now nearing 5 million) into other countries, including European ones. While Europe’s refugee crisis has many sources and causes, roughly 30 percent of European asylum-seekers last year were Syrian refugees, and the human exodus from that civil war has incidentally further helped to feed right-wing (pro-Putin) populist parties and movements across Europe, while undermining liberal leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/russia-liberal-democracy/510011/
