Rethinking Putin’s Russia
U.S. officials, asserts Brzezinski, have been slow to grasp the peculiar psychology of Putin himself: the would-be strongman who likes having himself photographed bare-chested or dropping opponents in judo matches; the iron leader with a savior complex. “There is very little in Putin’s conduct that is purely in Russian history,” he says. “A lot of it is strikingly similar to Hitler and Mussolini—that narcissistic megalomania, which becomes more acute the more people around you are kissing your behind.”
.. In fact, for all the hand-wringing over Obama and his predecessors’ approach to Russia, some experts believe that Putin is acting mainly out of weakness, not strength. The West, in other words, really did win the Cold War, and the Ukraine crisis is only the backlash.