Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Shows Putin Has Changed:
Never in his entire brilliant career has Putin been so wrong, and so wrong on all counts. In trying to understand this mystery Putin, we are left with only one of two unhappy possibilities.
I would like tentatively to share the insights of Ms. Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School of Government, Tufts University. Before joining the Fletcher School, she taught at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Something very strange is going on with Vladimir Putin. Since 1999, we’ve come to know a different Putin; a man justifiably admired (and feared) for his political acumen, support, and patronage of Russian strategic innovation and military professionalization, and for his sequential victories in Russian military interventions.
But on February 24, we woke up to an entirely different Putin; a Putin forcing the Russian Federation into a series of strategic and public relations blunders of disastrous proportions.
For those of us who’ve studied Russia’s history, its military, and its foreign policy for decades, this second Putin is a mystery.
