Putin the (Not So) Great

Vladimir Putin is everywhere in the Western media these days – glaring at us from the cover of magazines, psychoanalyzed daily on television, lampooned as a bullying tyrant in cartoons. Most portrayals assign sinister intentions to the Russian ruler. Yet, a subtext in many accounts is that Putin is also succeeding. As Time magazine put it, “each new crisis makes him stronger.” Putin may be a bad guy, so this story goes, but he is also shrewd, tough, strategic and smart, outmaneuvering the hapless Western alliance seeking to counter this...