Russia and the New World Disorder

Bobo Lo’s new book provides both a fine-grained analysis of the Russian approach to foreign policy under Vladimir Putin and an incisive critique of it. Lo describes in detail Putin’s dual image of America and the West as being expansionist and a threat to Russia on the one hand and as being in decline, in need of cooperation from Russia, and containable as a result of Putin’s ability to act more quickly and effectively than them. One of the most important defects in Putin’s foreign policy approach, the author points out, is to assume that America’s declining ability to manage world affairs somehow results in increased Russian (as well as Chinese and other non-Western) ability to do so. But, as Lo observes, “the days of major powers running global affairs are gone. The real lesson from the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria is not the decline of U.S. power, but the inability of any power (or powers) to direct positive change beyond its borders” (p. 98).