Putin’s Failure as a Grand Strategist

Vladimir Putin’s obsession with power could cause Russia to slip down the dragon’s throat.

By William A. Nitze, July 9, 2014

Takeaways

• Russia’s most serious geopolitical challenges do not lie to the West but to Russia’s South and East.
• Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East contain a power vacuum. The natural candidate to fill it is China.
  
• Local Chinese look to Beijing for “protection.” The “People’s Republic of Eastern Siberia” is nearly being born.
• A Russia-Japan deal would check China’s geopolitical ambitions.
• Vladimir Putin is so obsessed with Russia as an alternative civilization to the west that he misses the big picture.http://www.theglobalist.com/putins-failure-as-a-grand-strategist/