Veteran diplomats watch as the U.S. rushes to help Ukraine, seeing Cold War echoes. As Philip_Elliott writes, the retreat to metropoles could bring stability but also competition
For veteran diplomats, this behavior by Putin seemed tragically predictable. Their memoirs are full of stories of the longtime Russian President’s intentional delays, direct insults, petty affronts, and even menace by a dog. Some examples, like Putin’s
of his labrador to intimidate German Chancellor Angela Merkel are famous. Others, like the off-handed denigration of top U.S. officialsare the stuff of legend in the diplomatic corps. Once, Putin kept Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waiting for almost three hours in a Red Square holding room, only to be told that the meeting had been moved to Putin’s dacha 40 minutes away in Barvikha.
The State Department’s archives are full of memos assessing the Putin era and how he has sought to take advantage of the United States’ over-extended agenda. As Burns—a career diplomat who rose to become Deputy Secretary of State and now serves as the CIA’s chief—described Russia’s place in the new world order in a 2008 memo to Rice: “For most of the Russian elite, still intoxicated by an unexpectedly rapid revival of Great Power status, the world around them is full of tactical opportunities.
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