Commentary
Vladimir Putin is in grave danger of a complete flame-out.
Following the bloodless Western victory in the Cold War and the collapse of international communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Putin emerged from the infighting that surged through the Kremlin in the aftermath of the crumbling of the Soviet Union. As he took over control of the truncated Russian state, he faced a clear choice: He could attempt to give Russia a soft landing in its descent from co-superpower of the world with the United States to a prominent place in the second tier of the world’s most powerful countries, or he could decline to recognize the legitimacy of the former Soviet Republics that had seceded and set out to rebuild Russia, attempting to retrace the steps of Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin….