Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Pixabay
Vladimir Putin did not appear out of a vacuum to birth a gangster state, invade Ukraine, roil the planet in chaos, and order his hobgoblins on Russian television to incessantly threaten the world with mushroom clouds.
“Russia’s conquests and violence are the most natural and legitimate thing that has ever been done in history,” is one of the more recent soundbites from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
The distressing question is whether there’s even a tinkle of truth to Putin’s bombast that the U.S. shoulders blame for Russia’s global aggression. Three decades of post-Cold War wheeling and dealing between Russia and the U.S. provide compelling evidence that Putin is right—but clearly not for the reasons spewed by him and his propagandists.