Vladimir Putin's Dicey Dilemma: Russia Stands at a Fateful Fork in the Road

Despite the Obama administration's narrative of a Russia that is not a player in global affairs—Moscow matters. Yet, major challenges remain if the Ukraine crisis remains unresolved. Graham Allison November 11, 2014 inShare21 Printer-friendly version At this week’s summits of heads of APEC and G20 states, President Obama will find himself face-to-face with a leader whom he has demonstrably shunned for the past year. He should be prepared. When it became clear that no one was willing to mount a military response to Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, President Obama's speechwriters settled instead for a narrative. Crafted by Russia-watchers whose hopes were dashed by Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, the headline of that story declares that Russia is a loser that does not matter anymore. According to this argument, Russia's days as a global player are over. Instead, it is now a power in terminal decline: its economy collapsing, its population shrinking and its last-century industrial base no longer making anything the world wants to buy. Indeed, by stealing Crimea, it has only succeeded in isolating itself from the mainstream of the twenty-first century.