Dan Drezner makes an important and often overlooked point:
One could counter that Putin’s geopolitical grabs in Ukraine and Syria show his increasing influence — except that it’s worth remembering that in 2008, Putin had stable, loyal cronies in charge of both countries. He’s now lost Ukraine, and Syria is a war zone. That’s still a net loss of Russian influence [bold mine-DL].
The conventional story that hawks have liked telling in the last few years is that Russia has been making huge gains abroad, and they insist that these are being made at our expense. As Drezner points out, exactly the …read more
Source: The American Conservative
