It’s always been a cop-out to blame the sinister influence of Vladimir Putin for the failings of liberal democracy. There is no serious evidence that Putin got Donald Trump elected the first time around — although he certainly liked the idea — and he isn’t responsible for the conditions that led America and much of the Western world to Trump and his offshoots: economic inequality, political paralysis, disastrous foreign policy blunders and rising tensions around immigration and diversity.
That said, there’s no disputing that Putin is a dangerous and unpredictable force in world affairs, who has gone a long way toward his apparent goal of disrupting or overturning the unchallenged global hegemony of the United States since the end of the Cold War. It’s possible to believe that the goal is natural or inevitable in itself and also that there must be better options than those offered by the likes of Putin and Xi Jinping.
