#A NECESSARY EVIL WEST WING SERIES#
#A NECESSARY EVIL WEST WING TV#

We sometimes forget where they came from. вЂњWesternвЂќ means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted.

#A NECESSARY EVIL WEST WING SERIES#

The West is a series of institutions and values. And that shocked Putin! ThatвЂ™s the miscalculation. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the bravery and smarts of the Ukrainian government, and its President, Zelensky, galvanized the West to remember who it was. All the nonsense about how the West is decadent, the West is over, the West is in decline, how itвЂ™s a multipolar world and the rise of China, et cetera: all of that turned out to be bunk. The biggest surprise for Putin, of course, was the West. I want to take issue, sort of, with this passage: The Ukrainians will make it impossible to occupy.Дo read it all - thereвЂ™s a lot here, including talk of the oligarch class, the possibility of a palace coup against Putin, and the things that the US is doing that nobody is talking about.

ThereвЂ™s no doubt that Russia can conquer Ukraine in war if it wants to, says Kotkin, but there is every doubt that it can keep the peace. As a military veteran pointed out to me last week, the US needed three weeks to take Baghdad. Nevertheless, says Kotkin, Ukraine is winning the war only on Twitter.

#A NECESSARY EVIL WEST WING TV#

Kotkin makes an important point that it is not very good to have a TV actor and his crew running your country in peacetime, but in this kind of war, itвЂ™s a secret weapon. But now his approval rating is at 91 percent because he has shown himself to be very brave. Zelensky, says Kotkin, was a weak leader who had only 25 percent approval at the moment of invasion because he couldnвЂ™t govern. Kotkin cautions that nobody really knows what is going on in PutinвЂ™s mind, because he is so self-isolated, but it seems clear now that he did not expect the Ukrainians to resist as they have. Kotkin takes the view that NATOвЂ™s expansion did not trigger Russian hostility, but rather that Russia is just reverting to historical type: an militaristic, expansionist autocracy trying to expand, and, because weaker than it thinks, biting off more than it can chew. The conversation is wide-ranging, and I strongly recommend you read it all.

Kotkin is one of the most informed Russia experts in the world. A reader pointed me to this deeply informative interview with Russia scholar Stephen Kotkin, conducted by the New YorkerвЂs David Remnick.

A necessary evil west wing