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101 Foreign Aff. 40 (2022)
Putin Unbound: How Repression at Home Presaged Belligerence Abroad

handle is hein.journals/fora101 and id is 482 raw text is: Putin Unbound How Repression at Home Presaged Belligerence Abroad Daniel Treisman Before he started massing troops, few expected Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and even once he did, few expected him to behave the wav he has. In a shocking act of aggres- sion, the Russian leader sent troops to bomb cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol and to attack schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings throughout the country, killing hundreds-if not thousands-of civilians. His extreme demands-calling for Ukraine to disarm, formally recognize the loss of Crimea, give up large swaths of terri- tory in the eastern part of the country, and renounce any intention to join NATO-have stunned the world, as has his repeated nuclear saber rattling. Instead of winning over the Ukrainians, Putin has quickly turned the population irrevocably against him. And he has grossly overestimated the strength and speed of his military, which stumbled badly in the early weeks of the war. How could a leader regularly hailed as a skilled tactician, if not a strategic DANIEL TREISMAN is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and a co-author, with Sergei Guriev, of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. genius, make so many rash and seem- ingly counterproductive moves: Viewed purely in foreign policy terms, Putin's invasion makes little sense. There was no prospect of Ukraine joining NATO anytime soon, and Putin could have achieved some of his other objectives, such as securing independence for the self declared Donbas republics, with a far more limited and less costly intervention. Even if the Russian army were more effective, it would still lack the troops to occupy and subdue a country of more than 40 million people. Poorly planned and with no clear endgame, the whole operation seems almost nihilistic in its violent riskiness. Seen in light of Putin's evolving style of rule at home, however, the assault on Ukraine fits into an emerging pattern- one that features anti-Western national- ism; angry, self-justifying speeches; and increasingly open uses of force. Starting about four years ago, and even more insistently since the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has been reshaping the system through which he exercises political power. Gone is the soft author- itarian regime of his early years, admin- istered in part by a team of liberal economists and technocrats who favored Russia's integration with the West and sought to attract investors with a show of commitment to the rule of law. Now, Russia is a brutally repressive police state run by a small group of hard-liners who have imposed ever-harsher policies both at home and abroad. Putin's turn to force in Ukraine reflects the wholesale transformation of his inner circle-and, with it, his view of the world. Deeply disillusioned with the United States and Europe and faced 40irRIiGN<\ Al5 FIRS

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