Many observers see Putin as an aberration, some unfortunate deviation from normality. I disagree. Watch this excerpt from Yeltsin - Jiang Zemin meeting in Beijing, December 1999. You can see:
- Nuclear blackmail
- "Multi-polar world" rhetorics
- Attempted alignment with China
Putin is not deviation from normality. He is just another stage of *return* to normality that started before him. Modern Russian regime was shaped to its current form around 1996-1997:
- Restoration of state security
- Re-militarization
- Crony oligarchy
Return to normality
In pretty much of its worst aspects the Putin's rule is only continuing the trends that had been set before and were very much visible by 1996-1997. Putin is just the logical continuation of late Yeltsin. Putin has been only perfecting the model casted long before his ascension
When it comes to the military buildup, Putin has been only continuing the late Yeltsin policies. The buildup started in 1997 with *very* limited resources. When Putin came to power, he changed little to nothing. He:
1) took solutions tried by those before him
2) scaled them up
Will elaborate later
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