This ad from the annals of imaginary Russia is a good demonstration of a peculiar quality of recognition as an act of legitimation. I've previously written how being recognised as an adversary can be as legitimising as being recognised as a friend and/or partner.
This is important, because there's this notion that one can "legitimise" Putin by embracing him (through meetings, summits etc). Actually not the case: it's just one form of legitimation. One can also "legitimise" Putin by portraying him as one's adversary.
Such portrayal signals to Russia (and to the broader international society) that Russia is America's significant other; whether it is "good" or "bad" other is quite immaterial. The same situation, by the way, prevailed during the Cold War.
Khrushchev & Brezhnev were very keen to be legitimised through relationships with the US (Khrushchev by meeting Eisenhower at Camp David; Brezhnev via his summits with Nixon). But both were also legitimised as leaders through their adversarial relationships with "US imperialism."
I talk about this Cold War / post-Cold War continuity in my new (still forthcoming) book, "a history of the Cold War and after."
