This essay looks at the power model Putin has developed domestically, how it is being deployed abroad, how other neo-authoritarian and hybrid regimes are adopting similar tactics, and the sorts of solutions liberal democracies can adopt to deal with these challenges.
About the Author
Peter Pomerantsev, senior fellow at the Legatum Institute Transitions Forum, writes extensively on twenty-first-century propaganda. He is the author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014).
Vladimir Putin aspires to be a classic authoritarian modernizer, but in today's globalized world Russia faces challenges that bureaucratic centralization and a traditional strong hand cannot meet.
Any open society’s best weapon against Chinese influence operations is its openness—the ability to investigate and expose sharp-power manipulations, diminishing their strength.