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).
The first two months of the war alone turned the Russian clock back decades, undoing thirty years of post-Soviet economic gains and reducing the country to an international pariah state.
Through greater savvy engagement with international law, authoritarians are seeking not only to shield themselves from criticism, but to reshape global norms in their favor.
