Ariel Cohen is Henry Salvatori Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He has published widely on U.S.-Russian relations and democratization in the former Soviet Union.
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.
“The pursuit of national glory,” which M. Steven Fish counts among the features of Vladimir Putin’s “populism,” is emerging as central to the regime’s legitimation. Unlike previous instances of patriotic…