After a remarkably fraught and complicated 2015, Vladimir Putin’s Russia finds itself still sanctioned by the West for its conduct in Ukraine, dogged by falling oil prices, and dicing with a deadly conflict in Syria. And it’s increasingly difficult to foresee the challenges Putin and his country will face in 2016—or how they will handle them.
Decision-making in Moscow has become highly consolidated and hostage to the whimsy of Putin and his group think-prone advisers. And whether in the domestic realm or in the international environment, trying to decode a Russian grand strategy is a monumental challenge for anyone who tries.
The predictable argument these days revolves around working out whether Putin has a strategy, or whether he is simply an opportunist.” Then there is the often-argued trope that Putin’s foreign policy, for example in Syria, “is for his domestic audience and aimed at keeping his hold on power” by appealing to nationalism and distracting away from domestic and economic failings.
