Putin a Threat to the Free World U.S. Helped Build

The Russian leader and former KGB operative has called the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union a tragedy. But that doesn't mean he has grandiose visions of recreating Stalin's old empire. Instead, the wily Putin is trying to revise, not reverse, the Cold War settlement. That's why he's focusing on countries on Russia's borders with large ethnic or Russian-speaking populations. Putin would like to reabsorb as many of them as possible, which is why he doesn't want these countries to follow the Baltics and Eastern Europe in turning to the West. In championing supposedly endangered Russian minorities, and reestablishing the Russian Orthodox Church as the state religion, Putin is trying to revive the old Russian nationalism of the Tsars.