One minute President Vladimir Putin is on the ropes, isolated and mistrusted, then a few bombs later, he's again the grandmaster of geopolitical chess, the man who outsmarted the U.S. The truth of the matter is that he was and is neither, and the sooner the West stops veering wildly from one extreme perception to the other, the better — and the less powerful Putin will be.
Russia, after all, has its strengths and is capable of sending a few dozen bombers into Syria, while stirring up trouble on its borders. These should not be overplayed, though.
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