Maintaining a National Mission without a Shooting War: Putin's Narrative

After looking at a few recent news stories that caught my eye, on everything from the Ministry of Happiness to a surprisingly subversive economic plan, I look at four conventional wisdoms about Putin. He knows what he wants and it never changes. He doesn't have to care about public opinion. He needs the war to go on for ever. He can't be negotiated with. It's not, in my opinion, that they are all outright wrong, but two of them are, and two need more nuance. Without understanding that, we condemn us all to the current status quo so long as Putin is in the Kremlin -- at the very least.

The events I mentioned are at De Balie in Amsterdam on 20 November (details here) and Pushkin House in London on 4 December (details here).

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