Putin’s Attritional Diplomacy Leaves the West Permanently Off Balance

Putin’s Attritional Diplomacy Leaves the West Permanently Off Balance
Russian President Vladimir Putin at a news conference in the Konstantin palace, outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Aug. 9, 2016 (AP photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko).

If Vladimir Putin ever loses interest in running Russia, he should set up a diplomatic academy. The British journalist and wit David Frost once defined diplomacy as “the art of letting somebody else have your way.” Through a mix of hard bargaining, guile and simple force, the Russian president has often shown that he knows how to do just that.

His skills were on ample display last week. Putin welcomed his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to St. Petersburg to bury their tensions over Syria. He then ignited a new crisis with Kiev over an alleged shoot-out between Ukrainian and Russian security personnel in Crimea. Both maneuvers left Western officials rather rattled.

NATO hurried to dispel rumors that Ankara is tilting away from the alliance in the aftermath of the failed July coup attempt. European officials hastily called for calm in Ukraine. Some analysts fear that Putin plans to grab more Ukrainian territory. Others suspect that he is talking tough to boost his domestic support before upcoming parliamentary elections. Either way, he has once more proved his knack for using sharp diplomatic tactics to keep other powers off balance.

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