Ideas Papers

What did Putin misunderstand about Russia’s ‘near abroad’? In short, he did not understand that a higher linkage between Russia and its ‘near abroad’ could lead to increased leverage, not the other way around. A basic understanding of reverse sequence effects might have spared the world from the extraordinary human and material losses inflicted by the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. Before expanding on this answer, let us briefly recall what the concepts of leverage and linkage entail.