Not since the Cold War have tensions between Russia and the West reached the terrifying heights we’ve seen in recent months.
Russia now challenges the West in virtually every arena possible, with cyberattacks, nuclear posturing, military invasions of Western-leaning countries, and the intimidation of US allies and neutral states.
According to Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk and an avid Kremlin-watcher, Russia’s resurgence owes mainly to one thing: paranoia.
That the the Soviet Union sees itself in a “capitalist encirclement” and at the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is a traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity causing Russian rulers to sense that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries.
So it’s important for them to tear down the West’s institutions and prove that they’re just as bad and corrupt as they are. That this can be seen at work in Russia’s campaign to discredit Western institutions through the hacked emails released by Wiki Leaks which are believed to be supplied by Russian hackers.