Constanze Stelzenmuller. "Germany's Russia Question: A New Ostpolitik for Europe: Russia's Foreign Relations with Germany and the Rest of the World" Foreign Affairs, March-April 2009.
Money quote:
"One of Putin's more shrewd insights into the German mind was his treatment of German policymakers as equals at a time when they were chafing at U.S. condescension. (The Russians nurse a similar resentment at being treated as strategically irrelevant by the United States.) The "strategic partnership" with Russia, therefore, has served to soothe German insecurities. But it has also inflated an unrealistic sense of influence over Russia that has produced notions such as "rapprochement through economic interlocking"--representing a misguided confidence comparable perhaps only to British hopes of being able to sway the United States during the run-up to the Iraq war."
-Evan
Politics By Other Means
Current Reading 06/21/2009
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