How to tame Putin Ten of the best security minds in the United States and Europe tell us what they really think we should do about Russia. By MAURA REYNOLDS
| 10/02/2017 04:28 AM EDT Vladimir Putin isn’t just undermining our democracy, he’s securing his own long-term power in Russia by destabilizing the West — a strategy that United States and Europe have been dangerously slow to understand and counteract.
That was the unnerving takeaway from a high-level working group POLITICO convened on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 19. Amid threats like North Korea, ISIS and surging right-wing populism on both sides of the Atlantic, we wanted to see what some of the smartest security minds from Europe and the U.S. would say if we put them in a room and let them speak candidly about the most dire security threats facing our continents.
What we heard was a preoccupation with Russia and the ambitions of Putin, who at 64, several participants predicted, could remain in power for a decade or more. But the Russian president faces the long-term challenge of keeping power with neither democratic legitimacy nor the prosperity of a modernized economy.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/02/russia-cybersecurity-transatlantic-solutions-243170
