It takes some fairly broad reading, but one gets to a point of realising that the US had enormous “soft power” long before it was a world power.
And at one time Russia too had rapidly growing “soft power”, before 1914. It never got it back.
Yep. Russkyi Mir is Putin’s answer but there’s no positive vision in it. If America copied Russkyi Mir principles it’d be actively promoting cultural erasure and telling the African dictators that they’ll be better off if they cede power to the State Department, CIA, PMCs...
I laugh every time someone complains about all that and then points to the Kremlin as if it’s pitching an alternative that’s even remotely compatible with freedom and and the American Dream.
Putin’s Russia is the poster boy for a country where Deep State totalitarianism not only controls everything including almost all press and TV narratives at home, but is merrily selling totalitarian franchises to tinpot dictators around the developing world. The only way to be successful in Russia is to pay your tithes to Putin, bend the knee, and buy totally into whatever he is selling. Even that doesn’t protect you from a short flight out of a 7th storey window if the siloviki thinks you’re getting too uppity.
The only nasty thing that the American Deep State does, that Russkyi Mir doesn’t do on a vastly larger scale with bells on and a massive cherry on top, is promote the LGBTQIA+++ diversity agenda. I’m certainly not in favor of it, but preferring Putin ism over that is like saying you’d rather eat a runny cat turd sandwich riddled with worms than drink a glass of dog pee. It’s hilariously irrational.