Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the Uses of War
"Having saddled the tiger of militarized patriotism, Putin expertly made it trot in the right direction. But the animal required more and more meat; as it grew, it became harder to dismount."
In this gripping tale, Leon Aron, the author of the acclaimed biography Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life, shows how Vladimir Putin has refashioned Russian society in his own image, placing militarized patriotism front and center. Through hundreds of Russian-language sources and arresting images, Aron chronicles the emergence of the new Russia.
Riding the Tiger challenges the conventional idea of Putin's regime as a traditional autocracy, bolstered by propaganda, political manipulation, and repression. The book tells the story of how Putin shaped ordinary Russians' views of their country, their history, and their own selves. The fast-paced narrative is a crash course in the political and cultural history of Russia according to Putin, his vision of Russia's manifest destiny, and his role in fulfilling it.
In exploring Russia's recent past, Aron offers insights into Russia's future. He argues that Putin's actions, including the invasion of Ukraine, are driven by the Russian president's need to ensure his regime's survival, avenge the fall of the Soviet Union, combat the America-led West, and make Russia a superpower again. Thus, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, war-or the threat of war-will remain his preferred means of holding on to power and recovering national glory.
Could Putin bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in pursuit of those ends? At the close of the book, Aron offers a chillingly detailed scenario of how such a crisis might play out.
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Moscow and came to the United States as a refugee from the Soviet Union. He is
the author of Roads to the
Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian
Revolution, 1987-1991 (Yale University
Press, 2012); Russia's
Revolution: Essays, 1989-2006 (AEI Press,
2007); and Yeltsin: A
Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press,
2000). From 2014 to 2020, he served on the board of trustees of the US Agency
for Global Media. He holds a PhD from Columbia University and is a senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Aron, one of our most astute observers of Russia, has produced a vivid analysis
of Putin's state, founded on militarized patriotism and primed for war. One of
the most important stories of our time."--Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning
author, Gulag: A History (Anchor
Books, 2004); staff writer, Atlantic
"Leon Aron's brilliant and concise new book
is just the urgently needed primer on Vladimir Putin's Russia today I've been
hoping someone would write--perceptive, historically grounded, beautifully
written and very worrisome. What emerges is a sharply drawn portrait of a
nuclear-obsessed president on a mission to reassemble parts of the lost Russian
empire. It should be required reading for anyone who hopes to understand not
only Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, but its leader's obsession with
confronting the United States and the West." --Susan
Glasser, staff writer, New Yorker; coauthor,
Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia
and the End of Revolution (Scribner, 2005)
"This elegantly written book is an incisive
chronicle of contemporary Russian history. It offers important insights into
the complex set of factors that motivated Vladimir Putin to launch a brutal
full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022. Leon Aron has the firsthand
observer's keen eye for the twists of fate and the skilled analyst's deep
knowledge of the interplay of events that brought Putin to, and then
well-beyond, the point of no return." --Fiona Hill,
distinguished senior fellow, Brookings Institution; senior director for
European and Russian affairs, National Security Council; and author, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding
Opportunity in the 21st Century (Mariner Books, 2021)
"A fantastic read. If you want to understand Putin,
how the Russian dictator has shaped Russian society over the last quarter
century, and why so many Russians support his wars, ideas, and regime, you must
read this book." --Michael
McFaul, professor, Stanford University; special assistant for Russian affairs
to President Barack Obama; author, From
Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia (Mariner
Books, 2018)
