Bob,
You bring up good points. I'd add that popular perceptions are important, even in quasi-dictatorships. A Levada Center poll recently stated that almost 80% of Russians view the West - particularly the U.S. and U.K - as enemies of Russia. Most recent research into the exercise of power evidences that even under conditions amounting to dictatorship, the complicitly of the population is essential to the functioning of the state. Also, regime type is important in affecting risk aversion in foreign policy, but at the same time, even the most stringent dictatorships are responsive to internal interests so the aggression of autocratic regimes is heavily qualified when compared to aggression by democratic regimes. How much of the narrative in Russia is directed by the Kremlin and how much of it is Kremlin opportunism playing on the ideological momentum of the population? Ultimately humiliation and fear are about perception of a state's status, and that is important in shaping how state's make decisions. Whatever the alarmists may state, Putin and his crew are, ultimately, human and subject to the same principles governing human behavior.
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