While there are plenty of specifics to talk about, the overarching concern in Washington and European capitals is that Russia is cracking down at home and throwing its weight around abroad. Not surprisingly, many are worried about a new cold war. However, that is not a useful way to think about what is happening.
Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia does not embody or promulgate an alternative model of political and economic governance; it has no real allies, even – and perhaps especially – in its own neighbourhood. Despite its formidable nuclear arsenal, it is no longer a military superpower. Moreover, there is less braggadocio in Moscow these days than there used to be about Russia being a “petro-superpower”, given the combined effects of the global recession, the fall in oil prices, the evaporation of foreign currency reserves and the flight of foreign direct investment.
In Davos last month, Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, put on a display of defiance and blame-storming in public, but in private he was far more sombre – as well he should be. A Russia that is less cocky and more self-consciously vulnerable about its standing in an interconnected world could go in one of two directions: it might become more repressive and bellicose, or it may recognise that a state's success and security is directly proportional to its ability to make a virtue out of global interdependence.