timelets

The Straits Times writes about Russia's conflict with the West.

Over the last few years, however, Mr Putin and his associates have begun to construct a new state ideology. Its fundamental starting point is the assumption that the world represents a zero-sum game, in which winners take all the spoils, and Russia is either fated to triumph or be trampled underfoot.

According to Mr Putin's ideology Russians must reckon with unremitting hostility from a world in which, as he put it, few "want to deal with an independent and strong Russia that is confident in itself". Confrontation, and primarily with Western nations, is not only a matter of choice; it's a matter of necessity, one which is pre-ordained.