New Books In National Security

In 2005, the Comedy Central Network aired an episode of “South Park” in which one of the characters asked if any “Third World” countries other than Russia had the ability to fly a whale to the moon. During a press conference that took place two years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin lamented that he was the only “pure democrat” left in the world. The United States did not deserve such a title, he explained, in light of its “homeless citizens, detentions without normal court proceedings, and horrible torture.” The willingness of a U.S. cartoon to mock Russia’s pretensions to “great power” status and Putin’s defense of his government’s democratic credentials raise important questions about the general trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union. Angela Stent addresses this important topic in her new book The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twentieth Fi