If the immediate impact of the financial crisis was to impose an uneasy truce on the old battlefields of the European cold war, the shocking realization of 2008 was how far both sides were willing to go. In Moscow, NATO’s heedless attempt at expansion and the clash with Georgia would not be forgotten. Russia had made good on Putin’s announcement at Munich that the unipolar moment was passing. And the Americans knew it was true. But when they thought of multipolarity, they did not think first and foremost of Putin’s ramshackle regime. They thought of China. And so, in fact, did Russia’s own
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