Publications

To hear President Vladimir Putin tell it, his government is the proverbial tip of the spear in the global war on terror.

For months, Kremlin officials have taken great pains to style their intervention in Syria in grandiose terms - not simply as a ploy to prop up a key strategic ally, but as a broader campaign against Islamic extremism. To hear them tell it, Russia has been forced to lead because of Western fecklessness in the face of gathering Islamic radicalism. Yet this bluster belies the fact that Moscow's counterterrorism policy is both flawed and selective in the extreme.