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Successive US presidents have struggled to get the measure of Vladimir Putin but now that Brussels and Berlin have joined the fray with such resolve, it's a different story, writes Nick Bryant, former BBC New York correspondent.
It is often tempting to look upon Vladimir Putin as the millennium bug in a human and deadly form.
The Russian president rose to power on 31 December 1999. In the 20 years since, Putin has been trying to engineer a different kind of global system malfunction, the destruction of the liberal international order.
Successive US presidents - from Bush, Obama to Trump - have played into his hands.
Now, Joe Biden has dedicated his presidency to defending democracy at home and abroad. Seeking to re-establish America's traditional post-war role as the leader of the free world, he has sought to mobilise the international community, offered military aid to Ukraine and adopted the toughest sanction regime ever targeted against Putin.
What's been striking since the Russian invasion started, however, has been the assertion of forceful presidential leadership from elsewhere.
In Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been another commanding presence. This former German politician has been a driving force behind the decision, for the first time in EU history, to finance and purchase weapons for a nation under attack, a commitment that includes not just ammunition but fighter jets as well.
The biggest assault on a European state since World War II has stiffened European resolve. But so, too, it seems has the relative weakness of America.
Read more from Nick on the free world's fight against Russia.
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2022-03-06 01:52:22Z
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