Erm, in the span of a few weeks Putin managed to galvanize most Russians against the west, chase most western influences out of Russia, develop a new financial alignment with China and in most other ways turn the clock back 40 years. He's also managed to seize control of a land bridge between Donbass and Crimea, which Russian troops will likely never leave, and ensure Ukraine never becomes a member of NATO.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but maybe Putin is actually getting everything he bargained for?
The central argument is that a dictator surrounds himself with yes men. That leads to two problems: nobody tells him the truth, so he starts misunderstanding the reality around him, on one hand, and on the other had he's surrounded by incompetents. This all sounds quite sensible.
But then, how did Hitler and Stalin manage to produce so formidable empires?
Putin is just another victim of the Orban curse /s. So is Borisov.
https://meanwhileinbudapest.com/2016/07/24/orban-brings-bad-...
> even when government officials learn about plots to overthrow an autocrat, they may not share that knowledge. This is known as the “vacuum effect”
This paragraph seems strange to me. Wouldn’t the one who shines light on a plan to kill the autocrat be highly rewarded? Googling the “vacuum effect” doesn’t yield results that explain this effect further.
Other than that, interesting read, the distortion of information the autocrat receives seems logical.