Fiona Hill - Rather than a Real Threat NATO was an Irritating Barrier to Putin's Imperial Ambitions.

From 2007-08 Putin came to believe that the West was in decline, degenerate and weak. It’s at that moment he pronounced a more assertive Russia, and started to act accordingly on the world stage, and in relations to neighbouring countries, with the invasion of Georgia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014. NATO provocation is one excuse given for Russian aggression and is prominent in domestic Russian propaganda. But it’s unlikely he saw NATO as a threat and must have known they had neither the intent nor capability to directly threaten Russian territory. Afterall, why would they when Europe’s economy depended on Russian gas and oil? Rather he may have seen NATO as an irritating barrier to his new imperial ambitions to unite the Russian speaking world, and former colonial territories.

Dr Fiona Hill is a British-American foreign affairs specialist and author. She is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council, specializing in Russian and European affairs, and was a witness in the November 2019 House hearings during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1998. She currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and will take up office as Chancellor of Durham University in England in summer of this year. She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is author of “There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century” and co-author of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015). Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues.