Наиболее интересные места:
Киссинджер wrote:- Clearly Putin is the dominant personality in Russia today...At the same time, I do not consider Russia a dictatorial state. A vote of 64.3% shows that there is a significant part of the population that did not vote for Putin.
- Putin's personal relations with Bush are very good. What he has respected about Bush is that [the President] generally does not lecture him. He does not mind that Bush is tough in his defense of the American national interest, because that is what he expects statesmen to do.
- There is too much of a tendency to treat Russia as if it were a global threat to the U.S. Russia has enormous problems of its own. It has long and unstable frontiers. It has a truly appalling death rate. It has a declining population. And so Russia should not be viewed as a global threat. But it wants to be respected as a significant power.
- Putin is not a Stalin who feels obliged to destroy anyone who might potentially at some future point disagree with him. Putin is somebody who wants to amass the power needed to accomplish his immediate task. Therefore we do not observe a general assault on civil liberties. We do see the infringement of civil liberties of groups who, in his view, threaten the regime. The process is uneven. Television is controlled; newspapers are substantially free.
- At the same time, in Putin's geostrategic conception, America would be the logical partner for Russia. We're not on Russia's border. We don't want any of Russia's territory. We have no history of wanting Russian territory, and we are very powerful. We can collaborate on global security. And prestige attaches to Russia for being associated with us.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1690757_1691285,00.html
