If attempts to present Putin as a great national leader resisting US domination can hardly withstand any encounter with the facts, this doesn't mean that the opposite view is right. Those who see Putin merely as an American puppet are not very convincing either. Putin's tough declarations concerning the US invasion of Iraq brought an outburst of nostalgic joy among the patriotic community; for several minutes, in fact, it seemed as if Russia was opposing the US. But strangely enough, the threatening speeches that resounded in Moscow made no impact whatever on Washington, and were not even reflected in US-Russian relations. The members of the Bush administration understood not only how weak Putin's Russia really was, but also how dependent it was. The source of the USA's problems was quite justifiably seen as lying in France and Germany, which might have been suspected of advancing their own ambitious project as an alternative to US hegemony. What at first glance might have seemed like a struggle between Russia and the US was in fact a struggle over Russia, waged between the US and Western Europe. For precisely this reason Washington, which reacted with extreme irritation to the position taken in Paris, displayed only condescension with regard to Moscow. The contradictory images of Putin's administration, which can thus be labelled 'nationalist' and 'comprador' at the same time, reflect the objective contradictions of today's Russian political economy, and--partly as a result of this--a total lack of coherence in Moscow's foreign policy. Not only are Russian elites divided into pro-European and pro-American currents, but also, to make things even more confusing, neither current has a clear view or a consistent political line. Both sides base their perspectives on wishful thinking, believing either in American invincibility or in the unstoppable rise of a United Europe. Both sides are wavering
