Riding the Tiger

A gripping and essential deep-dive into Vladimir Putin's Russia, where AEI scholar and Moscow-native Leon Aron draws on hundreds of Russian-language sources to expose how militarist propaganda, revisionist history, and Soviet nostalgia fuel Putin's nationalism, the Russia-Ukraine War, and a dangerous path toward possible nuclear confrontation with the West.
In Riding the Tiger, Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar and a Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin. Through hundreds of Russian-language sources, Dr. Aron shows how Putin uses militarist propaganda and sanitized revisionist images of World War II, Stalin, and the Soviet Union to forge a nationalist and loyal core of his regime’s support. And the “new Russia” suddenly looks a lot like the old USSR.Dr. Aron’s bold, expert analysis of Russian political culture under Putin helps us better understand Russia’s revanchist tendencies, its invasion of Ukraine, and the perilous road ahead.