To be able to understand Russian psyche and Putin, this I can tell. Putin thinks like a spy. He was a former spy. He is good in what he was doing. He pulled several tricks for the CIA. Now the Russian psyche: they are just 'as wise as serpents and harmless as doves' the way Putin does..You don't stand in front of a hostile crowd of Chechens (not all Chechens are terrorists like their good leader) and challenge all of them to a duel. You're crazy if you do that. Putin was never ambiguous although he paid lip service to the positive discipline imposed by communist apparatchiks, he orally defended democratic capitalism as the only system that works..quote unquote...I had lived in Russia for 5 years, a constant visitor in the Russian embassy in Manila and a repository of Soviet aid channeled through a trade union, WFTU. I also have been studying Russian history consistently for 18 years.