I don't think he's expansionist. I think that he wants respect for Russia. I think that he wants to contain NATO. As I mentioned in my remarks, I don't think, as he's accused, that he has any interest in having war or a broken Ukraine on his western flank. What he will not tolerate on his western flank is NATO, and he wouldn't tolerate that in the Caucasus either. I think that he wants to play a role with Russia as a great power. There are only a handful on earth and Russia is one of them.
I think that we need to accept that Russia is an age-old civilization. It's a thousand years old. It's a civilization unto itself. It's been written off fatefully before. As I said, I think we wrote it off and thought that we didn't have to pay attention to its interests 25 years ago. We do have to pay attention to its interests. It does want to be our partner in the Arctic. It does want to be our partner against terrorism. It has a very deep interest in the accommodation of Islam. A sixth of Russians are Muslim. I think that it wants to be a great power. It wants to be respected, and it doesn't want NATO in either the Caucasus or Ukraine, among other things.