Putin will look back on 2016 with some satisfaction. The Syrian cease-fire, little more than a year after Russia engaged itself directly, is an outcome which took the West completely by surprise. It was even excluded from the negotiations, whilst a NATO member, Turkey has turned east, and allied itself with Russia. The awkward moment of the Clinton hacking has been finessed and Obama made to look a fool. His protégé Trump is about to enter the White House; Crimea is securely back in the Russian Federation; Ukraine has gone quiet with the East firmly under ethnic Russian control and Russia is back on the world stage where power is played.
And this is the nub. Yes Russia hacks, although probably not more than many others as most of it can be done by teenagers from their bedrooms. America seems peculiarly vulnerable to hackers, especially the Pentagon which has been hacked from more than one bedroom in the UK. Russia uses its military with some skill to achieve outcomes which, at much lower levels of engaged assets than the West, are much better than equivalent efforts led by America. This leads everybody to get excited about a Russian threat. Aside from the fact that it is the only military with the capacity to destroy the United States, it spends a fraction of the US on defence and is a much weaker military power at all levels.
The real objective in which the Kremlin has committed much thought, is to become an alternative diplomatic power which can get things done and challenge the post cold war dominance of the US, which Moscow sees as a disaster by any measure. Flawed intelligence and miscalculations have led to chaos in the Middle East, migration on an unprecedented scale which has destabilized Europe and threatens the very fabric of the EU, from which GB is withdrawing, and an economic globalization model which has created more disaffection and uncertainty than at any time since the nineteen thirties. Millions thirst for a better way. Brexit and Trump are just the beginning of a new era. An America good at starting wars which never stop may find itself in diplomatic competition with a Russia which can end them. No guessing who will be the popular kid on the global block. That is Trump’s challenge. Of one thing we can be sure. Trump will surprise everyone. Except Putin.