Welcome to the Daily Article podcast for Tuesday, March 29th, 2022.

I'm Blake Atwood with the Denison Forum, narrating today's article by Dr. Jim Denison.

According to CNN, Florida's got yet another spring breaker in town.

Scott, a massive great white shark, has been recorded swimming off the Gulf Coast.

The shark measures over 12 feet long and weighs 1,600 pounds. A massive great white shark

swimming just offshore feels like a metaphor for much that is happening in our culture.

From rising inflation to a more contagious version of COVID-19 to deepening partisan divisions.

But of course, the shark that

dominates the news each day and has captured so many of our hearts is the horrific invasion

of Ukraine and the untold suffering that it's producing. As face-to-face talks between Ukraine

and Russia continue this week, many analysts are asking how Russia's aggression in Ukraine will

end, assuming it does. In this context, three analysts are asking how Russia's aggression in Ukraine will end, assuming it does.

In this context, three recent articles have greatly illuminated Vladimir Putin's thinking

and are therefore relevant to us today. In a New Yorker article titled, What is Putin

Thinking? David Remnick points back to the failure of democracy in Russia after the 1991 fall of the USSR.

Oligarchs bought up the country's most valuable state enterprises and made their fortunes while

the people struggled. One historian said at the time, these last four or five years in Russia

have produced little besides pure hysteria. In response, when Putin came to power in 1999, he set up what Remnick calls

a personalist regime built around his patronage and absolute authority. Remnick explains that the

national identity Putin created in opposition to the West, quote, has played in a central

role in his brutal invasion of Ukraine, end quote. He also cites thinkers such as Nikolai Burydyev and Ivan Ilyan,

who believed in the exalted destiny of Russia and the artificiality of Ukraine, both of whom

...