Return of the big bad Russian bear

For more than a decade received wisdom in the West has been that Russia has changed fundamentally and is now a peace-loving European power prepared to keep to itself and live by the rules. If we prove to have been wrong about Russia, much of what has been assumed about global and European security will need revision too. Moscow's interference in the Ukrainian election, the announcement that Russia will deploy a new type of strategic nuclear missile "that other nuclear states do not have", and President Vladimir Putin's increasingly anti-democratic attitude, all point to a reversion to bad old habits.