Great Decisions, a national program of the non-partisan Foreign Policy Association, is America’s largest discussion program on world affairs. The Potomac Library group meets, usually with a guest speaker, 8 times a year on the first Thursday of the month: February, March, April, May, June, September, October, and November. We meet from 12:30-2:00. The program is free and open to the public. 

• A copy of the 2018 Briefing Book will be available in late January at the Information Desk.  The book cannot be checked out, but it only takes about an hour to read the relevant article. 

Russia’s foreign policy By Allen C. Lynch 

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia is projecting an autocratic model of governance abroad and working to undermine the influence of liberal democracies, namely along Russia’s historical borderlands. Russia caused an international uproar in 2016, when it interfered in the U.S. presidential contest. But Putin’s foreign policy toolkit includes other instruments, from alliances with autocrats to proxy wars with the U.S. in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. How does Putin conceive of national interests, and why do Russian citizens support him? How should the United States respond to Putin’s foreign policy ambitions? 

Sponsored by Friends of the Library, Potomac Chapter.