Reader question: In this passage – Western illusions that Russia might side with America against the regime in Zimbabwe betray a basic lack of understanding of what makes Russia tick, says Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank. These days, Russian thinking divides the world into America and its docile friends on one hand, and "sovereign" countries, like China, India and South Africa on the other. Given Russia's aim to speak for the second camp, its veto was logical—and as Russian officials stressed, it reflected the African Union line (Russia and the UN: The Return of Mr Nyet, The Economist, July 17, 2008) – what does "makes Russia tick" mean?
My comments: "What makes Russia (or a person) tick" is an idiom. Here it means "what makes Russians do what they do", that is, veto sanctions against Zimbabwe over human rights abuses and rigged elections.
And why did they do that? I ask you.
No, I am not talking about Zimbabwe's rigged elections – I'm not so inquisitive. I am asking about the Russians. Why did they, along with China, block UN sanctions?
Well, if you ask me, I'll say: It's hard to say. Geo-politics being geo-politics, I'm sure you'll forgive me for being diplomatic.
Let's instead focus on "what makes a person tick" the idiom itself. The way with an idiom, you see, is that it may consist of several commonplace words. So commonplace that individually we understand them perfectly. Put together, however, they seem to take on some new meaning, which we can't always logically infer (from reading each individual word).
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