When dealing with Russia you have to keep one thing in mind. Unlike Americans who think what happened yesterday is old news Russia and Russians don’t think this way. They are defined by the two invasions in the last two centuries by Napoleon and by Hitler. Any move they make is going to reflect the idea that this could happen again and no amount of assurances on our part is going to get that out of their head.
A second thought to keep in mind is the fact that Ukraine was a part of Russia, long before they was a Soviet Union (note this map of Russia circa 1815) When Putin plays loud and hard with Ukraine, he’s playing to Russian nationalism which helps him at home.
Of course if the goal of Putin is to keep the West in check while advancing his interests the best tool in his bookcase is Joe Biden’s administration. It seems every move this administration makes is designed to empower Putin and make the west more dependent on him. Furthermore the left’s culture war on normalcy makes him even stronger. All he has to do is declare that men are men and women women and he sounds sane compared to us to countries all around the world. All of this would seem to be a bad idea on our part.
Frankly I’m more worried about who follows Putin than Putin himself. Putin has the perspective of both the Cold War, the Soviet Union and of course the Russian Federation et/al While he likely will exploit any mistake the west will make I suspect he will be a lot less dangerous than someone without that experience who is more willing to take risks that could lead to a wider war
In the end the bottom line is that neither you, nor I know if Putin is going into Ukraine or part of Ukraine or if it’s all a big bluff. That’s actually not so bad as we’re just folks at a blog and a keayboard, the real problem is that I suspect NATO the CIA and this administration has no idea what Putin’s going to do either and it will be their responsible to act and/or react to whatever happens.
That’s not so good.
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