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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Can Two Play the Escalation Game, Or Not?

Putin needs to worry about what Ukraine can do to him.

To remind you why I've noted options for Ukraine to match Russian escalation in eastern Ukraine with their own escalation away from eastern Ukraine, let me repeat my warning that if Ukraine tries to match Russian troop commitments into eastern Ukraine with their own troops, Ukraine just invites Russia to expand the war by carrying out a wider encirclement that traps a good portion of Ukraine's army in a Donetsk Pocket:


And there is also the outrage that Russian-controlled Crimea and Transdniestria are somehow supposed to be out of bounds in the scope of a war with Ukraine that Russia alone gets to define.