If Putin isn't determined to destroy Russia, explain how his actions would be different if that was his objective.
Remember that the West was content to pretty much ignore Russia until Putin:
"We’re now in confrontation with the West across the board," said Dmitry Suslov, an expert on Russia’s relations with the US and EU at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "Russia is delivering a message that it won’t tolerate things anymore."
Putin turned a sleepy West wondering whether NATO was obsolete and content to let its military might slide into a glorified police force into a rearmed force worried about what Russia might do.
And for what? So Russia can regain its former imperial borders--with Putin getting the credit and statues, naturally.
The stupidity of Russia's confrontation with the West could not be clearer:
China spends a lot of time nursing their grudge for a "century of humiliation" when the rising West met a weak China. Isn't Russia rather than America and Europe the true target of that simmering anger?
While Putin feels like tearing off his shirt and riding tigers when Russia is noticed, this is dangerous:
Europe currently faces several crises exploited or instigated by Russia. Speculation runs rampant regarding what Vladimir Putin hopes to achieve. He should take care not to overplay his hand.
If Putin makes a bad call or if bad things just cascade because of the tensions Russia is stoking, Russia could be at war with the West across the board. Can we count on Putin's judgment?
Putin’s calculation on Ukraine is thus part over-confidence, part paranoia, part spite. He was punished only by sanctions, many of them easily dodged, for snatching foreign territory, setting a country ablaze. For him, 2014 was a great year.
Probably not.
If Putin pulls the trigger and pushes NATO too far, would China rush to Russia's defense by going to war with America and its allies? When China claims it isn't ready to confront America yet?
Although sure, China could overestimate their strength and make a mistake by giving Putin a blank check.
Or would China abandon their vassal--not ally--for being that monumentally stupid and instead exploit a temporary alignment of interests with America to pounce on Russia:
If China wants to signal their rise to great power status (and quiet domestic unrest) by launching a short and glorious war, Russia would be a safer target than America.
After all, Russia has reached peak usefulness for China's technology pillaging of the wreckage of the USSR.
The way Putin is harming Russia with his counterproductive policy of hostility toward the West, how long before Russia's national sport of paranoid victimhood turns against Putin?
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
UPDATE: I really want this to be true:
When informed that NATO, including the Americans, would respond militarily to a Russian invasion of all Ukraine, the Russia leader responded that such an attack was not going to happen because the Russian plans and concentration of troops on the Ukrainian border were an effort to see what Russia could get away with while avoiding a major war that Russian could not afford. Or something like that. With the Russians it is more realistic to depend on what they can do right now and not predictions of what they might do.
But notice the qualifier: "a Russian invasion of all Ukraine". I don't think Russia is even considering a full invasion. NATO is setting a red line at something Russia won't do. Seemingly green lighting a smaller Russian invasion with limited objectives without Russia worrying about a military reaction.
And sometimes things get out of control despite the pretense of being able to control events.
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: I really worry that our rational is not Putin's rational--as self destructive as his rational calculations appear to us. We may be absolutely right about what is rational. But it may be irrelevant to what happens.
UPDATE: Russia's ground forces have too few decent troops--perhaps 100,000--to fight a large or long war. More than that are conscript cannon fodder. But could Putin grab what he can and then send in his National Guard, which Putin believes is personally loyal to him, to pacify what the army captures before it encounters stiff resistance?
UPDATE: The chances of bad consequences of invading Ukraine should deter Russia. But Putin may be listening to the advice of the Fuck-Up Fairy who lives in Russia now.
UPDATE: Stop making excuses for Russian aggression:
When I hear some Western commentators saying that NATO’s proximity is a sensitive issue for Putin, I have only one question to ask: Are the lives and future of 44 million Ukrainians not sensitive, too?
Exactly.
