Thanks, John, for sharing your analysis. Solid and sobering. Still, it's within reason to speculate that Putin could achieve a 'second-best-solution' outcome simply by leveling as much of Ukraine and its physical infrastructure as possible before this coming winter and then just walk away declaring victory, given: Ukraine would be too weak and the west to distracted, rebuilding to be any threat to Russia in Putin's lifetime; second Putin's Ukraine adventure would send a very strong "Don't mess with Russia" to other former Soviet republics on its border with the benefit of cowering them into compliance with his designs of restoring a de facto Russian empire.
Sure the costs of such a second best solution are extremely high, but it appears that intelligence services may be underestimating the 'absorptive capacity' of Russia to weather the negative impacts of the Putin's Ukrainian adventure ... at least in the mind of Putin, for all his faults. In sum, as perverse as it may be, there may be such break-out-of-the-box thinking behind the Russian leader's actions in response to the Western sanctions that were already in place before invading Ukraine this year.
This is a really great analysis, albeit deeply depressing. In fact, all your posts have been great. Didn’t we sit next to each other in a newsroom once, when the USSR was collapsing and the world briefly held its breath wondering if the Red Army would be unleashed on Germany to defend the Russian empire Putin is trying to rebuild?
Thanks, John, for sharing your analysis. Solid and sobering. Still, it's within reason to speculate that Putin could achieve a 'second-best-solution' outcome simply by leveling as much of Ukraine and its physical infrastructure as possible before this coming winter and then just walk away declaring victory, given: Ukraine would be too weak and the west to distracted, rebuilding to be any threat to Russia in Putin's lifetime; second Putin's Ukraine adventure would send a very strong "Don't mess with Russia" to other former Soviet republics on its border with the benefit of cowering them into compliance with his designs of restoring a de facto Russian empire.
Sure the costs of such a second best solution are extremely high, but it appears that intelligence services may be underestimating the 'absorptive capacity' of Russia to weather the negative impacts of the Putin's Ukrainian adventure ... at least in the mind of Putin, for all his faults. In sum, as perverse as it may be, there may be such break-out-of-the-box thinking behind the Russian leader's actions in response to the Western sanctions that were already in place before invading Ukraine this year.
Smart hard-headed analysis as usual, John. Thanks
Thanks, Peter. Great to hear from you.
This is a really great analysis, albeit deeply depressing. In fact, all your posts have been great. Didn’t we sit next to each other in a newsroom once, when the USSR was collapsing and the world briefly held its breath wondering if the Red Army would be unleashed on Germany to defend the Russian empire Putin is trying to rebuild?
Thanks. We did, with all eyes on the Fulda Gap.