Why do most people believe Putin will launch his nukes and actually end mankind? I understand he is ‘unstable’ at the minute, but surely he isn’t a total psychopath? Unanswered question on Quora.
Providing Kyiv with MIG-29 fighter jets and other potentially game-changing weapon systems could help turn the tide. Refusing to do so may only prolong Ukraine’s agony…. Refusing to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine may be justified because it exceeds the risks NATO countries are prepared to tolerate. But the idea that doing so could start World War III ignores history and telegraphs weakness. New York Times editorial by conservative columnist Bret Stephens.
Senior EU official: “The longer the Ukrainians hold out, the more they can withstand attacks on buildings, the more likely it is the Russians will either use chemical weapons or targeted, limited nuclear weapons. We can’t rule this out; can’t say for sure we wont see this happen” A Tweet by Mujtaba (Mij) Rahman @Me_EuropeMD Europe @EurasiaGroup. Formerly @hmtreasury@EU_Commission. Senior Research Fellow @LSEEI. Columnist @POLITICOEurope. My views. Seeking analytical truth.
About thirty-five years ago, I was involved in a development that involved another builder. He had bought one half of the project from the landowner and I was developing the other half for a group of three investors who had bought it several years earlier from the same guy. We were processing the properties through the city at the same time and he wanted us to name the streets after his family and the owners of the property I was processing had already named them for a couple of members of their family. The former owner had no leverage with us but did with the other builder and he wouldn’t sign on some needed city documents without his street names.
I agreed to meet with the other builder and the seller to talk about the roads but going in I told them we weren’t going to change the names. When I got there, the other builder was frantic, saying something like “He’s crazy, he’s going to cancel the sale unless you change the street names. He is up the road yelling at somebody but he’ll be back in a couple of minutes. You’ve got to change the names.” I told him that I didn’t see how the seller could cancel the sale but, if it really became a problem, I would agree to change the street names. But first, I asked the other builder to let me try an experiment.
When the seller came back, he started yelling at me that saying that, if I didn’t agree to change the street names, he was going to sue me. I started yelling back. I remember I had a clipboard with a small map on it and I threw the clipboard on the ground and started kicking it, doing everything I could to start frothing at my mouth. Spitting, swearing, and kicking the clipboard around in the dirt. The seller immediately stopped yelling and switched to trying to get me calmed down. He was fine with our names, all he had wanted to do was have a conversation, blah, blah, blah. He told the other builder that of course, he would sign the documents. It was shocking.
When I was in college, probably my sophomore year, I spent Easter vacation on campus. If I remember right, there was only one other student there, a RA from another dorm. He was a Quaker – formally known as the Religious Society of Friends – and we couldn’t have been more different, but we both played chess and we bonded over two games every day. He had been an orderly at an insane asylum and he told great stories about it. He more or less held the opinion that almost all the patients were rational in their own world and he told one story I still remember. He was watching a guy eating soup and his head had fallen to the side, almost laying on his shoulder, so that the soup was dribbling out of his mouth and he couldn’t get any. My friend asked him why his head was like that and the patient told him he didn’t know, “the head just did it”. My friend thought about it for a few minutes and said, “I see the problem, you are only using your right hand, use your left hand for a while and that should tilt your head back up.” And that’s what happened.
We are afraid of Putin, everybody is afraid of him, it seems. Afraid that Putin is crazy – like irrational crazy – and he might start a nuclear war if we directly confront him. Our fear disempowers us as it empowers him and he is counting on that and is continually stoking our fear. To quote Molly McKew, who says it better than I can, writing on the www.greatpower.us website; the fears Putin creates for us are boxing us in. This has been the Russian strategy from the start. It is the clear reason why we have so much intelligence on what they planned to do and what it would look like. Because they wanted the White House to see it, because they knew what the likely reaction would be. And they were right. We put ourselves into the box and took actions off the table that could have changed the outcome. We accepted the stage that Putin set…
Putin is a coward — by which I mean, he is not brave. He plans and acts in ways where he believes he has the greatest advantage and will endure the least costs for the greatest rewards. He does take risks — when there is empty space before him into which he can move before an opponent can. But he is not the type to die bravely and nobly in heroic sacrifice for his nation…
This matters in particular in relation to his overt nuclear fearmongering — which he is doing exactly to keep the White House penned in and afraid to act, not because he wants to risk his own annihilation…
[T]here is nothing to indicate he is a blaze of glory guy. It seems unlikely he would use a nuke in a circumstance when there would be equal retaliation. In one sense, this means that we should stop being hemmed in by this fear and accept that the risks and costs are Ukraine’s to assess and determine. Ukraine is taking all the risk. They are paying all the costs. We should listen to them about what risks they are willing to take and costs incur. This is the minimum amount of respect that we can give to them when they have already shown the soundness of their strategic planning against Russia has far, far surpassed our own.