Putin was a KGB agent, a trained professional liar. This video (I hope you can see it) shows him smiling and glad-handing all the Western top leaders over decades, even while he was murdering opponents, invading Georgia and meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Total failure of so-called “personal diplomacy.” Total failure of understanding Putin’s motivations. Total failure of Western leaders to understand that the economic benefits that seem so clear to Western democracy would not tie Putin to Western values.
Total failure of so-called “personal diplomacy.” Total failure of understanding Putin’s motivations. Total failure of Western leaders to understand that the economic benefits that seem so clear to Western democracy would not tie Putin to Western values.
I would have guessed the article title would be “How Putin put himself out of a lifetime job.”
He will not be employed in two years after this fiasco. Khrushchev was shown the door after Cuba, Brezhnev lasted two years after the Afghanistan invasion, Gorbachev was gone shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. The Russian Duma works in mysterious ways, but eventually gets the job done.
How could anyone imagine a better lifetime job than ruling a country, living in opulent palaces and hobnobbing with cordial world leaders? Why in the world would Putin upset his own cushy status quo? Except pure megalomania and hubris, imagining that he would be lauded in world history for re-creating the Russian Empire.
Total failure of so-called “personal diplomacy.” Total failure of understanding Putin’s motivations. Total failure of Western leaders to understand that the economic benefits that seem so clear to Western democracy would not tie Putin to Western values.
The great Kaleed Kazani has made some amazing posts on Twitter (barf) about why Russia is the way it is, Putin’s motivations, the war outcome (Russia loses), why Russia miscalculated so badly, the information war, and why the Chechens are in Ukraine, among many other topics.
His analysis was the same as yours. Putin has been using game theory all these years. The West wants trade with Russia and doesn’t want war–which are perfectly fine and rational goals to have. Putin knows our decisions will default to trying to achieve those outcomes. So Putin manufactures a crisis, escalates, works out a compromise, and pockets the gains. Rinse, lather, and repeat. It is completely pointless to try to negotiate with him. Putin doesn’t care about anything we care about.
Innocent till proven guilty? Not exactly but that is part of how the west operates.
The real story is not crying wolf. If with every move Putin made all the leaders in the west were crying foul Putin would have no opposition now from the west. We’d be tired of here it when it matters.