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applegrove

(118,622 posts)
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:04 PM Jan 2022

Putin's No Chess Master

Putin’s No Chess Master

January 27, 2022 at 12:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 0 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2022/01/27/putins-no-chess-master/

"SNIP......

Eliot Cohen: “Ukraine is a problem for Putin’s Russia not because it may join NATO, but because it is democratizing—slowly, awkwardly, imperfectly—and after 30 years of independence is constructing a new national identity. So, too, have the other former Soviet republics, a number of which (Azerbaijan, for example) have quietly sided with Kyiv.”

“The aim of reconstructing if not the Russian empire, then a 21st-century version of it, is slipping out of Putin’s grip, and he knows it. In many ways, what we’re seeing now from Moscow is a spasm of atavistic postimperial assertion, which, rather like British and French intervention in Egypt in 1956, may begin well but will probably end poorly.”

“The Russian dictator has made demands that he knows cannot be met. He has issued them publicly when such things are usually done in private, meaning that he is looking for a fight on any terms.”

......SNIP"

14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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UTUSN

(70,683 posts)
2. Exactly. He's adding to the reunification of U.S. alliances that BIDEN's doing and that
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:27 PM
Jan 2022

Drumpf did his damnedest to tear apart.






Bernardo de La Paz

(48,988 posts)
3. True. . . .nt
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:34 PM
Jan 2022

Exactly. He's adding to the reunification of U.S. alliances that BIDEN's doing and that
Drumpf did his damnedest to tear apart.


Johnny2X2X

(19,038 posts)
4. Part of it is he's taking revenge for Trump
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:40 PM
Jan 2022

Trump got impeached over asking Ukraine's president to interfere with our Democracy, Trump wants that guy's head on a pike. Putin is all too happy to try to deliver it.

Baked Potato

(7,733 posts)
5. Putin lacks Statesman qualities at home and abroad.
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:43 PM
Jan 2022

The Strongman image is backing him into a corner. Like authoritarian Dump, he downplayed Covid and shirked responsibility of helping his own country get well.

maxsolomon

(33,310 posts)
6. Revanchism is part of his grip on Power.
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:47 PM
Jan 2022

He may well take Ukraine's Russian-ethnic east up to the Dneiper. This isn't over.

C_U_L8R

(44,998 posts)
7. There's no good outcome for Russia
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 01:48 PM
Jan 2022

Putin's hamfisted moves are driving them backwards as international pariahs. The sooner they ditch Poot, the better for their well-being.

maxsolomon

(33,310 posts)
11. His grip on power is only slightly less than Kim Jong Un's.
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 03:39 PM
Jan 2022

He stays in control of Russia until his dying breath. He isn't even 70 yet, so... 2035? 2040?

Celerity

(43,316 posts)
8. Eliot Cohen, a main neocon champion of the Iraq war, was Condoleezza Rice's consigliere, so I'm
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 02:27 PM
Jan 2022

taking anything he says with a large grain of salt.

 

marie999

(3,334 posts)
14. President Putin doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO for more than one reason.
Thu Jan 27, 2022, 06:02 PM
Jan 2022

He does not want NATO to have a 3,122-mile border with Russia and Belarus.

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