Putin in a Box

He has no way out.

 
Putin’s End Game

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that Vladimir Putin has a clear sense of battlefield realities and is gaming out the future in a rational way.

What is his exit strategy?

One option is to reduce Ukraine to rubble and see what happens.

This is not an especially attractive prospect. It doesn’t gain him much and it costs him quite a lot, in both blood and treasure. But maybe the the Ukrainian government gets decapitated. Maybe the flow of refugees hollows out the populace. Maybe he’s able to turn public sentiment at home into “us against the world.” (See the “Z” item below.)

The problem with this option is that there’s no endpoint. No moment at which the dynamic returns to a steady-state.

 
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Πηγή: thetriad.thebulwark.com