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Yes, but you probably aren't Putin, you probably aren't Russian and you are probably powerless in a geostrategical or any other meaningfull sense.
Like most people on this planet.
Which makes a big difference for thinking. And as I have already indicated, a method to madness implies above all .... Madness.
And a system that selects a certain amount of madness as a means to national power.
His frame of reference is obviously quite different from yours.
And so, probably, is that of his close environment in Russia's power apparatus.
That means, they could have stopped this beforehand if they wouldn't have the same method of thinking. Beside, that 'Escalate to De-Escalate' thing which Putin may have introduced into the Russian discussion of its nuclear doctrine, involves the use, not just the threat,of a tactical nuclear weapon to stop an escalation of conventional war or if things go too badly.
Just small enough that the Russian apparatus does not believe in nuclear retaliation by other nations.
A surprisingly last-minute test of a small tactical nuclear bomb, that sort of thing.
Or one in the atmosphere above the baltic sea, who knows. This concept does not even require an immediate threat to Russian territory from enemy forces, i.e., their invasion.
Which is their official doctrin for the use of nuclear weapons. In short, it doesn't matter what you think, nor what I think.
It matters what Putin and his cronies think.
And obviously, nobody really knows what they think or are capable of.
And what they even care to consider as a reality. |