I tend to assume that most important world leaders (but not including Donald Trump) are generally competent, even if they are evil. So, starting from this assumption, I figured that Vladimir Putin had calculated the level of resistance he was likely to get from Ukraine and from the rest of the world, and launched this war because he was highly confident that he was going to win his main objectives, as he did in Georgia in 2014. Once the war started, I remembered how much trouble the mighty USSR had with tiny Finland back in 1939, but then I labeled that as wishful thinking, and did not get my hopes up.
But now I am beginning to actually wonder: is Putin really the “genius” that a certain admiring somebody made him out to be? Or is it possible that he has made a huge, huge miscalculation regarding both the quality of the Ukrainian military and the resolve of Europe and the United States to use all measures short of direct military intervention?
I know that reports from the war zone are likely to be inaccurate for a host of reasons ranging from intentional propaganda to honest errors made in the confusion of combat. But I am starting to slowly lean toward hoping that Putin really has made a terrible error from which he will be unable to easily extricate himself, even if he wins the war in the short term. (And there seems to be a possibility that he might not even accomplish that.)
Comments?