Putin Needs an Off-Ramp

 

"What makes this situation even more dangerous is that Ukraine is (legitimately and sensibly) being armed and supplied by the very military alliance Russia most fears, NATO. Meanwhile, Russia is being squeezed by an ever-tightening economic blockade designed to force its defeat. On top of all this are credible claims that if this campaign ends in humiliating defeat for Russia, it will prove terminal for not only the country’s national prestige and power, but Putin’s regime itself.

When a gambler has already lost so much that he will go bankrupt unless he can turn it around, the logical thing for him to do is to continue upping the stakes. This is the desperate opponent the West mayread now face. Worse: This is the opponent whose bloodstained debts the West may have to to write off."

read article by Tom MCTague