Kirill Rogov, a Russian political analyst (C.V. here), says Putin’s Ukraine war is “lost” and an “epic failure,” and propounds 4 major mistakes:
- “The mistake was the notion that the West was unwilling to resist aggression, that it was lethargic, greedy and divided.”
- “The idea that the Russian economy is self-sufficient and secure was a mistake.”
- “The mistake was the idea of the quality of the Russian army.”
- “And the main mistake was the idea that Ukraine is a failed state, and Ukrainians are not a nation.”
“Four mistakes in making one decision is a lot,” he said. (Read story here.) You can tell this guy doesn’t work for Putin. In fact, if he’s still in Russia, he’d better get the hell out of there before he’s arrested and shot.
That’s the what. As for how Putin screwed up, there’s a lot of speculation about that. A rightwinger theorized (here) that he over-medicated on Covid vaccine, but he looks to healthy in pictures for a medicinal explanation, albeit somewhat pasty in the face. Much is being made of his apparent isolation see, e.g., photo below); he even shipped his young wife, a former gymnast, off to Siberia. But hey, a lot of guys would like to do that; he did because he can. And it makes sense that he doesn’t want his friends and associates to get within knife-throwing range, because a guy like him doesn’t have any real friends.
A guest writer for the Atlantic, a British professor, thinks (here) he fell into the “dictator trap.” What is that? “To answer that question, you have to understand the power and information ecosystems around dictators,” he says.
Simply put, dictators who ship critics to gulags or have them shot aren’t going to hear criticism, either from the people around them, or the public. “As a result, despots rarely get told that their stupid ideas are stupid, or that their ill-conceived wars are likely to be catastrophic.” For example, none of Stalin’s generals told him Hitler was a snake who couldn’t be trusted, because he’d shot them all. Consequently, he was genuinely surprised when Russia was invaded.
Another problem is, “If you live in a fake world long enough, it can start to feel real. Dictators and despots begin to believe their own lies, repeated back at them and propagated by state-controlled media. That might help explain why Putin’s recent speeches have stood out as unhinged rants. It’s certainly possible that his mind has succumbed to his own propaganda, creating a warped worldview in which the invasion of Ukraine was, as Trump put it, an incredibly ‘savvy’ move.”
By the way, Putin isn’t the only hack looking really stupid right now.
Related article: For Putin’s stated views (as of 2018) on nuclear armageddon, go here.
