Has Putin already decided to attack NATO? - Dave Troy
https://davetroy.medium.com/has-putin-already-decided-to-attack-nato-a1f8e52ce2deExcerpt:
...It is also useful to increase public understanding of the true nature and depth of this dilemma, and the fact that Putin already believes he has the option to declare, with China, total war on NATO and the West using the manufactured bio-labs narrative as casus belli.
Pretending we are somehow in control of that, and modulating our actions accordingly, signals only weakness and lack of understanding.
That doesn’t mean we should recklessly escalate or needlessly take rash actions, but we should not assume we have any say in whether Putin engages with NATO. As far as I can tell, that decision was made many years ago.
It is not fearmongering to consider a range of undesirable scenarios, but rather responsible preparation and strategic planning. Indeed, pollyanna-ism and failure of imagination is a far more frightening prospect than clear-eyed scenario planning and attempting to avoid worst case scenarios.
Let us confront this real and credible threat, without fear, and with open eyes.
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Putin, like Hitler, blames his generals.
His ubermenschen Russians are great--it's the weak-willed generals that have let him down.
I also think that the news that's filtered through to Putin about the number of dead "Russians" distresses him.
I put the word in scare-quotes for a reason. We can read that Russian considers anybody bearing Russian language/culture to be a "Russian." There's a historical and religious component. If you're Russian, you're ROC in outlook; Ukr folk are apostate, but should be regained for God and culture; in 2019 a Ukr Orthodox church (UOC? OCU? Acronmys ... ugh) was declared autocephalous. Officially not under the patriarch in Russia.
Find the Kremlin. Cross the Moscow River. Find the Church of J. the Savior. Originally built after the short Frenchman's 1812 invasion, destroyed by Stalin to provide a temple to the Great Lenin (but never finished, becoming a swimming pool--remember, if you liked the Soviet Union you "didn't have a soul"
, the dirt's now host to a big-ole ROC khram.
Putin also does the "Russian world" crap. People here have said he's a white supremacist (which is why he's killing whites, I guess). His "secretary of the treasury" isn't "white". His secretary of defense isn't "white". But he's been clear in that they are both ***Russian***. How can this be?
Because he's been clear: Speak Russian, assume Russian culture, and you *are* Russian.
Putin has a two-fold definition at play. Ukr are Russians because they are ethnically Ukr and derive from Kievan Rus', the source of Russian culture (in Putin's mythological view of the last 1800 years). But Shoigu is "Russian" because he IDs as "Russian." (Currently reading his book "Pro vchera", _About yesterday_ or maybe _For Yesterday_--don't worry, Shoigu made $0 off of it, bought American, it was on clearance ... And sounds Soviet in tone, even if there are times it's clearly not a paean to Stalin and Brezhnev.)
Shoigu is not a Russian surname; father was Tuvan. That's a story in itself. The Tuvan republic wasn't part of the USSR. It was between Mongolia and the USSR. It was a socialist republic, clearly allied with Stalin, followed the Party line, but nominally independent for a couple of decades. It even provided troops for the USSR in WWII. During that time period, it joined the USSR.
Keep this bit about the Tuvan indigenous area in mind when pondering the Abkhazian whatever it is, the Ossetian whatever, Transdnistria, and the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics.
Linguista sum, humani nihil mihi alienum non puto.
