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Comment by nextos | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that Putin might be completely irrational, and therefore operating in unpredictable ways.

If we believe some of the news, the invasion effort looks poorly coordinated and very risky. There are some units stranded without fuel, some light mechanized units engaged big cities and got repelled, whereas others got destroyed on the roads without proper air cover.

Frankly, Russia has some very impressive military tech but the whole thing does not look well planned at all. It seems more like the product of a delusional leader and some incompetent high ranking officials. Getting into urban warfare, which is where this seems to be heading to will turn to big losses on his side. Reminds me of Croatia '91, but without the secession component. Jugoslav National Army threw shitloads of poorly motivated armor units and they got nowhere.

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He might be more rational than you think. He would rather suffer severe economic damage, have some mild military losses, and see Ukraine destroyed than have the last remaining buffer country between him and NATO end up as part of the NATO/EU/US order. He may also have correctly calculated that despite the media theater and economic sanctions, the US doesn't truly care about Ukraine.

It is unfortunately the Ukrainians who will suffer the worst of Putin's aggressiveness and the West's foolishness.

The US may not care about Ukraine, but I assure you that Europe does.

Even autocrats have to rule largely with the consent (or at least the acquiescence) of the governed. Unless he goes full Kim Jong Un, the long-term economic damage will do to him what it did to the Soviet Union. He's miscalculated. I'm struggling to see an end-game in which he can save face and not come out diminished in the long term. To me this all smells of something born out of his will, and not something that's had the kind of in-system planning and support that these things tend to require. I suspect (hope) the long knives are being quietly sharpened in the darker corridors of the Kremlin.

>* the last remaining buffer country between him and NATO end up as part of the NATO/EU/US order.*

I have read this claim hundreds of times, but nobody ever mentions that the Baltic states joined in 2004[0]. Russia has had NATO on its border for over seventeen years, so why would this suddenly be a problem worth going to war over?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Adriatic_C...

This is a good discussion (from 2015) that does mention the Baltic states and offers an explanation of why 2004 is unlike now and why Ukraine is also different https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4

Is Ukraine totally blameless on this though? It seems like they allowed themselves to be duped by the self-serving prodding of the west.

West: “dude, poke that bear. I promise we’ll be here to help you in case it attacks.”

Ukraine: “here, hold my beer”

I think even if Ukraine had done nothing they still would've been targeted by Russia. Look at Estonia[0] and Georgia[1]. You could think of them as preludes to what happened in Crimea. It's the same excuse - "we are here to protect Russians". Estonia didn't work out, but Georgia worked out well for Russia. They got away with Crimea too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Night

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

I agree with your assertion that they would’ve been invaded regardless. In that sense Ukraine’s recent actions only served to accelerate the invasion.

That’s not to say Ukraine didn’t have valid reasons for their actions.

Geopolitics is messy.

> Georgia

Georgia is an even more evident example of destabilisation by foreign military–industrial complex than the Ukraine. At least Ukraine had some reasons for her action after Crimea.

Georgia (or rather, Saakashvili) decided that if the US is selling them weapons and declaring public support, it would mean that they have an option of solving a century old ethnic conflict[0] by force. And that the West would support Georgia in inevitable confrontation against Russia, who obviously still remembers the Sochi Agreement it helped to broker under her guarantees.

Regarding Estonia, I am not sure why you are trying to treat a country like an individual with a single point of view and not a collective of vastly different people. WWII memorials is obviously a sensitive topic, I am not sure why you think Russian government has something to do with it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian%E2%80%93Ossetian_conf...

He could be both rational and incorrect, though. The US and the world in general warmed up overnight to the Ukrainian cause. Even the Trumpiest US senators are doing their best to run away from Trump’s Putin sycophancy on this, which is astonishing.

It's possible his generals have bungled the logistics on purpose. Can't stage a coup but they can undermine authority with feigned incompetence.

That's an interesting thought that I have not seen earlier anywhere else.

Putin is just the executive leader, not the (or only) general. If you think blame for logistic failures can just be cleanly assigned to the presence of his marbles or lack thereof, you’re sorely mistaken.

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