All of this past week's events show that John Mearsheimer was wrong - way wrong. In 2015 John Mearsheimer claimed that Putin did not want to invade the Ukraine nor did Putin want to re-establish the old Soviet empire. His reasoning was Putin was too smart for that - Putin had seen how the invasion of Afghanistan didn't go well for the Soviets, or for the Americans for that matter.

Granted, I say John Mearsheimer was wrong in 2015 with the hindsight of 20/20 vision. I haven't seen where he has made any public statements since the invasion started. Now we know that Putin fully intended to invade the Ukraine and institute regime change, not just "free" Donbas and Luhansk. Putin has also indicated he wants to re-establish the old Soviet Union as much as possible.

I'm not attacking John Mearsheimer. I too thought Putin was way smarter than this. Frankly I'm shocked by what's happening, but most of all I'm shocked and surprised by Putin's short-sightedness and stupidity. I'm sure John Mearsheimer did his analysis believing he was dealing with a rational actor. Now we know otherwise.