An analysist said prior to the war, that War is possible, and it would be foolish to discount it. But it’s hard to see how the war goes in Russia’s direction, because, if you pay attention to Ukraine, it’s pretty clear that they’re going to fight, and that they can fight. Also, it’s going to bring all these risks down on Putin, and so it’s hard to see how it would make sense for him to do that.”
Then said this
What we didn’t compute for us was the benefits for Putin that would outweigh these costs—why it would make sense to take all of these risks.
Those risks largely have come to pass. He’s now running a state that is poorer, less secure, and in which he’s got fewer political options. He’s painted himself into a whole bunch of corners. Clearly, he did see a reason to do this, and maybe it was because he sees the world differently than we do, or maybe it was because he got bad analysis.
Having started down this road, he has to take it to some kind of a conclusion that he can live with. The risks are real, but so are the advantages. He has to deal with fractious public opinion. He has to deal with an élite that could at any moment decide that they’re done with him and the future is better served by going in a different direction. But he controls a massive security state. He controls all of the television in the country. He controls all the political parties in the parliament, and he’s the commander-in-chief in wartime.
There have been two related arguments about Putin. One is that he has had a certain amount of success because he doesn’t ask too much of the Russian population, which we discussed, and the other is that Russians, because of his control of the media, don’t really know how bad things are in Ukraine.
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Originally Posted by R650R
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