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I'm not convinced Russia doesn't want escalation. The leadership seems suicidally insane - like an old guy who starts a bar fight because he wants to prove he's

I'm not convinced Russia doesn't want escalation. The leadership seems suicidally insane - like an old guy who starts a bar fight because he wants to prove he's still one of the Big Dogs, even though he hasn't been sober for decades and can barely stand. It's plain old post-imperial narcissism, Which is not an emotional state known for its rationality and foresight.

mrguyorama 4y ago
Russia's playbook is to threaten escalation to "de-escalate". Putin does not want to actually bring NATO into the fight because then the ONLY option he has is nuclear annihilation. Right now he thinks he can still get Western people to lose support for Ukraine eventually and grind them down into a fine paste. That's why he keeps making nuclear threats on TV, because they are directed at Western citizens to try and scare them into giving up. You can be sure that if Putin ACTUALLY wants to backstop a red line with actual nuclear threats, we won't hear about that.