I include myself among those in shock though not awe. In these posts – “Putin Patrol Continued” – and elsewhere I’ve followed the man for years. And I’m a longtime student of Russian politics. But truth is I did not fully believe until it happened that President Vladimir Putin would decide that Russia should invade the sovereign state of Ukraine not just in part, but in whole.
Putin has taken to referencing his nuclear arsenal. So, what we have now is not a worst-case scenario. But it’s bad enough. As others have pointed out, we face the surreal but real enough situation in which there is a hot war on the European continent, the first since 1945. What Putin just did was evocative of Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 – and we all know where that led.
Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright just wrote an editorial expressing her view that by invading Ukraine Putin has made a grave strategic mistake. Over the long term, she argues the Russian people will suffer severe consequences, including diplomatic, military, and financial pain.
If this is possible, maybe even probable, why would Putin do what he did? Why would he risk so much and deviate so dangerously from what have become international norms? And why would he behave so curiously, among other signs and symptoms delivering long rants in recent days in which his fervor and fury are blatantly apparent?
Questions like these return us to the riddle of whether Putin is a rational actor. Is he normal or abnormal? Is he, arguably like his crony, Donald Trump, mentally stable or at least somewhat unstable?
These are, of course, entirely academic questions that can never be answered with certainty. But for the moment at least the West has no choice but to assume that along with being evil, Putin is irrational.