Putin’s Threat WAS Mightier Than The Sword

I didn’t believe Putin would invade; I was wrong. What did I miss?

I overestimated Putin’s patience. He’s getting old and like this older man, sadly more prepared to cut off his nose to spite his face. I underestimated just how irritating the U.S. and Europeans would become to him. I underestimated just how poorly governed the West is; how they’d rather listen to themselves talk than pick up a history book. So here we are.

Putin will get his military victory in Ukraine. The West will get to walk tall in righteous indignation. Both will continue to underestimate the rocky ocean of unhappy people populating a climate-changing planet.

No country will fight for Ukraine. They won’t even turn their heat down to 58 degrees.

Although I was stunned that Putin invaded, I was not shocked. I wrote here Biden Begs Putin to Invade Ukraine — Or Else!, And later, A Quick U.S.A, Russia, Ukraine Review. Russia has always viewed a clear and present danger with U.S. and NATO expansion.

The deeper issue, I believe is a type of wealth inequality between resource-rich nations and resource consumers. How much should the consumer pay the owner of a resource? That quickly begs the question, who owns the resource?

Most resource nations are run by autocracies. Autocracies are cheap suppliers for consumer nations (like Saudi Arabia). Personally, they can only spend so much of the revenues and the rest goes back into foreign investment. What I’m saying is that even if Putin was deposed, and the public formed a perfect democracy, they’d want more money for their resources.

If that wasn’t true you’d see both an armed response and sanctions by democratic nations. If Ukraine was a democracy, it was a deeply corrupt one.

Everyone, I believe, gets this deep down. If you’re living in an autocracy and you want to work with your head, rather than your hands in a mine, you try to emigrate to a consumer nation. Or, you play the game in an autocracy.

Both Russia and China have allowed emigration in the past couple of decades. That avenue is closing. It’s not good either way, for Russians looking to go to University in the U.S., or U.S. citizens wanting to learn Russian culture on a vacation.

If Putin cut his nose to spite his face, we forget it is our face too. Neither resource sellers nor buyers can exist without each other. When they fight they make everything more expensive.

Putin losing the threat makes his game weaker. I don’t view that as a good thing.

The people who run autocracies are people too — that is, they have pride in their work. At some point, if consumers are too fussy, food will be thrown in their face. Wokism is anti-traditional values.

Now that Putin has used his sword the three-way military struggle between the U.S., Russia and China will begin in earnest. WWIII has begun. That doesn’t mean there will be war this year or next. But it will grow. The populations of both producers and consumers will demand it. They’re both in the same boat. Forsaken by the elites on both sides.

Things will spiral out of control because, in the end, elites always become out of touch with the world around them. Trump or Putin may be a joke, but the ones who come after won’t.