[GK3]

Just how dumb is Putin?  I don't just mean how much his ideas conflict with ours, but how poorly he protects his advantages.  

Ok, maybe a multi-year military exercise against Ukraine is reducing prison costs and welfare rolls, but his economy is in the tank.  That exercise showed many flaws in Russian military equipment, but he's going to get to replace so much of it.  It also showed how poor his military leadership was, but those problems have flown out the window.

Now, he's let the West watch Russia launch an IRBM.  The West gets to see if their intelligence systems detected the pre-launch signs of it, and whether all the West's sensors, alarms, and responses when such a launch happens.

I don't think he is "dumb" but more like say Stalin or Hitler whose vison of the world drove them to try and create it without too much regard to whether it was possible.  At this point, Putin probably gets Ukraine, but what does he get? a destroyed country where anyone who can has already left.  I don't think Putin has enough financial resources to rebuild his own economy much less rebuild the Ukraine's  So now he is left with diminished markets for his hydrocarbons, much of his foreign bank assets seized etc. My guess is he won't survive his "victory" very long.

[GK3]

Just how dumb is Putin?  I don't just mean how much his ideas conflict with ours, but how poorly he protects his advantages.  

Ok, maybe a multi-year military exercise against Ukraine is reducing prison costs and welfare rolls, but his economy is in the tank.  That exercise showed many flaws in Russian military equipment, but he's going to get to replace so much of it.  It also showed how poor his military leadership was, but those problems have flown out the window.

Now, he's let the West watch Russia launch an IRBM.  The West gets to see if their intelligence systems detected the pre-launch signs of it, and whether all the West's sensors, alarms, and responses when such a launch happens.

I don't think he is "dumb" but more like say Stalin or Hitler whose vison of the world drove them to try and create it without too much regard to whether it was possible.  At this point, Putin probably gets Ukraine, but what does he get? a destroyed country where anyone who can has already left.  I don't think Putin has enough financial resources to rebuild his own economy much less rebuild the Ukraine's  So now he is left with diminished markets for his hydrocarbons, much of his foreign bank assets seized etc. My guess is he won't survive his "victory" very long.