Putin is Playing Biden like a Fiddle

By J. Robert Smith

Vlad Putin, the evil though very calculating chief oligarch of the shriveled nation of Russia (when stacked against its predecessor, the Soviet Union), is playing chess over the fate of Ukraine, while our figurehead president and his gaggle of administration mediocrities (here being charitable) and Pentagon toadies play checkers. I’ll venture this wager -- though with modest reservations: Putin will bring Ukraine into his orbit without sending his troops en masse into said country.

On Monday, Putin recognized Russian-dominated regions of Ukraine, followed by a minor incursion of "peacekeepers," traveling by bus, not APC.

Putin doesn't need a full-scale invasion, I believe, because his approach is strategic. His eye is on the prize: take Ukraine in some shape or form (as he took parts on Monday). He’s open to the means, no doubt, and if an invasion -- likely surgical in nature -- is his only route to achieve his ends, he’ll take the gamble. The U.S. declared that it won’t send troops to defend Ukraine. NATO is in tow. Speaking of which, that woeful collection of nations called “NATO” (including the now Russia-compromised Germany, which sorely needs Russian natural gas), is in no position to stop him, short of a major war.

Sanctions after-the-fact, as our addled president is pushing, will not deter Putin. He sees weakness and irresolution among western leaders, Biden first and foremost. Chances are he’ll make the assumption that sanctions would be short-lived, anyway. Always follow the money, which corrupt Western elites are hooked on worse than crack.

Make no mistake, a major land war in Eastern Europe would not only result in significant death and destruction but risks escalation -- a broadening that can be somewhat gamed but not fully predicted. Russia, despite its diminution, is still a nuclear power, which is rarely acknowledged by those inexhaustible talking heads on cable news, by members of Congress, and, of course, at State Department and Pentagon podiums.


What do we know about war? It’s unpredictable as hell, and anyone who tells you otherwise has snake oil coursing through his veins.

Paying Putin short shrift is foolish; underestimating any enemy is. But if you live on a steady diet of U.S. media, Putin is a one-dimensional man, a cardboard cutout, made to fit the biases that the media and Biden administration project on him. “Vlad the Invader,” goes the 24/7 drone. Putin, we’re lectured, has only one song in his playbook: outright force. Putin, goes the cliché, intends to recreate the old Soviet Empire. Maybe in Putin’s dreams, but no talking head ever stops to ask, “How?”

Do the cliché spewers think that Putin intends to unleash columns of Russian tanks and troops west in a mad dash to recapture Berlin? West of Ukraine are NATO countries. War, then, becomes automatic. The U.S. is all-in, and Putin would reckon that with trepidation. Even today’s Western European Chamberlains and decadents would have to rouse themselves to oppose so great a threat.

Ah, say the chattering class, Putin could resort to subversion and chicanery to recapture those former Soviet satraps. Yet that suggests a sophistication of approach not now acknowledged in Putin. But remember this: subversion is a double-edged sword. Russia isn’t the colossus that Cold War fixated think-tank blatherers and congressional hacks present it as. Russia has weaknesses -- exploitable vulnerabilities. Two can play the game of subversion. Not to mention the many coordinated external pressures that can be brought to bear.

We can say with button-popping confidence that Putin never -- never -- would be attempting to recapture Ukraine with Donald J. Trump occupying the Oval Office. A strong man -- an apex predator, which Putin is -- takes the measure of adversaries. For Putin, Biden is prey. Trump was -- and may well again be -- a steely adversary crossed at great peril.