(Sorry about missing last week, back with a vengeance.)
Despite what Vladimir Putin says about security concerns, Russia in no victim in this diplomatic standoff with NATO when you have over 100,000 troops amassed on the Ukrainian border, on two fronts - the Russian and Belarusian borders.
Putin's main gripe is that under no circumstances should Ukraine ever join NATO, and NATO's response is that they are not going to negotiate their open-door policy of countries wanting to join. (Wanting it and actually getting in are two completely different things.) The open-door policy is meant a right to a nation maintain its sovereignty and freedom for self-determination.
The reality is that Ukraine could be twenty years off from even being considered for NATO and by that time, they may not even want to be a member. Finland which shares a very long border with Russia and it is not a NATO member, nor is Sweden for that matter. So it's not only that, it's deeper and you have to take Putin at his word when he spouts rhetoric about Ukraine belonging to Russia.
But why now?
Putin wants to reconstitute some semblance of the former Soviet Union and that can not be done without Ukraine, it's the keystone. At this moment, the conditions are right for an invasion - it's winter so the ground is hard for tanks and historically as Chuck Todd noted, Putin invades when his country or China is hosting the Olympics (Beijing in 2008; Sochii in 2014) because it's when the world's attention is diverted and since it's an instance where countries should put aside their differences in observance, that's the best moment to go on the offense (think The Tet Offensive in Vietnam).
But also time is running out on Putin's delusion of having Ukraine back into a 'Soviet' fold. Putin has made it so that he'll be in office until 2036, fourteen years from now. If Russia invades Ukraine, you can bet that at least 10 of years are going to be very bloody.
The advance of the largest ground force gathered and readied since WWII would not only be rebuke of the world order since that time, you'll see other areas in Europe and the near east also possibly erupt in conflict - renewed fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Serbian nationalist in Bosnia.
And, of course, a blatant disregard for a nation's sovereignty will embolden other countries to do the same, not the least of which China. Why else would President Xi stand by Putin and give his support on Ukraine. As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said about the 5,000-word joint statement, Ukraine was not mentioned.
However, one could conclude that part of the non-written agreement was if Putin wanted to advance into Ukraine, it would have to wait until after the Olympics in Beijing, but that only gives Putin about 3 weeks of hard winter on which to capitalize. As worth noting from Mr. Sullivan was that China will undoubtedly take a hit economically with the planned sanctions, which may be all right in the short term, but China's economy at this moment is fragile, which is real estate industry in utter turmoil.
It is a thin red line.
Speaking of thin lines, Marc Short walked one in his interview today, namely when asked if Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, the ever-loyal former VP Chief of Staff said that Joe Biden is the "duly-elected president." But never once after Mr. Todd took different tacts, Mr. Short never once said the word legitimate in the context of the conversation.
Mr. Short did put himself on the right side of history by cooperating with the January 6th Committee and siding with his former boss that the vice president does not have the right to decertify state election results. His argument that the committee is not bipartisan doesn't hold water even if you don't agree the Speaker Pelosi's right to veto the minorities choices, especially since one of those choices was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) who is actually a person of interest in the investigation. And that bit about being proud to serve in the Trump Administration with negligible results is a historical stain that doesn't wash out.
And for the record, we have to include the clip of fmr. Vice President Mike Pence at the Federalist Society rebuking his old boss.
Panel: Jeh Johnson, fmr. Secretary of Homeland Security; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Matthew Continetti, American Enterprise Institute; Helene Cooper, The New York Times
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