this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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You're right about why he took Crimea.
He tried to take Ukraine because Xi had finished subjugating Hong Kong and said he'd be moving on Taiwan soon, putin didn't want to look like the weaker partner, and if both moved at the same time they were positive the west would be paralyzed by fear, Afghanistan was already proof the west was weak.
His miscalculation was 2 fold: 1. Xi didn't understand how naval power worked, the PLAN needed another decade minimum to credibly threaten Taiwan, 2. Russia's army was decimated by decades of corruption itself.
We got lucky, if big daddy z took that ride the west would be in a bad place right now.
I'm not so sure. Taking Crimea, but leaving the rest of Ukraine a sovereign state broke the pattern of historical European prelude to war.
Putin, by stopping at Crimea, made this look like a localized dispute between two sovereign nations, not the conquest of the entire nation, with more to follow. Had Putin taken all of Ukraine in 2014, that would look very much like a Napoleon or Hitler seeking European domination. The world would have responded very differently I think.