Thread by @TimInHonolulu

1. #Putin is a global crisis actor. He moves troops and refugees like a little child with plastic toy soldiers to get the world to react. If he was going to attack and seize #Ukraine, he waited too long. Ukraine's military was a disaster in 2014 and could have been steamrolled.

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1458849396133613574

2. Now, Ukraine has put together a large armored force and has a trained and equipped army with US Javelin anti-tank missiles that make short-work of the weak armor on the top of Russian tanks. Sure, Russian could defeat Ukraine fighting alone but at what cost? The Russian state

3. controlled press is not doing the kind of propaganda needed to prepare a disgruntled population for a major war against one of the last Russian speaking areas of the globe. IMO the Kremlin's focus is on #Belarus. I would not be surprised to see Russia invade it and some of the

4. build up on Ukraine's border may be to obscure the movement of armor and infantry closer to Belarus. The Russian state controlled media isn't talking about Ukraine. It's talking about Belarus and the nasty Poles. This is consistent with the Russian ethno-nationalistic

5. strategy going back over 80 years. What Russia fears is that Putin and Merkel's plan subjugate Europe to the Russians will fail. The decisions carefully employed over decades has the European economies at Russia's mercy. Belarus is the point of that spear because

6. the Ukrainians stood up to Russia and made Ukraine a nut too tough to crack. But the Baltics and European subservience are the goal and right now with the @NATO dithering rather than moving Abrams tanks to Poland means Putin can strike and seize Belarus after a well

7. executed false-flag attack on dear Comrade Lukashenko by the troublesome Poles. I've seen this movie so many times its become boring. What Russia needs is the threat. What it is banking on is @POTUS @JoeBiden is weak and with Comrade Merkel and Macron seeking the greater

8. glory of something other than the survival of @NATO he feels he can establish a frozen conflict on the Polish-Belarus border to deter any attempt to isolate Kaliningrad. Putin, like his generals, lives in the 19th century where the Baltic and Black sea are bathtubs that can

9. block Russia and strangle its economy and war making power. Aggressors never rest and as long as Russia is run by a corrupt megalomaniac and Europe is a disconnected group of states without the single focus of survival in the face of Russian aggression, Putin will continue

10. to make threats and move his forces on the game board using refugees as a weapon of war. Move brigades of US infantry and tanks to Poland. Put the A-10's near the border with Belarus. Show Putin and Shoygu that they are in for something they, and the Russian

11. disgruntled population, are not prepared for. And put the Nordstream2 back on the table. Never meet an aggressor half-way. Always make them face an outcome worse than where they started. @SecDef @WHNSC @SenJackReed @JimInhofe @USNATO