I'm glad to discuss Putin's latest aggression and how to stop him. But I said it all in my 2015 book Winter Is Coming. Even by then I was furious the West had done so little. Tragically, it's still valid. publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/garry-k… 
I addressed Putin's war on Ukraine as a test for the US and the rest of the free world. As I've been saying since 2007, the longer you wait to deter a dictator, the higher the eventual price. Now a major war is looming.
Instead of running around in a panic at every Putin move, a strategic plan of deterrence by raising the costs of aggression and reducing his leverage should have been implemented in 2008 at the latest, when he invaded Georgia. The mask was off.
Kick Putin's oligarchs and their families out of the free world and seize their assets. They are war criminals. Aid Ukraine & other targets. Reduce dependence on Russian energy, what I called "dictatorship substitution." You don't negotiate with cancer; you cut it out.
Western nations are profiting from and supporting brutal dictatorships that invade neighbors and commit genocide. Today, in 2022, not in the history books. "Never again" is a sick joke. Europe isn't putting its head in the sand, its eyes are wide open.
Most of these arguments about how and why to contain Putin I made in 2015 are heard again now, 8 years after Putin invaded Ukraine. Apparently no amount of Putin's repression & violence is enough to prove that appeasement has failed as it always does.
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