Thread by @Robert_E_Kelly

So this is the kind of neocon logic that fills anglophone op-ed pages - esp @washingtonpost & @FT - in every crisis, and which we desperately need to replace with other models of aggression & response. Western opponents are rarely unlimited revisionists like Hitler, Napoleon,

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https://twitter.com/seesthepoint/status/1496687522218393603

or Alexander.

Reading them that way encourages overreaction and provocative escalation as in Vietnam, Central America in the 80s,or the war on terror.

Putin is indeed a gangster and a predator. And his command of a great power army and predilection for anchluss-es is

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reminiscent of the 30s. Which is why Biden is taking this so seriously.

But the odds against Russia are much worse than against Nazi Germany. The West is pretty united, and Russia is badly isolated. Even the Chinese don’t want an unabashed Russian invasion, and an open war

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with mass casualties broadcast on TV will incur the financial nuclear option of expelling Russia from SWIFT. That, on top of Russia’s stagnant kleptocracy, would make Russia economically subservient to China, which the Chinese will mercilessly exploit.

Putin almost certainly

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knows all this, which is why he’s dancing around the edges of open invasion, even if you can see from his seething rants about Ukraine that he really wants to go in hard.

So we can see what develops rather than charge in post-9/11 Bush-style, which would give Putin precisely

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the pretext he’s looking for. And if necessary, we can later consider supporting a Ukrainian insurgency.

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This thread was written just as Putin the Gangster announced his noble interest in de-nazifying Ukraine by attacking it.Awful

But again, let's not get carried away that he's Hitler. Let's start w/ measured responses like sanctions, reinforcements in E Eur, intel for Kiev, etc

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