It appears that Vladimir Putin has decided Ukraine belongs to Russia, and if they don’t like it, too bad.
My bet would be that Putin wins this little gamble. Obama will indeed blink first, and so will the rest of the NATO powers. No one will use military force to counter Putin, and not much else will deter him either. A de facto Russian Empire will slowly become a reality.
This will serve to demonstrate, for some observers, why you can’t reason with dictators; what they ultimately understand and respect is force. This is how they rule, and the only thing that stops them is the same. Criticism, condemnation, and protests are merely an irritant to them.
Putin is a genuine dictator, and we are foolish not to recognize this.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Dean Esmay is the author of Methuselah’s Daughter. He has contributed to Dean’s World, Huffington Post, A Voice for Men, Pajamas Media. Neither left nor right wing, neither libertarian nor socialist.