“Wars are probably easier to understand in hindsight. During a war, there are incentives to lie about many things.”
Certainly. But in all examples I gave, I think the average attentive contemporary observer could have spotted the main motive. For instance, Hitler invaded Poland with the good ol’excuse of “they’re genociding my people there” (sounds familiar). But an attentive contemporary observer would have noticed his real motives, aka it was a power grab with the Soviet Union also involved.
But this is, indeed, just a guess. Just an opinion. I’m not claiming to be doing exact science here.
On NATO, that’s a big speculation not worth a genocidal war over imo. Specially when your country has the largest nuclear arsenal, making a NATO invasion unfeasible anyway.
“Cost? What ultimately matters is the impact on those who make the decisions, and it doesn’t seem like Putin’s position would be significantly threatened just because a few thousand people die.”
That’s a simplistic view. Bad consequences threaten the regime (which is not just Putin I believe). And also I don’t think any leader wants to weaken his country with no good reason.
And the cost will obviously go beyond sanctions.
“And in long term, unification of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. If we can trust Putin’s own words, of course.”
“Wars are probably easier to understand in hindsight. During a war, there are incentives to lie about many things.”
Certainly. But in all examples I gave, I think the average attentive contemporary observer could have spotted the main motive. For instance, Hitler invaded Poland with the good ol’excuse of “they’re genociding my people there” (sounds familiar). But an attentive contemporary observer would have noticed his real motives, aka it was a power grab with the Soviet Union also involved.
But this is, indeed, just a guess. Just an opinion. I’m not claiming to be doing exact science here.
On NATO, that’s a big speculation not worth a genocidal war over imo. Specially when your country has the largest nuclear arsenal, making a NATO invasion unfeasible anyway.
“Cost? What ultimately matters is the impact on those who make the decisions, and it doesn’t seem like Putin’s position would be significantly threatened just because a few thousand people die.”
That’s a simplistic view. Bad consequences threaten the regime (which is not just Putin I believe). And also I don’t think any leader wants to weaken his country with no good reason.
And the cost will obviously go beyond sanctions.
“And in long term, unification of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. If we can trust Putin’s own words, of course.”
That’s another big if. But could be.