THERE IS NO RUSSIA:

Oh, Putin also has effective control over South Ossetia these days, which has gotten him nothing much except increased fear from all his neighbors, who are even more dedicated to European integration than before.

What else has this mastermind accomplished? There's Syria, but what has that done for him? Nothing. It was just a stupid attempt to poke America in the eye, and it didn't even work at doing that.

And of course, there's Ukraine. But we all remember more about Ukraine than just the past few months, don't we? Putin has been meddling in Ukraine for the past two decades, and he keeps botching it. He put his guy in power and poisoned the opposition leader, which led to the Orange Revolution and closer ties to the West. He did it again and got the Maidan protests--which led to closer ties to the West. Since then, the government of Ukraine has been steadfastly dedicated to pushing away Russia and joining trade agreements with Europe. So now, having failed at literally every attempt to bring Ukraine into his orbit, Putin is left with no options except a military attack.

So what will Putin do? Media reports say he has about 100,000 troops massed on the border of Ukraine, and it's likely that this is about as many as he can put there. About half of them are raw conscripts and the other half are contractors. This might well be enough to occupy Eastern Ukraine, which is generally sympathetic to Russia, but that's about it.

And then what? Keep 100,000 troops there forever? Spend decades fighting a low-intensity conflict with Ukraine? And for what? It's a military rat hole, like Afghanistan or Vietnam.

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