Putin has fallen into a classic autocrat’s trap. He is unhinged from reality and isolated in his own paranoia, even though, as Dr. Kissinger observed, the paranoids also have real enemies.Russia will pay a terrible price for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as it is blackballed from the global financial system, its sovereign assets are frozen and forced to confront a rearmed Germany, the Kremlin’s geopolitical bogeyman since August 1914.Putin is old enough to remember Brezhnev’s invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, which condemned the USSR to a generation of economic stagnation and ultimately total defeat in the Cold War in 1991. Like Saddam in August 1990 and Gaddafi in 2011, Putin may find out that autocrats who drink their own Kool-Aid and miscalculate the balance of power invariably end up in the garbage dump of history.Even Germany will now supply anti-tank missiles and stingers to the Ukranians and a popular insurrection could provoke a revolt among Russian conscripts who were told that they were going on a training mission.China’s abstention at the UN means that Russia is now a true global pariah state, even though Putin can console himself that he has a new buddy in Pakistani PM Imran Khan, who showed up in Moscow the day Putin’s troops attacked Ukraine and said “it was an exciting time”.The video of Putin humiliating his own national security advisors before the world reminded me of Caligula and the ancient Roman Senators, who ultimately had the last laugh on the power crazed, murderous Imperator. It is never wise for a Russian Tsar or a Roman Caesar to humiliate his own palace guard.
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