[20Committee] But the icing on the cake is this explanation from one of the anonymous DC officials who always provide the basis of such press accounts:
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has made military threats against Kiev, Riga, Tallinn, and even Warsaw. His air force has also waged a harassment campaign on the fringes of NATO airspace. But one of the US sources noted: "I think it's all a bluff. He has enough people around him in the defense and foreign ministries who would tell him that [a military confrontation with NATO] is just going too far".
In the first place, there is simply no evidence that Putin considers a military confrontation with NATO to be "going too far," despite the fact that, in any military and economic sense, that is a true statement. The notion that Putin is simply bluffing, it's all some sort of dangerous and expensive ruse, is the sort of nonsense that passes for wisdom in too many Western governments. When the alternative is too scary to contemplate, denial works for a time, until the Russian bear comes crashing through the front door, sharpened teeth and claws at the ready.