To pinched-nostril commentators in the West, Vladimir Putin, Czar of all the Russias, is a boorish clown destined for ultimate failure. To me, he's a genius.
I don't like the guy one bit. But I have to respect his abilities.
The last time a minor power played its hand as well as Putin has played Russia's was in 1203. Venice hijacked the Fourth Crusade to sack Christian Constantinople, leaving Venice wealthy and empowered. It also wrecked Europe's bulwark against Islam, leading to seven centuries of jihad (resuming now, after a brief timeout).
Putin's power plays won't end well for Europe, either. But, like medieval Venice, he's good at what he does.
Personally, I believe that the Church of Transnational Progressivism---centered in EU, is the biggest danger to humankind ever. Especially after it took over USA and turned NATO into its arm militant.
...Of course, the DC establishment's last-ditch defense of the "wisdom" of our feckless response to Putin is to conjure the spirits of economic disaster, the insistence that, while Putin's a pain, the Russian economy's tanking and he won't be able to sustain his mischief much longer.
Well, Putin's economy took a body blow, thanks largely to the drop in oil prices and partly because of (now wobbling) Western sanctions. But the ruble and Russia's foreign reserves have stabilized. Import substitution is progressing. The oil price is inching back up.
Russians are much better off financially than they were before Putin appeared, and -- most important of all -- Russians expect life to stink. Deprivations that would shock Americans don't even register. And Putin's stage management of the economic downturn has been masterful. His popularity rating remains higher than Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's combined.
Unlike our leaders, Putin knows his people. He came from the streets, not from Harvard. And Russians have, for centuries, cherished the "myth of the good czar," expressed, in the face of perfidy and corruption, by the peasant's sigh of, "If the czar only knew . . ."
Putin put that myth on TV and online. His four-hour "audiences" are brilliant theater. He takes calls and e-mails complaining of Russia's immemorial problems: bad roads here, corrupt bosses there, unpaid wages in a cannery. With barely a hand wave, the people's woes go away.
Our elites spent the last decade mocking Putin. He spent those years enriching his country, reviving its military, expanding its territory -- and humiliating the United States of America.
Personally, given the quarter-century experience of monopolar world behind us, I prefer a bi-polar world. However, the question must be asked: "Can restored Russia cause USA to take it's collective head out of its collective ass?" Judging by the ongoing elections, the answer is not optimistic.