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It’s Time to Beat Putin at Poker and Call His Bluff
Foreign policy ^ | 9th April 2022 | Jason pack

Posted on 04/30/2022 5:17:58 AM PDT by Cronos

Putin’s machismo leads him to underestimate his adversaries and show off for domestic and international consumption. Unsurprisingly, his favorite tactic is unprovoked aggression—in other words, the bluff. He got away with it in Georgia in 2008, Syria from 2012 onward, in annexing Crimea in 2014

...Yet last month, he was caught completely off guard when the West finally called his biggest raise ever. As boxer Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

The West’s reactive jab of sanctions and aggressive arming of the Ukrainians appear to have completely stalled—and now reversed—Russia’s advance on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Bruised and bloodied, his forces in retreat, Putin is cobbling together an ad hoc response. By publicly claiming to refocus his campaign on the Donbass, and implicitly the land corridor connecting it to Crimea and Moldova, he may be further bluffing when it comes to his real objectives and future tactics.

The weaker his underlying hand, the more that Putin must continue to rely on bluffs and misdirection. Hence, even though Russia is losing, it is unlikely that Putin will ever voluntarily de-escalate.

...Russian National Guard members are refusing to fight in Ukraine. Every day, new evidence appears of Russian soldiers sabotaging their own vehicles. A miscalculation or sign of weakness from Putin could engender a palace coup or mass desertion among the armed forces

During the height of the pandemic, Putin had people wear hazmat suits in order to meet him. Nowadays, he sits 20 feet away at meetings even with his own inner circle. He wants to live. He is only playing the role of being macho. He respects force and aggression

(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: 1everyonehasaplan; 2tilltheygetasked; 3topayinrubles; agitprop; armageddon; bigrubleinlittleruss; clownworld; fabulism; feverdreams; fullretard; growup; jasonpack; neocon; nevergofullretard; payupsuckers; pipedreams; roubles; rubleisat72; rubles; stupidshouldhurt; threads4dummies; ukrainicorns; warmonger; warporn; youcantfixstupid; youwentfullretard
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1 posted on 04/30/2022 5:17:58 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Cronos

What does foreignpolicy.com have to say about America’s southern border being invaded on a daily basis while we’re being governed by marxists and a house plant, I wonder?


2 posted on 04/30/2022 5:21:37 AM PDT by FLNittany
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To: Cronos

PUTIN: I’ll see your bid and raise you a NUCLEAR WAR!

(Do we really wanna play this game with a mad man? Why? Just to protect Biden’s criminal friends in Ukraine?)


3 posted on 04/30/2022 5:25:57 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (I love my country. It's my government that I hate.)
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To: Cronos

From prayers to war, prayers to war. Sick stuff.


4 posted on 04/30/2022 5:30:40 AM PDT by JonPreston (Q: Never have so many, been so wrong, so often)
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To: Cronos

War Porn.


5 posted on 04/30/2022 5:31:17 AM PDT by Nextrush (FREEDOM IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS REMEMBER PASTOR NIEMOLLER)
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To: FLNittany

You can google that.

Foreign policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/08/united-states-immigration-title-42-border-policy-mexico-asylum-biden/

U.S. policy should focus on legal circular migration, targeted investments, and leveraging diaspora networks to make staying put a viable option for Central Americans.


6 posted on 04/30/2022 5:32:17 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: JonPreston

That’s why Kirill is an ex KGB guy.

Rossiya dumb


7 posted on 04/30/2022 5:33:03 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Nextrush

Nah, war porn is Putin’s aggression and desperation


8 posted on 04/30/2022 5:33:32 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Cronos

Braindead is playing solitaire with a deck of 51.


9 posted on 04/30/2022 5:33:52 AM PDT by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

“Do we really wanna play this game with a mad man?”

We can play until he launches a “tactical (small) nuke”. One little nuke will have NATO running away to hide.


10 posted on 04/30/2022 5:34:44 AM PDT by Does so (https://youtu.be/3PxEWB6W8ig ......Uke's Independence Day Parade. Anthem starts at 15:00)
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To: Cronos

So many desire a war that will only end in the communist takeover of the US/EU and allies.


11 posted on 04/30/2022 5:37:40 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (We are being played by forces most do not understand)
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To: Cronos

$19.99/month? I don’t pay that much for my phone service.


12 posted on 04/30/2022 5:42:27 AM PDT by FLNittany
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To: Cronos

The enemy resides in Washington and China.


13 posted on 04/30/2022 5:43:21 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you. )
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To: Cronos

Pack is basically right about Putin’s motives and methods, but he doesn’t mention the central point: the idiot would have never tried it if Biden wasn’t President.

Weakness invites aggression, and Biden showed outright cowardice in Afghanistan, emboldening Putin to reach for the big banana of dominating Ukraine once again.

That it turned into a fiasco is merely luck and the determination of the ordinary people in Ukraine. Biden merely kept up the Trump policy of arming and supporting Ukraine materially.


14 posted on 04/30/2022 5:43:45 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: Cronos

Your hypocrisy is sinful


15 posted on 04/30/2022 5:45:13 AM PDT by JonPreston (Q: Never have so many, been so wrong, so often)
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To: Cronos

Putin Bad. Soros Good.

Life is so simple for the simple-minded.


16 posted on 04/30/2022 5:50:52 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Your bat-excrement crazy mental illness does not impose an obligation upon me to deny reality.)
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To: Cronos

“It’s Time to Beat Putin at Poker and Call His Bluff”

What if it’s not a bluff?


17 posted on 04/30/2022 5:51:50 AM PDT by antidemoncrat
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To: Does so
We can play until he launches a “tactical (small) nuke”. One little nuke will have NATO running away to hide.

Or maybe the nuclear powers in NATO would then give Ukraine tactical nukes to retaliate. The United Kingdom, the United States and France all promised to give Ukraine support in case of aggression when Ukraine abandoned its nukes in 1994. Russia agreed to that too. It's too late to change that now.
18 posted on 04/30/2022 5:56:34 AM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: Erik Latranyi

Unfortunately communists have already taken over America in almost every respect - politics, media, schools.... perhaps this is why there is such intense hatred by the elites for Russia - because they are breaking away from their communist past.


19 posted on 04/30/2022 6:00:04 AM PDT by imabadboy99
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To: Cronos
Yes, let's "call his bluff"!

He hasn't been behaving rationally for months now. He cares about our lives much less than he cares about the lives of Ukrainians and his own Russians, who he doesn't care about at all.

What could possibly go wrong?


20 posted on 04/30/2022 6:00:30 AM PDT by Sooth2222 (“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.” ("Every nation has the government it deserves.”) )
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