#readwise # History Will Judge Vladimir Putin Harshly for His War  ## Metadata - Author: [[economist.com]] - Full Title: History Will Judge Vladimir Putin Harshly for His War - URL: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/02/26/history-will-judge-vladimir-putin-harshly-for-his-war ## Highlights - nothing about this war was inevitable. It is a conflict entirely of his own making. In the fighting and the misery that is to come, much Ukrainian and Russian blood will be spilled. Every drop of it will be splattered on Mr Putin’s hands. - the question is: where will he stop?To hear Mr Putin on the eve of the invasion, he would like the world to believe that he will stop at nothing. In his battle speech, recorded on February 21st and released as he unleashed the first volleys of cruise missiles against his fellow Slavs, Russia’s president railed against “the empire of lies” that is the West. Crowing over his nuclear arsenal, he pointedly threatened to “crush” any country that stood in his way. - Mr Putin seemingly covets all of Ukraine, just as American and British intelligence reports had claimed all along. In acting, he has set aside the everyday calculus of political risks and benefits. Instead he is driven by the dangerous, delusional idea that he has an appointment with history. - should Mr Putin seize a large swathe of Ukraine, the gatherer of the lands will not stop to make peace at its borders. He may not invade the NATO countries that were once in the Soviet empire, at least not at first. But, bloated by victory, he will subject them to the cyber attacks and information warfare that fall short of the threshold of conflict. - because he has come to believe that NATO threatens Russia and its people. Speaking earlier this week, he raged at the alliance’s eastward expansion. Later, he decried a fictitious “genocide” that he says the West is sponsoring in Ukraine. Mr Putin can’t tell his people that his army is fighting against their Ukrainian brothers and sisters who gained freedom. So he is telling them that Russia is at war with America, NATO and its proxies. - The abominable truth is that Mr Putin has launched an unprovoked assault on the sovereign country next door. He is obsessed with the defensive alliance to its west. And he is trampling the principles that underpin peace in the 21st century. That is why the world must inflict a heavy price for his aggression. - Until now, the alliance has sought to live within the pact signed with Russia in 1997, which limits NATO operations in the former Soviet bloc. NATO should rip it up and use the freedoms that creates to garrison troops in the east. That will take time. Meanwhile NATO should prove its unity and intent by immediately deploying its 40,000-strong rapid-reaction force to the frontline states. These troops will add credibility to its doctrine that an attack on one member is an attack on all. They will also signal to Mr Putin that the further he pushes in Ukraine, the more likely he is to end up strengthening NATO’s presence on its border—the very opposite of what he intends. - Some will say that it is too risky to challenge Mr Putin in these ways—because he has lost touch with reality, or because he will escalate, miscalculate or hug China. That would itself be a miscalculation. After 22 years at the top, even a dictator with an overdeveloped sense of his own destiny has a nose for survival and the ebb and flow of power. Many Russians, unclear about a crisis that has come from nowhere, may be unenthusiastic about waging a deadly war against their brothers and sisters in Ukraine. That is something the West can exploit. - Accommodating Mr Putin in the hope that he will start to behave nicely would be more dangerous still. Even China should see that a man who rampages across frontiers is a threat to the stability it seeks. The freer Mr Putin is to advance today, the more determined he will be to impose his vision tomorrow. And the more blood will be spilled in finally getting him to stop.