Underestimation.

This is coolbert:

From a variety of sources to include Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, New York, NY, Fri, Mar 4, 2022. WSJ = Wall Street Journal.

The old Russian hand speaks.

"THE TWO BLUNDERS THAT CAUSED THE UKRAINE WAR"

"Robert Service, a leading historian of Russia, says Moscow will win the war but will lose the peace and fail to subjugate Ukraine. How Putin could be deposed."

"Mr. Service, 74, is a veteran historian of Russia, a professor emeritus at St. Antony’s College, Oxford and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution."

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense strategic blunders, Robert Service says. * The first came on Nov. 10, when the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

[....]

" * The second strategic error was Mr. Putin’s underestimation of his rivals. 'He despises the West and what he sees as Western decadence,' Mr. Service says. 'He had come to believe that the West was a shambles, both politically and culturally.' He also thought that the leaders of the West were 'of poor quality, and inexperienced, in comparison with himself. After all, he’s been in power 20 years.'”

THAT PERCEPTION TOO OF THE USA  AND PRESIDENT BIDEN IN PARTICULAR IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE WILLY-NILLY EVACUATION AND ABANDONMENT OF AFGHAN TO THE TALIBAN I MIGHT EXPECT A MAJOR CONSIDERATION FOR VLAD. AMERICA IS SEEN AS UNWORTHY OF TRUST AND UNABLE TO MAINTAIN COMMITTMENTS.

coolbert.