Quoting Victor Davis Hanson:
Russian strategists naïvely believed NATO would become paralyzed in mutual recriminations and fear and follow the usual German prompt of appeasement. In fact, NATO united precisely because of the dire worries over further Russian aggression, as the alliance pressured Germany to back off from its self-interested Russian romance.
Biden was a key player as vice president in the disastrous Obama Administration “reset” and “hot mic” appeasement of Russia. All that led to the 2014 invasions of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, to the dismantlement of U.S.-sponsored missile defense in Eastern Europe, and the Hunter Biden syndicate’s interference in corrupt Ukrainian politics to leverage millions of dollars into Biden family coffers.
In sum, Putin wrongly surmised that NATO would both point fingers while he absorbed half the country in a week and then negotiate away western Ukraine in fear. Thus, Putin did not factor in his own military incompetence, much less Joe Biden’s fear of a landslide loss in the impending midterm election should he continue to appear utterly weak and appeasing. And Putin completely misjudged Europe’s fear that a rich EU was ripe for the plucking—unless it united and poured its arsenals of top-flight weapons into Ukraine.
Add it all up, and Putin thought 2022 would resemble 2008 and 2014 when aggression went unpunished, acquisitions of former Soviet republic lands were easy, and the NATO alliance was comatose.
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