He escalated over the weekend and is continuing today on his course with even greater brutality.
In negotiations where so much has already happened, but where the worst is yet to come; where nuclear brinksmanship has already taken place; in any negotiation there is pride involved; if there is genuine desire to negotiate, the side with the upper hand must throw a sop to the weaker. Kennedy thoroughly humiliated Khrushchev in 1962, but even then, in a secret side agreement, he removed missiles from Turkey.
The West made decisions while feeling extreme emotion. They were tactical and emotionally reactive. What is the West's strategic goal? Even if it is as simple and as unrealistic as "Russia go home", if Russia did that today would the sanctions be lifted? What if, infinitely more likely, Russia conquers Ukraine and then exits? Do the sanctions continue then? For how long? Are the Russian people to be starved, their economy driven back to 1998?--which I am fine with, by the way. The point is the West has not thought this through several tactical steps: "We do this, they do that, we, they...Russia exits, we lift sanctions."--because we have no clear, thoughtful, realistic strategic objective Putin does! His objective, at the least, is a rollback of NATO. Our strategic goal should be determined first. Then the tactical steps to get there developed. Those steps must lead--quickly--to a path marked with candy to incentivize Putin to detour.
