Putin is not crazy and the Russian invasion is not failing.................

[Valin]

The Daily Mail

..............The West's delusions about this war - and its failure to understand the enemy - will prevent it from saving Ukraine, writes military analyst BILL ROGGIO

Bill Roggio

2 March 2022

ill Roggio is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long war Journal. From 1991 to 1997, Roggio served as a signalman and infantryman in the U.S. Army and New Jersey National Guard 

Wishful thinking has the upper hand in the battle to shape Western perceptions of the war in Ukraine.

Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind.

A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient.

The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine.

We must be clear-eyed now that the war is underway.

Yet even the professionals at the Pentagon are letting sympathy cloud their judgement.

(Snip)