Can someone explain to me how/why Putin's demands for a ceasefire telegraph weakness? I've seen the argument here and elsewhere, but I don't feel like I understand it.
Can someone explain to me how/why Putin's demands for a ceasefire telegraph weakness? I've seen the argument here and elsewhere, but I don't feel like I understand it.
When you are winning, the last thing you ask for is a cease fire... because you are winning. Why stop? It isn't like you are going to all of a sudden get all humanitarian and stuff.
People who are losing ask for cease fires. People who recognize that they are in a stalemate and not getting anywhere ask for cease fires. People who are trying to buy time because everything went sideways ask for cease fires.
OK...I'll give it a go...If you discount the fact that those demands may just be a feint serving the purpose of making himself look "reasonable" in some way to his own people and others inclined to support him in different parts of the world, if you were ostensibly Roman Reigns and found yourself in a match with Minnie Mouse, but Ms. Mouse unexpectedly turned out to be Ronda Rousey with outsized ears and you discovered that you were getting your ass kicked, would you not just go on and stomp the Mouse into a grease spot if you were able to do so without bringing the whole house down on your head instead of proffering a thinly veiled call for a timeout of sorts.
Pardon that particular metaphor, but I'm not the one who brought up WrestleMania...
Anything Putin does will be a con. He doesn't think much of Lenin, but it requires a strenuous exercise of credulity to imagine he would have agreed with Lenin to back down and sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk as an actual sincere undertaking.
True enough, I think. Putin is, among other nefarious things, a skillful con man. (How many successful tyrants throughout history haven't been, to one extent or another?) And as the old saw goes...it's hard to con a con. Hence the very sticky and real problem of how to bare our teeth to this dog in a way that he will ultimately believe without inviting him to call what may be seen as a bluff and an opportunity to go cock his leg someplace else. A place perhaps where there will be no way out for anyone that doesn't victimize everyone.
This rabid mutt needs to be put down. If it weren't for his nuclear bite, it would be much, much easier for all those wishing to do so to act as animal control and get it done. I sure don't envy any of them the decision-making process they are having to engage in at the moment, being burdened with a conscience as they are...definitely a disadvantage when playing for keeps with a mongrel that completely lacks the same.
Can someone explain to me how/why Putin's demands for a ceasefire telegraph weakness? I've seen the argument here and elsewhere, but I don't feel like I understand it.
When you are winning, the last thing you ask for is a cease fire... because you are winning. Why stop? It isn't like you are going to all of a sudden get all humanitarian and stuff.
People who are losing ask for cease fires. People who recognize that they are in a stalemate and not getting anywhere ask for cease fires. People who are trying to buy time because everything went sideways ask for cease fires.
OK...I'll give it a go...If you discount the fact that those demands may just be a feint serving the purpose of making himself look "reasonable" in some way to his own people and others inclined to support him in different parts of the world, if you were ostensibly Roman Reigns and found yourself in a match with Minnie Mouse, but Ms. Mouse unexpectedly turned out to be Ronda Rousey with outsized ears and you discovered that you were getting your ass kicked, would you not just go on and stomp the Mouse into a grease spot if you were able to do so without bringing the whole house down on your head instead of proffering a thinly veiled call for a timeout of sorts.
Pardon that particular metaphor, but I'm not the one who brought up WrestleMania...
Anything Putin does will be a con. He doesn't think much of Lenin, but it requires a strenuous exercise of credulity to imagine he would have agreed with Lenin to back down and sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk as an actual sincere undertaking.
True enough, I think. Putin is, among other nefarious things, a skillful con man. (How many successful tyrants throughout history haven't been, to one extent or another?) And as the old saw goes...it's hard to con a con. Hence the very sticky and real problem of how to bare our teeth to this dog in a way that he will ultimately believe without inviting him to call what may be seen as a bluff and an opportunity to go cock his leg someplace else. A place perhaps where there will be no way out for anyone that doesn't victimize everyone.
This rabid mutt needs to be put down. If it weren't for his nuclear bite, it would be much, much easier for all those wishing to do so to act as animal control and get it done. I sure don't envy any of them the decision-making process they are having to engage in at the moment, being burdened with a conscience as they are...definitely a disadvantage when playing for keeps with a mongrel that completely lacks the same.
Given that Putin's first negotiating terms were "surrender or die", (that is a paraphrase btw) he has backed off quite a bit.
So now we are reading, do not know if we should believe it or what it means, he has left Moscow/St Petersburg and retired to bunkers in the Urals.
My recommendation is -- be sure to tell your wife, children, and everyone you love -- you love them.
Oh thanks, that's simpler than I thought.