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Just before I became Supreme Allied Commander at NATO in 2009, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia, a small, democratic, former Soviet Republic in the Caucuses. He used a trumped up “incident” and crushed his tiny neighbor, a country with only 3 million citizens. Russia then essentially annexed two small parts of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia by encouraging them to declare “independence” and then coming to their protection.
In 2014, just after I completed four years at NATO, he did it again, this time invading a much larger neighbor, Ukraine, and annexing Crimea. That invasion has led to over 14,000 deaths (and counting) and a virulent insurgency against the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region of southeast Ukraine.
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Now, essentially completing the invader’s hat trick, he has attacked a neighbor for the third time, and has again used the “independence” route to cobble up a rationale for the invasion. The break-away “republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk are now recognized by Russia, and “peacekeepers” in the form of Russian troops have again invaded a sovereign neighbor.
Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, said once that when someone shoots at you, the first time may be happenstance, the second time coincidence, but the third time is enemy action. It is time for the West to see Putin for what he is: a serial violator of national borders who wants to unwind the international order and restore what he can of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
What can the west do to stop him? How do we tear up the Putin playbook?
First and most simply, the U.S. and the democratic nations globally must shine a light on the actions of this rogue regime. If a burglar is approaching the house, light up the terrain surrounding it. The Biden Administration has done this well, utilizing massive dumps of intelligence and data, staying a step ahead of the Russians in terms of revealing their plans.
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Source : time
