As a rule, the dictators of history indulge in maniac behavior when they see there are people who are ready to carry out their orders.
Being a retired psychologist, I made my living out of profiling people for decades. People as close as those in my office or as distant as presidents, people of interest for the department of homeland security, kings, murderers even historical figures of a thousand years ago. Now we are trying to figure out Putin.
There are several rules for psychological profiling. The first rule is that the more intelligent the person, the more sophisticated their psychological makeup and more difficult to examine. The second rule is that the more unusual the persons past the more difficult to write a report about a person, even if he or she is in your office and is willing to submit to psychological testing.
In case of Mr. Vladimir Putin because of his KGB background we only know things about his past that he has permitted to be leaked out. The rest is information extrapolated from his well-controlled media. Not having access to his CIA & MI6 files makes it more difficult.
His public behavior a kind of speaks for itself. I was mad at him for insulting Iranians last week by meeting the ignorant Iranian president over a long table, sitting in far distance from him. But he proved me wrong by giving the same treatment to Macron of France few days ago. These types of behavior of phobia of germs were seen from very disturbed people like Saddam Hussein. The showoff of the muscles, half naked on a horse was funny on the Saturday Night Live of NBC, but in reality, it is really not funny. There is an expansive ego, with all of the leftovers of Soviet Union and whatever Russian scientist have mustered up since the collapse of the USSR.
He hates the NATO, because he is scared of all that fire power in his backyard. These countries which made up the old Soviet Union republics hate Russians for what they have done to them throughout the history. Peter the great and the rest of the tsars of Russia were not very nice guys and Putin knows that. The population of some of these republics or Warsaw pact countries are quite cohesive but places closer to Russia are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle of different nationalities. My grandparents immigrated back to Iran running away from Stalin. I had a friend in Tehran whose grandfather had emigrated from Kiev to Tehran. They say the Russian population of Ukraine do not like their government, but if they want independence, they will hate being a part of Putin's dictatorship than Ukraine's unfriendly government.
Our military friends on the opednews report that American military is in no shape to go head-to-head with Russians. However, they know, you know, I know, and Putin definitely knows that in case of a need for readiness everything could be installed in its proper place in six months.
Invasion of a country is different to sequestering its population, and sequestering a population is different to holding on to an invaded county.
Putin's forces have circled around Ukraine like a chess board, when you have your king surrounded by the opponent's queen, bishops and rooks. One push and they will be fighting a small country with over whelming superior force in winter. Putin is probably banking on a quick victory and a rapid withdrawal. However, hoping a rapid withdrawal and having a rapid withdrawal are two different things.
I hope that he knows his massive ego and his terrible fears of NATO and that he knows that a miscalculation could be a bad for him like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
(Article changed on Feb 11, 2022 at 8:25 PM EST)
(Article changed on Feb 11, 2022 at 11:18 PM EST)
1
