When I see Putin,
Sitting at the extreme end of a long table,
And read about his increasing isolation
From the rest of his people,
I can somehow relate to such obsessive tendencies,
In a situation with terrible mental health,
Where you’re totally isolated;
Obsessive behaviours get out of control,
They’re an in-built way of coping
When there’s no way out;
It only gets worse the more you are backed into a corner;
If he’s indeed experiencing obsessive, paranoid impulses,
Then that’s probably also behind the preoccupation with restoring the Soviet Union;
Together with his obvious narcissism,
He’d probably stop at nothing to make things ‘just right’ in his eyes;
Who else could reach the head of such a system,
Without extreme levels of obsessiveness?
It usually goes hand-in-hand with extreme levels of ambition;
So for me all of this could explain his actions,
And suggests the situation really is now coming down to basic human impulses,
Which should be worrying,
But at the same time nuclear catastrophes have been averted many times,
Such as the time in 1984 that Soviet Lieutenant colonel disobeyed orders, correctly judging a false alarm;
So the hope lies in the fact that enough people in the chain of command will clearly see the mental and emotional dysfunctions going on,
Besides acting on their own medium-term self-preservation;
Personally, I’m feeling like this is becoming a more likely scenario each day;
And although we continually live under the spectre of future nuclear war,
Each successfully-averted incident is useful knowledge in averting the next.
πͺ
π»πππππ
π πΆπ πͺππππ πͺ 
The trouble with having nuclear weapons is that one day they might be used…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeahβ¦it’s complicated! Their existence has prevented a lot of conflicts. But then in certain situations like with Russia now, it actually grants a very high level of immunity to rogue countries acting on countries unprotected in some way by nuclear weapons. But mostly there are less conflicts with them around when most countries are part of defence pacts with nuclear countries. In practical terms they’re pretty safe in the hands of democratic countries I guess. Mutually-assured destruction is such a perfect motivator for avoiding conflicts, a unique point in history which we’ve reached. An all-or-nothing. Prob is the ‘all’ scenario is irreversible :\.
Conflict is generally moving into the economic/cyber realms. The bigger threat may end up being rogue nations using the anonymity of cyber warfare (or at least plausible deniability) to do ridiculous infrastructure attacks on countries.
I really feel like diplomacy has improved over time too. And the existence of the internet is a massive positive force for people being able to relate with other people I’ve noticed. The internet is really educating those generations who’ve grown up with it. The current situation may even end up being a long-term net positive in some ways. So anyways, this is how I justify to myself that it’s not all doom even though on the face of it that’s what nuclear weapons stand for :D. Each time we avoid nuclear warfare gives hope for finding a way through this point in history and out the other side :). It forces diplomacy to grow up right?
LikeLiked by 1 person
You know something which is horrifying about this current situation is it really hits you how much of a luxury it is to even be able to contemplate long-term effects in the future and blah blah. When you’re in a war yourself everything is so much more immediate. Everything else has hardly any relevance to a single human.
LikeLiked by 1 person