The Realism We Need

Edward Lucas

Realism is in the air. Not the realism we need—not a clear-eyed appreciation of the dangers facing our hitherto safe, free, and comfortable lives, of own weakness and of the strengths of our adversaries. This is inverted realism—a realism that says that to try to defend ourselves is unrealistic, that our enemies are not really our enemies and our allies not really our allies.
It comes to us from many quarters, on the left (German Social Democrats) and on the populist right (Donald Trump). Perhaps the most lucid recent exposition is a piece in First Things by my friend Peter Hitchens......To Read More.....

My Take - Two interesting piece here, but both fail to see the two incontrovertible facts that can't be ignored if we want to understand Russia and Putin.  Russia is breeding itself out of existance and it's broke, with a population dealing with hunger, HIV, resistant TB and alcoholism.   His army has only a few real specialist that are well trained and equiped.  The rest are warm bodies.  Putin can beat up some neighbors in short engagements, but he's incapable of maintaining a real war that's prolonged and expensive.