This line of reasoning keeps popping up and something about it bothers me - why go to war when you can get what you want in other, cheaper ways? It seems likely the correlation is real but so far no one has adduced any reasons to assume the causation actually goes the way they assume.
If you note that what Russia wants is Ukrainian territory (first Crimea in 2014 and then a land connection to Crimea in 2022), that was guaranteed to involve some amount of war. That will give you everything you need to infer the correct direction of causation.
Whoever was POTUS played no role in the timing of 2014. Putin invaded Donbas in 2014 in response to a revolution in Ukraine that ousted the unpopular Russia-aligned Yanukovych. Not because Obama was POTUS or because Trump wasn't POTUS.
Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine, if that was the goal? Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
> Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
If you think said stooge is likely to get reelected (which, except for COVID coming out of the blue, was highly likely) and that stooge is already making noise about isolationism, why interrupt?
2022 looks a lot like an "oh shit, plan B" scenario.
> Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine
Because that's when he had intelligence leading him to believe the Ukrainian regime would crumble quickly or capitulate in the face of a large-scale invasion, and possibly also the NATO would fail to unite and respond, in part due to the success of Russian influence operations, which were not only directed at the US.
Conversely, why not invade to destabilize the incumbency of the non-stooge so that the stooge wins re-election and then use the stooge to negotiate a favorable frozen conflict? Or why even attribute it to POTUS at all? Why not attribute it to the fact that Ukraine's military power was growing due to the Western training that they were receiving over the previous 10 years, and Putin was effectively on a clock to invade? Eastern European conflicts have never revolved around who is POTUS.
This line of reasoning keeps popping up and something about it bothers me - why go to war when you can get what you want in other, cheaper ways? It seems likely the correlation is real but so far no one has adduced any reasons to assume the causation actually goes the way they assume.
If you note that what Russia wants is Ukrainian territory (first Crimea in 2014 and then a land connection to Crimea in 2022), that was guaranteed to involve some amount of war. That will give you everything you need to infer the correct direction of causation.
Why do you think Russia wants territory? Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?
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Whoever was POTUS played no role in the timing of 2014. Putin invaded Donbas in 2014 in response to a revolution in Ukraine that ousted the unpopular Russia-aligned Yanukovych. Not because Obama was POTUS or because Trump wasn't POTUS.
Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine, if that was the goal? Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
> Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
If you think said stooge is likely to get reelected (which, except for COVID coming out of the blue, was highly likely) and that stooge is already making noise about isolationism, why interrupt?
2022 looks a lot like an "oh shit, plan B" scenario.
> Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine
Because that's when he had intelligence leading him to believe the Ukrainian regime would crumble quickly or capitulate in the face of a large-scale invasion, and possibly also the NATO would fail to unite and respond, in part due to the success of Russian influence operations, which were not only directed at the US.
Conversely, why not invade to destabilize the incumbency of the non-stooge so that the stooge wins re-election and then use the stooge to negotiate a favorable frozen conflict? Or why even attribute it to POTUS at all? Why not attribute it to the fact that Ukraine's military power was growing due to the Western training that they were receiving over the previous 10 years, and Putin was effectively on a clock to invade? Eastern European conflicts have never revolved around who is POTUS.