Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Was Putin serious when he threatened the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in the Ukraine war? (In case you wondered, a “strategic” nuclear weapon is long range – intercontinental – and usually with far more destructive power, whereas a “tactical” one is short range and with lesser power. But even a tactical one is more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima).   It's impossible to know for sure, obviously. As an Indian who has heard periodic threats of various Pakistanis at various rungs of their government and military on exactly this topic, I don’t remember anyone losing any sleep over such threats. But in this case, it is the US which has to decide whether to take the threat seriously, not India.   Is Putin getting desperate enough to actually thinking of using one? Or is he just bluffing, as a way to force NATO to consider if Ukraine is worth the risk of setting off a nuclear war? On the other side, remember how Trump had trashed the Europeans over NATO – he acc...

Sometimes, evil geniuses can be impressive. Very impressive. Like Lord Voldemort. A great (albeit evil) wizard, the man wasn’t just brute force. He could manipulate others into doing his work, he could improvise, he could use guile and cunning…And now I found a real life guy for that role: Vladimir Putin. For starters, just see why the man is even Russia’s President today. The Russian constitution (yes, they have one) says nobody can be President for more than 2 successive terms. Putin realized the keyword there was “successive”: so he served 2 successive terms, then made Medvedev his proxy for the next term, and now is back in power! How’s that for exploiting a loophole? And just see how Putin has handled the Ukraine/Crimean crisis. The EU had been wooing an in-dire-economic-straits Ukraine for some time to come into their orbit. Just when it looked Ukraine would say Yes (and Russia would lose access to the Crimean naval bases), Putin got the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanu...