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I can’t accurately analyze Putin, lack of information.

However, he studied law and economics. He was a KGB agent and rose to the rank of LTC (attending various service schools). He has a real PhD, not some honorable or Cracker Jack box degree. Besides Russian, he’s a fluent German and functional English speaker. Having served as long as he has as President of Russia, and seeing how he communicates (flow of ideas, structure...) and reacts in crisis such and now with Ukraine (measured response, sequencing events, coordination of message with actions...), I am going to make the assumption that there is an analytical and pragmatic mind at work.

IMHO, that is a man grounded in the physical reality around him and able to work with that (few people are truly like that). Most people live in a part-time fantasy world they create and here in America we feed (people politically or economically benefit from this) these imaginary worlds in which people exist (LGBTQIA, racism, feminism...). When you live in a fantasy, eventually, reality (human nature, the forces of nature, simple math, or forces of economics) catch up with you, example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWmkwaTQ0k). Putin strikes me as someone that is entirely in the physical world.

All that said, Putin is well aware of what Russia is able to do militarily, economically, politically. They may be in landmass very big, but up until this war in Ukraine, they were #5 in conventional military size and spending roughly the same we were as a percent GDP on defense, despite being a much smaller economy. They have some political influence in the world, they have an economy with some size, but they are small compared to us, very small compared to the West. The idea you float isn’t realistic.

You’re not realistically taking a military (these were facts before the war started) with 1:10 the US budget, 55% the size of the US Army/Marine Corps (land forces), 47% the size of the USAF, 43% the size of the USN, with 1/3 the size of our IC, 44% our population, 40% the number of males reaching military age annually, 1/5 our industry, 1/10 our GDP, 1/5 our PPP, less high tech, less allies, weaker allies, allies that are mired with external and internal threats that are unable to do much for you (example Chechnya), and going on a conquest to rebuild some empire.

What you propose would be like the President of the Netherlands dreaming of rebuilding their empire. There was a time where they too had a vast empire: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/7nscm4/the_dutch_empire_1795/#lightbox They can’t physically do it, and fantasizing about it, won’t make it happen. Russia can’t go on some world conquest or rebuild the Soviet empire, they cannot physically do it.

The real world: Russia is basically using a T72 tank rebranded as T90. They have no equivalent to a B2, F22, F35... They have 1/3 the intel/recon satellites we have, and they are technically not as capable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites They have nothing equivalent to a US super carrier... This war in Ukraine is requiring Russia to partially mobilize its population and economy (conscription, ~7% GDP spending) for war in order to achieve their national objective of stopping Ukraine from joining NATO. We’re trying to argue this both ways. On the one hand we want to argue how Ukraine is winning over Russia but on the other hand how Russia is this huge threat. IMHO, Russia is winning, but only at a huge cost and with a concerted national effort in doing so. Pretending like Russia is this massive threat that will plow Westward, retake the Balkan states once they take Ukraine (which they won’t - they have limited objectives in Ukraine), is not even remotely feasible.

It is precisely because Russia is weak in conventional terms, that we are the ones going after them. Not them going after us, us going after them. We are pushing on the Russians hard, may it be in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Libya, all nations aligned or allied with them. These are facts, not dreams, not speculation, not assumptions... These are all Russian aligned or formal allies we have invaded, attacked, or sponsored a coups in. In the last 2 years, Russia has scored a few small victories downplayed by our media (they are pushing back): Chad, Niger, Sudan. But make no illusions, we are the shark smelling blood and have been going after them for years:

Iraq 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq

Libya 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya

Syria 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war

Venezuela 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)

All of them are coincidentally major oil producers.

These are facts, not some theory where we’re trying to guess what Putin is thinking, what his dreams are.

It is a physical fact, a reality that can be proven that NATO has expanded Eastward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2468hDl6E It’s not Russia expanding Westward, it’s us expanding Eastward.

If we want to live in reality and not some fantasy world:

—It’s us that is doing the expanding, not Russia.

—It’s us that is the big boy on the playground, not Russia.

—We’re the ones calling the shots (i.e. making the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO), they are the ones reacting to us.

If we had not made the move to bring Ukraine into NATO, we today would not be having this conversation, because this war would have never been.