Admiral Stavridis on Russia-Ukraine Conflict: ‘Has Putin Met His Vietnam?’

EXCERPT:

STAVRIDIS: "Yeah, I think Andrea and I are old enough — or shall I say senior enough to look at this and think, has Putin met his Vietnam? This is really starting to rattle the echoes of that war. It is most directly in the home front aspect of it, the protests, the people running away from this, really quite remarkable. You know, our secretary of state, who is handling this beautifully, yesterday at the United Nations said Putin has really doubled down. I’m going to add on, I think he’s tripled down in that he is rattling the nuclear saber, he is talking about this faux set of referendums in eastern Ukraine effectively annexing those conquered territories, and he's calling up 300,000 reservists. That’s a triple. It may be he’s all in. So, this is, in fact, a dangerous moment. Let me put those three things in perspective very quickly. The nuclear one I don’t lose a lot of sleep over. I don’t see Putin deciding to use a nuclear weapon. It would create a huge movement away from him dramatically in world opinion. Maybe he doesn’t care about it, but he cares about what India, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, what that kind of swing vote cares about. So, I don’t see him using a nuclear weapon. He can achieve those effects with other aspects of his military. The faux referendum, no one is going to believe it, it’s total nonsense. I am focused on this 300,000 troops coming up, and there I am skeptical that Putin will be able to get them into fighting shape, if you will, and into Ukraine in anything less than months and months and months, particularly given the pushback he’s receiving at home. So, bottom line, Putin is upping the ante, to stay with a poker analogy, maybe going all in, but I think the storm clouds are rising for Vladimir Putin."