Originally Posted by
langleybaston
The highly probable accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO is a very good example of the law of unintended consequences.
In an autocracy they don't dare address worst case scenarios.
That is one huge extra border, with a very good army, added to Putin’s paranoia.
And that last bit is what worries me the most. Not
per se the prolonged War, because I can believe the Western Democracies can support Ukraine materially as Russia’s manpower losses and consumption of high-tech weaponry continue.
But Putin will not, and cannot, back down. So the more pressure applied, the more he is likely to over-react irrationally.