A confrontation is at hand between McCain and Putin. McCain will be the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He wants to arm Ukraine. He’s anti-Putin and anti-Russia. Obama is in the middle, trying not to go as far as McCain while still coming out with his own anti-Putin and anti-Russia policies such as sanctions. Putin regards those as blackmail.
Putin’s Sochi speech shows that he’s getting fed up with the U.S. policies. He will continue to play a deft game of exerting pressures and counter-measures but that game will not exclude the use of force suitably limited and controlled so as to avoid direct face-offs and burdensome commitments. The recent elections in Donbass are an example. Russia is also fond of using volunteers or non-uniformed soldiers or soldiers in the uniforms of others. If the U.S. supplies arms, so can Russia to its side. Putin can read the election returns too, and they probably will induce him to react quickly before the prospective pressures of the U.S. come into play. Putin is going to prove to be a more formidable opponent than McCain contemplates, that is, if he even thinks about it for which there is no evidence.
12:18 pm on November 6, 2014
