Is Putin the madman they say? Or is he, to the contrary, somebody who coldly calculates his rational self-interest, in the manner of Thomas Hobbes’s legendary sovereign power or Niccolò Machiavelli’s eponymous prince?
In short, is it surrealism, rooted in deranged psychological fantasy, or Realism, grounded in hardcore political science, that we are up against?
Or could there be an alternative way of looking at it, one less familiar, more specific, grown-up, and intellectually challenging, if also less emotionally reassuring?
Let’s try putting in jeopardy our own “moral clarity” for a change. After all, while every war must perforce seem “needless” to beautiful souls, just as any person in charge of a modern state could be tagged a “killer” by children, nevertheless, military conflict, experience teaches, will not always be so readily averted.
If only for the sake of a diverting thought experiment, let’s examine in a bit more detail some possibilities—in hopes of dispelling a portion of the gloom that engulfs us in these dark times.
