Putin is largely ignoring the expertise of his military advisors, US analysts said in a report. Instead, he is making most of the key decisions on his own, they said. The experts at the RAND Corporation said Putin has proved more cautious than many expected. Russian President Vladimir Putin is making key decisions about the Ukraine war largely on his own, without input from his generals, analysts said in a report published last week.
But while doing so, Putin has proven to be more cautious than expected, said the report from the US-based RAND Corporation.
“Putin [is] making key decisions largely on his own without substantial influence from the Russian General Staff,” the analysts said in the report.
RAND said that was simply because Putin does not trust those around him — and so makes “little use of economic or military expertise” at his disposal.
The generals lack the necessary imagination. Each one can only imagine his own glorious reign and cannot imagine another person ever doing the same. So when something happens to Putin, they can only fight to the death among themselves and their followers. It is what happened in the minds of the most competent generals of Alexander the Great, Leonidas and Genghis Khan. Their nations, relatively law-abiding, stable and prosperous, reverted to (old and familiar) blood soaked chaos within a few years. It will happen again.