Putin, by far the most experienced political manipulator, is now showing a bit. (Merkel has left the geopolitical scene)
As long as Putin keeps his threat at the level of a shadow theater, he can play cards slowly — most of them gone the moment he enters Ukraine.
On a hypothetical chessboard, Putin's every move has deterred NATO, which is better than a military response after Russia invaded Ukraine and then had to fight back with real tanks and missiles.
Everyone knows this, and Putin knows that Western opponents are mainly pandering to domestic audiences. Even Ukraine understands this, which complicates the problem because, unlike its war-mongering Western leaders and their mainstream media, Ukrainian leaders have refused to publicly state that a Russian invasion is "imminent."
Putin is exploiting the obvious weaknesses of his Western opponents, breaking through one by one. In doing so, he ensures that NATO cannot respond in a coordinated manner to his initiative on Ukraine and that IT will be further constrained for the foreseeable future.
The Biden administration must divert attention from its stagnant domestic agenda, especially the damage done by Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema. Biden must also reassure NATO that he is not Trump, that is, he sees NATO as the pivot to any role the United States plays in Europe and the former Eastern Bloc.
Germany's new chancellor, Scholz, whose expertise is finance, is far less influential in international affairs than Merkel. In addition, he led a newly formed coalition, with the Greens as a secondary partner, and currently, The Greens Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock plays an equal role with Scholz in handling Ukrainian affairs. Scholz's naïve diplomacy is summed up in: "All options are on the table." Putin has made the most of this.
France held the first round of voting in the presidential elections on 10 April 2022. If no candidate obtains a majority of votes in the first round of balloting, a run-off will be held on 24 April 2022. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is expected to win because his left and right opposition is in a state of chaos. Macron prefers direct dialogue with Russia rather than a belligerent posture toward Putin, which could make domestic interests unpredictable as elections approach.
Britain, led by Boris Johnson, was not taken seriously at all in this crisis – every protagonist knew that every word he said was to keep his job. Boris Johnson is under criminal investigation for opening a locks party at his official residence in 2020.
Conan Doyle's mystery novel Silver Light tells the story of a famous racehorse who disappears the night before the race. In this novel, Holmes solves the puzzle to some extent, as he discovers that those who spoke to him during the investigation say that they did not hear the barking of the stable watchdog at night. Scotland Yard Detective Gregory, who was also in charge of investigating the case, told Holmes, "This dog does nothing at night," to which Holmes replied, "That's the strange thing."
Holmes used the absence of this fact to solve the mystery by deducing that the murderer must have been someone the dog knew, and therefore an insider of the dog. In the case of the Ukraine crisis, there were several NATO members (so to speak), located mainly on the southern edge of Europe, and did not bark in the expected way – namely Greece, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Portugal and Spain.
It's clear why these NATO dogs don't bark around the Mediterranean. Ukraine simply does not serve their political and economic interests. This only confirms that NATO is a large and discordant structure that serves the interests of the core countries of its western front, so at a critical juncture, what is the matter with these eastern countries?
It does not take political analysts like Holmes to infer from this that any military action by NATO against Russia will not achieve any similar agreement among its member states.
So this is just a fake war, Putin will not let them unite, as long as military pressure is maintained, the greatest benefits will be achieved.