Jim Hoagland writes on foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Today he writes Putin isn't as clever as we've believed. He is a risk-taker who has been lucky in his foreign gambles and lucky to face an American president who is without courage, honor or love of country.
A mistaking of luck for skill is reminiscent of another venturesome autocrat whose successes early in World War II were seen as generalship, until he started losing in Russia and North Africa. Compare Putin's South Ossetia and Abkhazia successes (in Georgia) to Hitler's in the Sudetenland (of Czechoslovakia) and Putin's Crimea to Hitler's Anschluss in Austria.
If history has any predictive value, Putin may have one or two more wins before he begins to lose like Hitler. In this card game he is playing a weak hand with some skill, bluffing and finessing.
