The strange decision of Putin

I have not been writing on this blog for quite a while as was focusing my entry on my other blog. But my thoughts on the war cloud my mind for analysis of the market. 

As a result, I need to separate my thoughts, and this blog will help me to do so. Strategic management is one of my favorite subject, While my earlier course did not bring me deep into strategic management, I nevertheless attracted the subject, my lecturer's praise of the Sun Zi Art Of War at the time led me to going deeper into this ancient book on strategy. 

 While it is labelled as the "Art of war", most of the topics involves situational management. Many companies more or less adopted some philosophy of this book but failed to have thorough understanding leading to the failure of the companies themselves. 

 In the first topic of the book for instance, it mentioned the path as the first of the 5 element, this is equivalent to the mission statement of a company. What most companies fail to understand is what they are required to do with the path. The book stated that "the path, requires the agreement from the people, and people are willing to live and die with it". Many companies set their mission statement but instead of following it whole heartedly, only used it to show off to others. As such the companies lack clarity of its direction and employees most of the time have the mission on their mouth and not in their heart, they follow their own interest and place company's interest as secondary, leading to companies' failure. 

The topic of the day is strange decision of Putin, then why I started of with mission statement? I mentioned in the other blog of mine my discussion with my friend, I continued to claim that there is no justification for Putin to attack Ukraine. It is not that I condemn Putin for starting a war which many think is an evil event. big countries start war with smaller countries all the time, USA for instance started at least 2 during my lifetime, Iraq and Afghanistan. Do they have justification for doing so?

 Compare to Russia, USA and its ally UK at least put much effort to "justify" their stand and make it seemingly a plausible reason to attack Iraq, everyone however knows it is about oil. They are "justified" with attack on Afghanistan due to 911. 

 Putin on the other hand has really little justification, by claiming that his purpose is to topple a Nazi regime, which is the government of Ukraine. He really spent very little effort justifying his stand, it is in fact very weak and even his own citizens do not believe leading to strong opposition from many of Russia's cities, very rare sight of a dictator country. 

The question is: why does Putin wants to attack Ukraine at this point of time? Is it due to the threat of Nato shift eastward threatening the sovereignty of Russia? 

 It does not seem so to me. I would certainly not fear of the western Nato considering the strong reputation of my army, if I am Putin of course. 

 Putin in my opinion is calculative and highly strategic, he maintain a low profile all the time to avoid the world's radar. He is very diplomatic and has throughout the years built up good relationship with many countries, therefore it is very unlike him that he would suddenly decide to invade another country. 

I feel that it is more of constant push of western propaganda labelling Russia as an evil entity that finally making Putin loses his cool, and his original intention was to use Ukraine to teach the west a lesson, " I have a strong army, I can do whatever I want and you won't dare to stop me". 

 Considering that Biden is a weak president while European union in a state of dis-unity, plus the president of Ukraine with little support from the people, it would be a quick and easy battle. He in fact despises the Ukrainian president as Zelenskyy was a standup comedian and an comedy actor before becoming the president of Ukraine. 

 I believe that after being a dictator for so many years, he under-estimated his opponent as well as the state of unity in his country and the true strength of his army. 

As a dictator, he is very isolated, and those around him will not dare to say anything that he does not like to hear. Many of the videos about his meeting with his generals and advisors are seen with a great physical distance set between him and them, and most of the time, he is the one giving instruction while those in the meeting listen. 

At this point of time, the disguise of being a humane invasion is removed, Ukrainians are being bombarded daily indiscriminaently. 

Yet, it seems that not only Russia is failing in its objective, it has sunk deep into a much longer term warfare. At this point of time, the one person who wishes the war ends soon is actually Putin himself.