The Problem with the Donbas | Would Russia Really Launch Nuclear Weapons? | What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?, and more

What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?  (Bret Stephens, New York Times)
The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.
He thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would welcome his troops. They didn’t. He thought he’d swiftly depose Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. He hasn’t. He thought he’d divide NATO. He’s united it. He thought he had sanction-proofed his economy. He’s wrecked it. He thought the Chinese would help him out. They’re hedging their bets. He thought his modernized military would make mincemeat of Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainians are making mincemeat of his, at least on some fronts.
Putin’s miscalculations raise questions about his strategic judgment and mental state. Who, if anyone, is advising him? Has he lost contact with reality? Is he physically unwell? Mentally?
The conventional wisdom is entirely plausible. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the West is only playing into Putin’s hands once again?
This alternative analysis of Putin’s performance could be wrong. Then again, in war, politics and life, it’s always wiser to treat your adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.

4 Reasons Why Putin’s War Has Changed Big Tech Forever  (Steven Feldstein, Foreign Policy)
The conflict has permanently upended how the major platforms do business.

Yes, There Is a Clash of Civilizations  (Ross Douthat, New York Times)
In 1996 the political scientist Samuel Huntington offered several strong claims about the post-Cold War world.
Global politics was becoming not just “multipolar” but “multicivilizational,” he argued, with competing powers modernizing along different cultural lines, not simply converging with the liberal West.
These claims were the backbone of Huntington’s book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” which was seen as a sweeping interpretive alternative to Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis, with its vision of liberal democracy as the horizon toward which post-Cold War societies were likely to converge.
The Huntington thesis would seem ripe for new attention in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the surprisingly unified Western response, the more uncertain reactions from China and India. 

Britain Must Increase Its Military Spending  (Paul Mason, New Statesman)
The U.K. needs an army closer to its Cold War size to fight the systemic conflict that Vladimir Putin is threatening.

Is Russia’s Invasion a Case of Coercive Diplomacy Gone Wrong?  (James Siebens, War on the Rocks)
Conventional wisdom can change quickly. Whereas many opinion-makers once believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats were no more than a bluff, after Russian forces invaded Ukraine (again), conventional wisdom settled on a new position: that he planned to invade Ukraine all along, and that Moscow’s diplomatic efforts in advance of the assault were mere window-dressing meant to distract and divide the West. However, it is worth considering that the opposite might be true: that Moscow thought it might obtain some of its aims via coercive diplomacy and brinksmanship, and that the final decision to invade was only taken after these efforts failed. This could, in part, explain why the initial Russian military operation was so “bizarre” and haphazard — defined by “underweighted” and “piecemeal” attacks, obvious logistical problems, and a lack of basic combined arms tactics — and why most Russian soldiers were not told they would be invading Ukraine until the last moment (or, in some cases, not at all). How can we reconcile all the time and effort supposedly spent preparing for this invasion with the Russian army’s apparent lack of readiness for it?