"A blustering fellow more insolent than courageous : one given to hectoring, browbeating and threatening: especially : One habitually threatening, harsh, or cruel [beyond words] to others weaker or smaller than himself."

There is no doubt that Putin and Putin's Russia is a bully. The question is: What are we going to do about it?
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Look Over the Edge

Putin's plan was to overrun Ukraine with superior numbers and military hardware in just a few days. This included taking Kyiv, eradicating Zelenskyy , eliminating the democratically elected government, and intimidating the rest of the country by immediately placing Russian troops in all the major cities in Ukraine. With those troops in place. . .
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With All Due Respect to Boris Johnson

Nothing short of war is going to have any significant impact on Putin's empire building decisions. Furthermore the majority of the Russian populace believe in and support Putin; they are not about to  overthrow him for what he is doing in Ukraine.

Russia, in spite of any sanctions levied on it, has the  energy, agricultural, mineral and industrial resources  to carry on quite independently. Moreover. . .
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GEOPOLITICS 101

We are in a race with Russia and China for whose form of government will dominate the world for generations to come.

Both Putin an Xi represent a top down form of government where people are ruled by dictators. We have been working for years to develop a bottom up form of government where rules for behavior are determined by the people themselves.

Today we face a direct challenge to our way of life and our influence on the other countries of the world by Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Today, 01 March 2022, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made an appeal to the United States for direct military intervention: troops not simply munitions.

In his own words, broadcast on CNN, he said that ...
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UNITI STAMUS, DIVISI CADIMUS

Putin as Hitler Incarnate

The Naysayers

"This is Putin's War. But America and NATO Aren't Innocent Bystanders"

—Thomas L Friedman, New York Times opinion article, 21 February 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/putin-ukraine-nato.html

I generally like Friedman's political analyses, but this time his opinion is so far out in right field that he is sitting in the stands. However, he is not the only one who is blaming  the U.S. and NATO for helping to create a world order that "forced" Putin into invading Ukraine. The referenced article is Friedman's explanation of how he arrived at this conclusion, but a careful interpretation of the facts, rather than acceptance of opinions from extant policy wonks at work in the 90s, tell a much different story. And strangely enough all the relevant facts appear in this same article.

Friedman's argument goes something like this...

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