Putin Pulls a Page from Reagan's Playbook

Today, American officials and hard-line pundits insist NATO expansion was and is not a hostile act, and that support for Kiev poses absolutely no threat to Russia whatsoever. In this view, Putin is either deluded or dissembling when he talks about foreign dangers. Or maybe what really scares him is the possibility that Ukraine might prosper and make his own rule in Moscow look bad. But even if this view is objectively correct, it is beside the point. It doesn’t matter if our intentions are noble and NATO or EU expansion presents no genuine threat; what matters is whether Russia’s leaders think it is a threat, or worry that it might become one in the future. If Putin and Co. do see things that way — and there’s no reason to believe they don’t — they will be willing to play a large price to keep the threat at bay.