Putin - the CEO of an oil and gas company with its own armed forces

Most of the reasons bandied about as to why Putin invaded Ukraine are clearly nonsense, unless he is insane. Denazification? Reclaiming lost Russian territory? A buffer zone between evil NATO and Mother Russia proper? Winning a popular war to burnish his tough guy image and distract his 'voters' from the failing economy/massive corruption (of which he is the main beneficiary)? They all seem implausible to me.

I watched a 40 minute video by Real Life Lore on YouTube which does seem very plausible, and does not presume insanity on Putin's part.

The post title is a quote from the video; he wants to be CEO of a state-owned/controlled monopoly, but a qualification for that is being President. Anything he does to remain in power is to be able to permanentaly re-appoint himself as CEO. He also has to run oil and gas half way competently to be able to pay off his selected oligarchs, with a bit left over to bribe the electorate.

Basically, all his invasions and interventions - Georgia, Chechnya, even Syria, annexing The Crimea, arming Donbas separatists, and now Ukraine proper - are about securing oil and gas reserves and/or controlling pipelines and ports (Black Sea, Aral Sea). Russia either takes the territory directly or bullies neighbouring countries into compliance (Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan). There are also apparently lots of gas reserves in the Sea of Azov, which Russia now has surrounded.

And Putin got away with all the previous incursions, the West did little to stop him apart from a few token sanctions, so he thought we would turn a blind eye to this one, which we didn't. Sleepy Joe as good as declared war on him personally.

Which is also why Putin couldn't care less if he carpet bombs the Donbas and Mariupol back to the Stone Age, he needs to control the geographic territory, not the people. They are superfluous to requirements (and he'd rather they all fled, today's civilian is tomorrow's partisan).

Also, Putin fights like a girl, belying his tough guy image.
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Anybody who starts bleating "But what about the Americans invading Iraq? They are just as bad!" can shut up. For sure, that was largely about oil (David Frost goaded Donald Rumsfeld into blurting that out) and not about WMDs (surely nobody believed that crap) or because Hussein was harbouring Al Qaeda (clearly bollocks).

But the Yanks did not routinely carpet bomb all the large cities, they didn't want the domestic backlash and dreamed they could win over the local population (yeah, right).

Furthermore, it was not too difficult to dislodge Hussein as a dictator, there was hardly a groundswell of popular support for him, the various factions were looking forward to fighting with each other again. Not that any of this is particularly relevant to what Putin's motives are.

Well, Duh

From the BBC

Afghan government forces have lost control of the centre of the town of Sangin in Helmand province after days of fierce fighting, reports suggest.

Officials told the BBC that the Taliban controlled the local government building and police station.

The Taliban say their fighters have seized the entire district and that their flag is flying over Sangin.

Yet another example of the West treating the rest of the world like the West. We continue to treat countries that are not industrialised, where the incentives are to grab land as though they are industrialised (where the incentives are to make a cheaper computer or handbag).

Someone out there might connect these two histories:

Invade Afghanistan
Install weak government
Protect government
Leave Afghanistan
Strong militia takes part of the country a few years later

and

Invade Iraq
Install weak government
Protect government
Leave Iraq
Strong militia takes part of the country a few years later

The only solution to places like Afghanistan is to find a way to industrialise them. That's what gives you democracy, human rights and so forth.