This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

To state the obvious, it is hard for Americans like me to understand the reasons why Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine.

What is he trying to achieve?  Does what has happened so far – courageous actions by Ukraine citizens to fight Russian invaders – give him second thoughts?

As I said, who knows?

But I have been continuing to read the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Atlantic Magazine in an effort to understand more than I know on my own sitting in seat of relative luxury in La Quinta, California.

I do this trying to achieve the following balance:

• Reading enough to get at least a superficial picture of what is going on.

• Avoiding a tendency to drown in information because I do not have enough time in a day to read everything, with all due respect to the quality reporters who write stories.  Plus, as one American, there is not much I can do about this war other than to pray for its end.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a calculating and savvy strongman is collapsing as his war on Ukraine enters its third week.

“Whatever drove Putin’s decision to launch an invasion in the first place—be it nostalgia for the Soviet Union, fear of encroaching democracy, too much pandemic isolation, or a mix of all three—the campaign has already come at a devastating price.

“More than 2 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, and, according to the United Nations, hundreds of civilians have been killed.  Russia’s economy, meanwhile, is bending under the weight of sanctions.

“The crisis that Putin set off has arguably revealed his true nature, and the image that’s emerging is not exactly one of a cool-headed, geopolitical mastermind.

• Sergei Dobrynin, a Russian reporter who once thought that “Putin’s cunning was undeniable,” now sees him as immoral and irrational:“It was painfully obvious that a war would be catastrophic. I told myself, Putin is evil.  But he is not an idiot.  That’s what I kept telling myself right up until the night of February 24.”
• He’s creating the NATO he feared. “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has primarily succeeded in materializing his worst fears: A unified West, a more militarized Europe, and a stronger, more attractive NATO.”
• And yes, he’s been canceled—deservedly so.  “When a Russian spymaster complains about his country’s cancellation, our response should not be to laugh at an idiot confusing a culture war and a real one.  Instead, we should recognize that economic and social isolation is a powerful weapon, and resolve to use it with the same restraint as any other weapon.”

Plus, this savvy analysis from the Wall Street Journal:

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense strategic blunders.  The first came on November 10, when the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  The pact made it likelier than ever that Ukraine would eventually join NATO—an intolerable prospect for  Putin.

“The second strategic error was Putin’s underestimation of his rivals. He despises the West and what he sees as Western decadence.  He had come to believe that the West was a shambles, both politically and culturally.  He also thought that the leaders of the West were of poor quality, and inexperienced, in comparison with himself.  After all, he’s been in power 20 years.”

So, the image that keeps coming back to me is the comparison between Adolph Hitler and Putin.  It appeared both wanted to restore “their country” to what they define as past glory.

Hitler didn’t care how many lives were lost in the process (not to mention the Jews whom he wanted to decimate) and, today.  Putin doesn’t care either.  Even in regard to his own Russian people, not to mention Ukrainians.

Back to this blog headline:  As a description of Putin, I vote for mad.