If he wasn't power mad, why did Putin go to such lengths to have the constitution changed so he could have a third and possibly a fourth term, or lifetime incumbency!?

And if he wasn't power mad, why did he back Ukraine separatists, who could have won their cause at the ballot box!?

And why did he justify the illegal annexation of Crimea, with claims that it always was Russian territory?

Interesting that Crimea has potential oil and gas reserves; which belong to the Crimean people and through them the impoverished Ukrainians!

Evidence? If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and waddles like a duck; the chances are it is a duck!

By their fruits ye shall know them!

To date his verbal assurances that he is going to pull back Russian troops building up like an invasion force on the border, are not worth the paper they're written on!
Rhrosty.

Mac. Thanks for making the basic point -which is ignored by “experts”, and without which there can be no sensible debate- Russia “has no democratic traditions”.
Re your previous post: Though the US is in decline, it is still militarily and economically overwhelmingly dominant, and BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are more aspiration than reality. However, when German big business finally realises that the EU’s future is a succession of Greeces, it will cast aside the US/Merkel anti-Russia policies and join in the exploitation of the vast resources of Central Asia. Then the pipelines and high speed trains from Beijing to Berlin will be transformed from chimera to reality. As I share Throsty’s pessimism, I fear this will produce an even worse global “hell in a handbasket”

The level of debate on foreign affairs in Australia ranges from poor to abysmal. One of the major reasons is that people like the present author are given space in fora like OLO to give vent to their ill-informed nonsense. Sure, it fits the current Weatern meme of demonising Russia in general and Mr Putin in particlar, but as a contribution to the sum of human knowledge it rates a zero.
It is the popularity of this pseudo commentary (and a large proportion of the comments that follow)that allows dangerous Neanderthals like Abbott and their ilk to run Australian foreign policy confident in the knowledge that no-one will call them on their dangerous stupidity.
When a country is so badly served by its political class and it's media then we are truly in deep trouble.