Events, my dear Putin, events.

Harold Macmillan, the mid 20th century Tory Prime Minister was  asked what was most likely to blow his Premiership off course and he answered in what is now a famous phrase:  "events, my dear boy, events." It appears that events apply to Vladimir Putin as well.

Up until recently Putin had developed an enviable track record for taking advantage of events to strengthen Russia's geopolitical position and his position atop the Russian state. For example, he took advantage of President Obama's dithering over Syria to cement ties with Bashir Al Assad, getting Russia's first middle east client regime in decades.  Russia also has taken advantage of its Orthodox cousin's economic distress to pull Greece and Cyprus closer in foreign policy to Russia than their EU partners.  He's used sloppy elections and the lack of legitimacy they bring to detach part of Georgia and the Crimea in pursuit of his ultimate goal of recreating the Russian Empire. And the Euros are hopelessly divided over any sanctions against Russia because of all the lucrative trade deals they had inked over the last decade.

And then just when everything was going swimmingly, some knucklehead went and gave the Ukrainian insurgents a serious SAM System which they promptly used to shoot down a bunch of Dutch holiday makers. They then compounded the horror by claiming they didn't do it and stealing and hiding the remains. It's like a cold war cliche. So now Europe is up in arms and most of the rest of the world is recognizing that letting a large bear into your affairs is asking for trouble.  And that sound you hear are a lot of global doors slamming shut for Russia and its crony capitalists.

And of course Putin was the knucklehead that put the weapons system of his own geoplolitical demise in the militia's hands. Apparently Mr. Putin had been believing his reviews about how he was a Machiavellian genius and not just the thuggish KGB apparatchik like everyone said.  This apparently led him to revise his timetable for getting control of the Russian speaking eastern Ukraine. After all, he's so smart and everyone else is so dumb so why wait?  So instead of following his strategy of waiting and capitalizing on events, he tried to push things along using a bunch of out of control freelancers. And he gave them the fancy weapons and they promptly used them to murder innocents...and Mr. Putin (and Russia's) reputation and standing in the world.

It's good to see that events can hamstring bad people too.  Here's to Vladimir "Vlad the Impaler" Putin being impaled on many, many more.