 Let me say that while you could and this is and this is why you went to war Maybe you could people could say that he went to walk as he felt threatened by NATO. That's a joke NATO is the last threatening thing in the world. There's nothing threatening about NATO. It's not threatening Hasn't gone to war. It's not going to go to war. They can NATO members barely agree on anything There's no consensus. I mean it's unique now that there is one because of this war But before that I mean one of the reasons Putin went to wars because he believed NATO was fragmented and they'd never agree on anything They would never threaten him and indeed if that was the standard if the standard was NATO expansion Well, Putin's lost the war ready Because much more valuable than Ukraine to NATO much more valuable than Ukraine is Finland and Sweden They have much longer border with Russia They have much better soldiers than Ukraine And so they're much longer border than Ukraine has with Russia Finland and Sweden do in the north They have much better Armies and they actually manufacture their own weapons. They have very sophisticated Weapon systems built in Sweden and Finland The fact that they were not part of NATO was a relief to Putin now they are He's lost this war if that was the goal the goal is to keep NATO away NATO's just got much closer to Moscow even closer to St. Petersburg and really close to forget the name of the port in the in the Baltic Sea there that it that Right that is this far from Estonia and not that far from Finland and Sweden so if NATO was the issue I think the issue was His desire for Empire for the Russian people for a legacy he wants to have statues Built you know constructed for him. He wants to be considered not Putin, but Putin the great there is a real desire here for a Great Russian mystical state. He sees the West weakness the West is weak He sees they're not weak militarily weak intellectually weak philosophically weak in our commitment to our ideas He sees that weakness. He's exploiting it. He's been plotting us for years Invading Georgia just to test it out. What did the West do when he invaded Georgia? Nothing basically Nothing, you know, they said don't go to Tbilisi George Bush, I think told him that but clear clearly nothing He prided them in 2014 with Crimea and Donbass. What did the West do? Nothing So what did he figure the West would do this time? Nothing and this time he was going to go to Kiev and it was going to be over in a week for a variety of reasons He was that delusional So he believes in this greater destiny of Russia the West is weak that is a sign This is the time to he's probably sick as well So this is a good time for him to implement this destiny and bring it to the reality Ukraine was goal number one Georgia was going to be number two if they're not gonna if we're not gonna stand up to him in Ukraine We certainly wouldn't stand up to him in Georgia. Georgia Armenia Azerbaijan. Why not? Right this oil is natural resources. He is oriented towards oil and natural resources. Guess what exists in the southeast of Ukraine Oil and natural gas huge reserves largest in Europe Exists right there under the Ukrainian land on the border with Russia the land that he now is occupying He has that mentality of zero some natural resources. That's what he want not trade And there's one other thing that I think really scared Putin Putin knows deep down. He'll never admit it and he can't maybe even admit it even to himself But Putin knows way deep down that he is an illegitimate leader Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show if you'd like to support the show We make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to Iran book show dot com slash support I go to patreon subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those any one of those channels also if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow Please consider Sharing our content and of course subscribe press that little bell button right down there on YouTube So that you get an announcement when we go live and for you those of you who already Subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show. Thank you. I very much appreciate it