The Ukraine Gambit

Having played the game of imperialist anachronism for so very long, I wonder if they might be blind to the extent to which each and every pathological assertion of expansionist control only ever guarantees the eventual and inevitable, plausibly accelerated downstream dissolution of their own state power apparatus. I acknowledge that their political and strategic perspective is fundamentally different to ours (in the so-called “West”) and yet I wonder in what degree or to what extent the manufacture of crises is a necessary component for the sustainable continuity of authoritarian ideology. What, in essence, do they gain from geopolitical posturing on a spectrum up to and including catastrophic Global conflagration? Credibility? Assurance? Security? Narrative arc as historical self-validation? Or perhaps this is all as much and simply a matter of playing the game (of playing the game) of Great Leader and there is really much less long-term planning than there is a sense of their being swept away in the theatrical roles and grave responsibilities they now find themselves inhabiting?