You might be right. You seem to be speaking of things that fall in that grey area between what's done by individual or group command structures and the political powers/top military command structures that determine overall strategy. I may still be wrong, and I'm not sure I completely agree. But your clarification has made me sure that, were we to sit down over a coffee, tea, beer, or martini, and enough time, we'd have the chance to find our common ground.

Also, I think we can agree that Putin's the kind of dangerous that Kissinger always was, that Bush was, that too many policy-makers in the First World have been.