Strategists contemplate great power politics by assuming that the previous century of American experience offers sufficient analogous historical examples while ignoring lessons that contradict that experience. The accepted set of assumptions about great power competition, as a result, rests on an anomalous period of world history during which ideology drove great power politics rather than calculated national interest. To challenge those assumptions, strategists must broaden the set of historical analogies from which they draw lessons for the twenty-first century.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
