cemented during these the spans to economic sanctions and the like what i do think is important though the lesson that the chinese are taking away from this is one that is negative about the idea of incursion into a neighboring nation state and the response of a unified world to it. nothing has done more to unify nato and make it a useful thing again, something that a lot of us have been skeptical about than the past four weeks. and to hugh s point about the level of reaction that the russians have experienced being one that they did not expect, they also miscalculated when it came to something very basic which is the weather. the mud season that has gone on there has certainly proved difficult for russian army to move in the way that they needed it to move. and now i think you see an escalation, something that was inevitable because putin does double down. he never likes to accept any kind of defeat even one that is not achieving his aims in a