Putin is crazy like a fox.  His obsession with power and control has been evident for many years.  He has sensed Western democratic leaders' weakness and passivity.  He and his evil twin Xi of China have teamed up to make their power moves to control the world's economy and eventually our Western democracies in the long run of history.  Putin's and Xi's chess moves are done over decades, and they chortle at America's election cycles.

Biden's weakness demonstrated in the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan has been the historical inflection point of the Putin-Xi power moves.  Putin was also pleased at Biden's destruction of American energy independence.  Iran's poker-playing defeat of Biden regarding the imminent bogus Iran nuclear deal will add a third member of the new cold war axis of evil.

Many media pundits have raised the question of Putin's sanity.  A perennial problem in applied psychiatry is blurring the important difference between a destructive malignant personality disorder with psychopathic traits like Vladimir Putin and a paranoid schizophrenic or bipolar psychotic person.

Psychiatrists know that malignant personality disorders like Putin's can regress into depression and even paranoid non-schizophrenic psychosis.  After Putin's personal phobia about contracting COVID and his related isolation, Putin is showing evidence of personality changes, as observed by authorities like Dr. Condi Rice.  The ultimate danger is Putin's godlike grandiosity and ambition.  Western democracies in NATO who attempt "soft power of diplomacy" without firm military power to back it up proceed at their peril.  Sly foxes when cornered get exponential in their viciousness.

Peter A. Olsson, M.D. is a retired professor of psychiatry.

Image: Vladimir Putin via Flickr, CC BY 3.0.