Wretchard, I don’t think you understand the nature of Putin’s gamble.

He bet it all on oil. Which the Chinese do not have and which he does have. The Chinese won’t be opening stores or doing much of anything with oil above $145 a barrel.

Putin only has one real risk, short term, and that is paying his thugs. If insurance rates go through the roof for the Black Sea, well he has a trump card — just raise the oil prices higher. Maybe even seize Romania, which still has some oil along with Natural Gas. Or give Iran a spare nuke ala his story to Sharansky.

Putin doesn’t care about the suffering of the Russian people, nor the commercial disaster looming — because he’s a thug, pure and simple.