While Putin is clearly immoral, I think he is still completely rational. Why? I have discussed this type of scenario with different people for a long time before it happened and my conclusion was that for Putin invading Ukraine would have been a fully ration decision based on his perspective, values and morals.

He sees the world in much the same way as the US and the USSR saw it during the Cold War. I don’t think that is irrational even if it is wrong. It is rational if you can predict his actions in given scenarios. His actions have been entirely predictable and are thus not irrational.

But my conclusions from before has always been that there is no danger to countries outside of the traditional Soviet Union or those who are NATO members.

There is some danger however if Sweden and Finland joins NATO, but not after they have joined. I think Russia would accept Swedish NATO membership but Finnish membership would be a heavy blow.

The world is full of bullies. We cannot confront every one of them. This kind of logic had led to countless terrible wars. The slippery slope type of argument was a major driver of WW1. It also lead to the US engaging in countless wars in Asia fighting communists. Not to mention the Iraq wars.

It is not far away from the zero-tolerance policing philosophy which has led to America having the worlds largest prison population but not any lower crime rate to show for it.

Every dictator or autocrat is not a wannabe Hitler planning a world conquest. Russia has very specific concerns related to it neighboring countries. Primarily those with former Soviet ties and large Russian populations.

The population of Crimea was all Russian for instance. This that invasion was not illogical from a Russian perspective. It was a fully rational choice.

I think when people call Putin mad, what they often really mean to say is that he has no empathy like them. But lacking empathy and being rational are two different things.