Putin, a rowdy ‘rogue male’, threatens to start a war that nobody wants | Simon Tisdall
TThe term “rogue male,” denoting a wild bull elephant, is also used figuratively to describe a callous and dangerously out-of-control loner. It may be that Vladimir Putin has a soft side. If so, it is well hidden. The president of Russia fits the rogue male profile to a T: unscrupulous, vicious, cunning, and always ready to trample on other people and countries.Much recent effort has been made trying to understand and explain Putin's motives for threatening a broader war in Ukraine. Does he hope to restore past Soviet glories or crush Kiev's pro-Western trajectory? Is it his historical legacy or his need to repeat the electoral “Crimean rebound”? Such theories have weight, but they all miss the essential point.Putin is and always has been a nasty, grinning, devious, KGB-trained th...