All through history major leaders have made serious miscalculations. It is easy to do. Give a leader a few successes and people around him will be less likely to contradict him. To gain favor there is a propensity to tell him what he wants to hear. We have all seen whistle blowers loose their jobs and and not be able work in the same industry again. Hitler figured that England and France would not go to war over Poland. He also saw the very anti war sentiment in the USA. So invading Poland seemed a small risk and no one around him tried to stop him. Having seen the prelude to that decision one can see why he thought he could get away with it. Putin must have also gone through a similar thought process before deciding to invade Ukraine. So what might those thoughts have been?1. As for the Russian people themselves, the bulk of the media is state controlled so the message going to the people could be framed in a positive light. If things did not go well any negative media could be closed. Control the media and you control the people. 2. As for the people of Ukraine, a large show of force, tons of troops and weaponry on their border would likely cause a quick surrender and the leaders fleeing once an invasion was undertaken. Who wants to face such overwhelming odds? Besides many speak Russian and consider Russians brothers so resistance should be light.3. European nations especially Germany and Italy are unlikely to want to do much as they are so dependent on Russian oil. It’s winter and oil is necessary for heating. Germany is anti war anyway.4. NATO is not what it used to be and the thought of all those nations actually getting together to do anything is unlikely. It is doubtful that they trust the USA. Our friend Donald Trump has seen to that. The Eastern countries will want to do more than the rest but even so what can they do?5. The USA is divided. The most popular news network Fox says the US President is week and feckless. The poll numbers of public support are very low. Meanwhile the previous President Donald Trump still has a big following and can be counted on to say nice things about Russia and me (Putin) personally. Also on Fox we have Tucker Carlson saying he supports Russia and “why should I care about Ukraine”. The fact is there are a lot of US media people who will side with Russia and have no interest in Ukraine. There are even more who will attack the Democratic leadership and President. It’s election time after all. Fox in particular with people like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham daily criticize and belittle the President so we can count on the US Government to bitch but not be able to do much but put up some sanctions. 6. Sanctions. There will be a lot initial talk that will dissipate when Ukraine surrenders and the leadership flees. We can deal with sanctions and it won’t be long before Europe will want oil and the US Government will be taken over by Republicans who are sympathetic to Russia anyway. We dealt with Sanctions after taking the Crimea so we can deal with any new ones as well.7. China will be supportive because it will help them in their quest to take over Taiwan. 8. Misinformation is rampant out there so there will be so many opinions that conflict that people will not know what to believe and will end up doing nothing. We don’t even need to feed the misinformation – it will happen on its own. The world is full of useful idiots. All the above are quite reasonable assumptions.