Putin plays nuclear poker with conventional cards

Putin plays nuclear poker with conventional cards

Eighty years ago, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushering in the nuclear age. Many analysts claimed those weapons forever changed the nature of war. They were wrong.Two centuries earlier, Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz defined war as a violent clash of wills — a cyclical struggle of action, reaction, chance, and chaos. That description fits every era, from Thucydides to today.Putin has nothing to lose by…