Robert Gates: “I acknowledge that I am preoccupied with avoiding mission creep and avoiding having an open-ended, very large-scale…”

I think the president is — based on what I read — is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is 'tapping' him along.

I think it doesn't make strategic sense.

Putin hasn't given up on any of his original goals in Ukraine.

He's going to insist on occupying all four of the eastern provinces of the Donbas.