In this case, the idea expressed is, basically (paraphrasing) viewing Putin's decision-calculus in 2022 through realpolitik, rather than ideology, caused a lot of people to misjudge his intentions (and thus assume confidently he wouldn't invade).
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Is there a word for political actions that are neither based on practical ideals nor ideological/moral concerns? A lot of people seem to use 'realpolitik' for approaches that have nothing to do with practicality or morals.
For Putin, I would put as a "I got away with the Crimean invasion! Now for Ukraine!" form of nationalistic expansion. Not Nation building as an ideology or as practical border building, but building a realm like Terrible Ivan or Peter the Great in history.
Ego as @enragedfilia.bsky.social put it.
That one at least could be construed as some admixture of egoism with nationalism. What I had in mind for egoism alone would be more like "I got my national propaganda machine to call me the savior of western civilization, now to intimidate my neighbors into saying it too!"
I'm certain there is a technical term for a strongman leader using nationalism +war as an ego-boo. Stored in the recesses of my mind somewhere. "L'Etat, c'est moi" of Louis XIV and "Apres moi, le Deluge" of Louis XV are used as examples.
But that is not the misuse of 'realpolitik' I meant for Putin
This is a specific case of the "appeal to stupidity", which oddly never made it onto the lists of informal fallacies rhetoricians are so fond of: "X would be stupid, therefore no one would ever do X". It's only plausible if you've never actually met a person, but still widely believed.
honestly I was one of those people, I was convinced he wouldn't because of just how stupid it was for them to do. it was a very humbling moment for me.
What convinced me it was gonna happen was that I noticed a trend where you'd have a European leader acting like it wasn't going to happen and then Biden would visit or call and suddenly they thought it was going to happen and my assumption switched to, "oh, we're reading their mail."
There is a third option of viewing it through internal politics (Putin trying to secure his power and reputation), which - unlike "realpolitik" that treats states as unitary actors - seems just as likely an explanation as ideology to me.
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Ego as @enragedfilia.bsky.social put it.
But that is not the misuse of 'realpolitik' I meant for Putin
And we were.