Lowering the Ante with Putin Is Better Advice

Some dude by the name of Avraham Shama writes that Joe Biden needs to up the ante if he hopes to get anything from Vlad Putin. So I looked him up before disagreeing, as I like to know when I’m out-ranked, a hold-over from my brief military career. He doesn’t rate a Wikipedia page (nor do I) but Google Books has this to say:

AVRAHAM SHAMA is Professor of Management at the Robert O. Anderson School of Management, The University of New Mexico. His specialty is the political and economic transformation of eastern Europe.

Having lived in Prague for 28 years, I disagree

Putin is somewhat of a gangster, no doubt, but even Al Capone was a guy you could have a conversation with. It was never a good idea to up the ante with Al unless you held a very strong hand. And the fact is, we have no hand at all with Russia these days. There were opportunities, but for some strange reason America always chose to play hard-ball with our former WWII ally.

Blame it on communism, but know the facts

The Yalta and…