Did Putin blink?

Thomas Friedman sums it up:

Putin’s seizure of Crimea has weakened the Russian economy, led to China getting a bargain gas deal, revived NATO, spurred Europe to start ending its addiction to Russian gas and begun a debate across Europe about increasing defense spending. Nice work, Vladimir. That’s why I say the country Putin threatens most today is Russia.

Except that Russia’s economy was not weakened–the stock market was trading in the 1400s before the crisis and is trading in the 1400s today. The ruble is roughly unchanged, a hair lower. No one really knows whether China got a bargain or not; too much depends on unknown contingencies. But it is clear that Russia has benefited from closer relations with China. NATO hardly seems revived, the European countries are in turmoil and divided in their response to Russia, and as dependent on its gas as ever. Defense spending is not likely to increase, but even if it did, Russia would hardly care since it has no plans to invade Poland or Germany, and knows that they have no plans to liberate Crimea or provide military aid to Ukraine.

Against these trivial costs if that is what they are, consider Russia’s gains. It swallowed up Crimea in a flagrant violation of international law; it has ensured that the Ukraine government, whether nominally pro-Western or not, will give great weight to its interests; and, most important, it has sent a credible threat to all its neighbors that they will suffer if they  do not give deference to Russia’s interests, while making clear to the world that the West is weak and divided. Meanwhile, the establishment of the new Eurasian Economic Union is a “diplomatic triumph” for Putin, according to The Economist. And Western countries will seek a return to normalcy in their relations with Russia as quickly as possible, hoping that no one will remember Crimea.

Saying that Putin “blinked” is like saying that the boy who stole a cookie from a cookie jar blinked because he took only one cookie rather than all of them.