Putin Has Committed Russia to a Risky Gamble

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin will, with 100 percent certainty, be "elected" to his fourth official term in power (there was also an unofficial one while placeholder President Dmitri Medvedev was in the Kremlin). Russia enters his next six years as president committed to a reckless gamble on the absence of any enforceable international rules.

Putin spent the last six like a player in a shooter videogame. He started out with a puny handgun -- a Russian military exhausted by half-hearted attempts at reform and only promised modern equipment. He had a thick suit of armor, though: plausible deniability. When he needed it, he could construct elaborate excuses for his actions cloaked in the language of international norms or conventions.