[Robert Urbanek]

Putin has fired several generals, ostensibly for incompetence but just as likely for fears of disloyalty or their potential to conduct a coup against him. While that may have the desirable effect of reducing the military expertise available to him, it may also pose a danger.

Putin may be surrounding himself with a cadre of less capable but more fanatical commanders who are willing to join him in going out in a blaze of glory, that “blaze” being the use of nuclear weapons.