The White House believes that there is a 20% chance of another Cuban Missile Crisis "in the next eight weeks" with Russia, Ian Bremmer said at an event at the Asia Society in New York on Monday. While Bremmer doesn't see as high a chance that Putin would risk using nuclear weapons, he added, "Either way, those numbers are way too freaking high." The even bigger risk, he points out, is that not enough is being done to manage the unprecedented danger from Russia in the medium term.
The Russian economy is being cut off from the West the same way as Iran has been, with a 40% or 50% contraction expected over the next five years. A G20 economy has never been decoupled from the West before. If Russia becomes a rogue state like Iran with ballistic missile attacks, drone strikes, espionage, proxy wars, radicalism, and terrorist violence - but with 6,000 nuclear warheads in their arsenal - "that really does not bode well for the next five, 10 years or for our kids. It really doesn't," Bremmer told former Australian PM and Asia Society President and CEO Kevin Rudd at the Asia Society's headquarters in New York.