If youxe2x80x99re hoping that the instability that Vladimir Putinxe2x80x99s war on Ukraine has wreaked on global markets and geopolitics has peaked, your hope is in vain. We havenxe2x80x99t seen anything yet. Wait until Putin fully grasps that his only choices left in Ukraine are how to lose xe2x80x94 early and small and a little humiliated or late and big and deeply humiliated.

I canxe2x80x99t even wrap my mind around what kind of financial and political shocks will radiate from Russia xe2x80x94 this country that is the worldxe2x80x99s third-largest oil producer and possesses some 6,000 nuclear warheads xe2x80x94 when it loses a war of choice that was spearheaded by one man, who can never afford to admit defeat.

Why not? Because Putin surely knows that xe2x80x9cthe Russian national tradition is unforgiving of military setbacks,xe2x80x9d observed Leon Aron, a Russia expert at the American Enterprise Institute, who is writing a book about Putinxe2x80x99s road to Ukraine.

xe2x80x9cVirtually every major defeat has resulted in radical change,xe2x80x9d added Aron, writing in The Washington Post. xe2x80x9cThe Crimean War (1853-1856) precipitated Emperor Alexander IIxe2x80x99s liberal revolution from above. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) brought about the First Russian Revolution. The catastrophe of World War I resulted in Emperor Nicholas IIxe2x80x99s abdication and the Bolshevik Revolution. And the war in Afghanistan became a key factor in Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevxe2x80x99s reforms.xe2x80x9d Also, retreating from Cuba contributed significantly to Nikita Khrushchevxe2x80x99s removal two years later.

In the coming weeks it will become more and more obvious that our biggest problem with Putin in Ukraine is that he will refuse to lose early and small, and the only other outcome is that he will lose big and late. But because this is solely his war and he cannot admit defeat, he could keep doubling down in Ukraine until xe2x80xa6 until he contemplates using a nuclear weapon.

Why do I say that defeat in Ukraine is Putinxe2x80x99s only option, that only the timing and size is in question? Because the easy, low-cost invasion he envisioned and the welcome party from Ukrainians he imagined were total fantasies xe2x80x94 and everything flows from that.

Putin completely underestimated Ukrainexe2x80x99s will to be independent and become part of the West. He completely underestimated the will of many Ukrainians to fight, even if it meant dying, for those two goals. He completely overestimated his own armed forces. He completely underestimated President Bidenxe2x80x99s ability to galvanize a global economic and military coalition to enable Ukrainians to stand and fight and to devastate Russia at home xe2x80x94 the most effective U.S. coalition-building effort since George H.W. Bush made Saddam Hussein pay for his folly of seizing Kuwait. And he completely underestimated the ability of companies and individuals all over the world to participate in, and amplify, economic sanctions on Russia xe2x80x94 far beyond anything governments initiated or mandated.

When you get that many things wrong as a leader, your best option is to lose early and small. In Putinxe2x80x99s case that would mean withdrawing his forces from Ukraine immediately; offering a face-saving lie to justify his xe2x80x9cspecial military operation,xe2x80x9d like claiming it successfully protected Russians living in Ukraine; and promising to help Russiansxe2x80x99 brethren rebuild. But the inescapable humiliation would surely be intolerable for this man obsessed with restoring the dignity and unity of what he sees as the Russian motherland.

Incidentally, the way things are going on the ground in Ukraine right now, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Putin could actually lose early and big. I would not bet on it, but with every passing day that more and more Russian soldiers are killed in Ukraine, who knows what happens to the fighting spirit of the conscripts in the Russian Army being asked to fight a deadly urban war against fellow Slavs for a cause that was never really explained to them.

Given the resistance of Ukrainians everywhere to the Russian occupation, for Putin to xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d militarily on the ground his army will need to subdue every major city in Ukraine. That includes the capital, Kyiv xe2x80x94 after probably weeks of urban warfare and massive civilian casualties. In short, it can be done only by Putin and his generals perpetrating war crimes not seen in Europe since Hitler. It will make Putinxe2x80x99s Russia a permanent international pariah.

Moreover, how would Putin maintain control of another country xe2x80x94 Ukraine xe2x80x94 that has roughly one-third the population of Russia, with many residents hostile to Moscow? He would probably need to maintain every one of the 150,000-plus soldiers he has deployed there xe2x80x94 if not more xe2x80x94 forever.

There is simply no pathway that I see for Putin to win in Ukraine in any sustainable way because it simply is not the country he thought it was xe2x80x94 a country just waiting for a quick decapitation of its xe2x80x9cNazixe2x80x9d leadership so that it could gently fall back into the bosom of Mother Russia.

So either he cuts his losses now and eats crow xe2x80x94 and hopefully for him escapes enough sanctions to revive the Russian economy and hold onto power xe2x80x94 or faces a forever war against Ukraine and much of the world, which will slowly sap Russiaxe2x80x99s strength and collapse its infrastructure.

As he seems hellbent on the latter, I am terrified. Because there is only one thing worse than a strong Russia under Putin xe2x80x94 and thatxe2x80x99s a weak, humiliated, disorderly Russia that could fracture or be in a prolonged internal leadership turmoil, with different factions wrestling for power and with all of those nuclear warheads, cybercriminals and oil and gas wells lying around.

Putinxe2x80x99s Russia is not too big to fail. It is, however, too big to fail in a way that wonxe2x80x99t shake the whole rest of the world.