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".......we'll wind up getting into yet another quagmire where neither side shares our best interests,"
There is a clear pattern to these interventions and tactics on the ground employed by the Russian army. In each case, aggrieved parties alleged Putin and his inner circle violated the laws of war, along with committing human rights violations and genocide. International Criminal Court (ICC), entertained and investigated these allegations along with those that implicated command elements of the Russian army who ordered the indiscriminate reduction of cities to ruble and targeted civilian non-combatants with chemical weapons. All of these murderous undertakings ordered by Putin resulted in horrific human suffering and capital loss. Putin didn't care and no one with an obligation to do so, did anything other than talk and posture.
Is there any reason to doubt that Putin took from this that the west, and particularly the US that had the capability to do so, would do anything about his full scale invasion of Ukraine - a substantially bigger operation than any of his previous ones?
Look, America appears to have abandoned it's leadership role in advancing and protecting freedom and democracy. Some see missteps by the US in this endeavor and I whole heatedly agree. It gives rise to concerns such as you voice, Tom. OTH, it does not excuse America from restoring it's role as democracy's "beacon on the hill" and leading a militarily intervention in Ukraine My view is that continuing to stand on the sidelines and wish for sanctions to cripple the Russian economy, threaten Putin's power base and restrain Putin's war machine is short sighted. It loses sight of the immediate genocide in Ukraine and long term threats to liberalism presented by the growth of autocracies that do whatever the fuck they want - to their citizens and in Putin's case, land grabs unprecedented, as in Ukraine's case, since Hitler invaded Poland in 1937.
I'm in the minority here with my advocacy that now is the time to forcefully stop Putin's genocide in Ukraine. If we don't, it invites Putin's continued brutal, aggressive and expansionist behavior. Others are watching and will follow his lead. The next generation is going to suffer from the current generation's adults to have the balls to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine or suffer the humiliation the west has the capacity to deliver. I'll reiterate, there are risks of an unconventional exchange involving Russia and western nations that cohere to act against the Russian forces presently in Ukraine. It's not small but, if you understand the arguments of "nuclear dominance" as a deterrent on Herman Kahn's 44 steps on the ladder of Nuclear escalation, you'll see the risks and the benefits of playing nuclear hard ball.
This article is old (2017) but it does several things if you're interested in understanding the components of strategic nuclear posture. It was written before the Trump administration was considering a review of it's strategic nuclear posture. It explains and suggests that certain elements of strategies that dominated US Nuclear Posture since the cold war and subsequent nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia are flawed and offers realistic alternatives to be incorporated in the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Trump ordered.
Here's the NPR. I don't recommend a full read. The forward and executive summary will inform you to the extent that if we're going to talk about this shit that we're at least somewhat knowledgeable ....... or, of course, I don't think it's unreasonable to just not want to talk about it at all. It's analytical (I can deal with this) and only deals superficially with the horror of intercontinental nuclear exchange (I can't think about that in a risk benefits discussion). I can assure you that the US DOD and their Kremlin counterparts are full on discussing this.
What a read of it does for me is to understand that there is a long pathway from conventional warfare and nuclear war where the opponents are willing to exchange, for example, Virginia and Washington DC for the Moscow Oblast. IOW, the US has political, diplomatic and military tools available to more strongly oppose, potentially bring to a rapid end, Putin's genocide in Ukraine that don't involve intercontinental nuclear war.
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