The logical conclusion of this is the "first strike" doctrine of MAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike).

Every major power has had 50 years to prepare for it, and it won't work.

You want to respond proportionally, and make it hurt. But you also want to leave room for more pain, to give incentive for the behaviour to stop. And you need to make sure that your adversary believes that you'll keep hurting them. This is why we use some, but not all of the economic sanctions available:

1. If things get worse, we can make the sanctions worse. 2. We're much more likely to be able to maintain sanctions than soldiers in foreign wars.

They have already encircled a sovereign nation with their army and are moving in. Our "proportionate" response so far has been to shut down a couple of banks.

I'm not talking about a nuclear strike. All out nuclear war is clearly in nobody's interest (what's the point in ruling over a nuclear wasteland). Putin is relying on the fact that we are all so scared about that scenario that we will be weak in our support of Ukraine (and Latvia, Lithuania, Poland....).

China talks a good game now but how long do you think China will tolerate Russia bombing their most valuable customers?

depends on how much of the south china sea, bits of India and other neighbors they can grab while the west is busy in Europe.

I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but the popular narrative pretty severely misunderstands what was so controversial about pre-WWII appeasement. The problem isn't that Chamberlain tried to avoid going to war or applied insufficient sanctions to prevent Hitler from conquering the Sudetenland - he approved of it, personally flying to Germany to give him permission, and then talking afterwards about how Hitler's a peace loving guy who'll never invade anyone again. He didn't even wait for Hitler declare the war first! It's very dissimilar to the current scenario, where everyone involved agrees that Putin isn't peace loving and has no legitimate grievances.

More flippantly, I think there are some serious questions to ask yourself if you find yourself staking out a more pro-war position than architects of the Iraq War, none of whom think NATO should send in troops here.

I was against the Iraq war at the time. Still think it was a bad idea. I'm generally anti-war. But in this case, as in WW2 it's the only thing that will stop an agressor hell-bent on an idiological mission to restore the Soviet Union.

> and then talking afterwards about how Hitler's a peace loving guy who'll never invade anyone again.

We've had that stage already. It started in 2016. And instead of Chamberlain it was Trump.

Look at what he is saying. The parallels with "lebensraum" are there for all to see. What makes anyone think he will stop at Ukraine? If he is successful here, Poland will be next, mark my words.

My impression is that Chamberlain was rearming as well, he just didn't publicize it.

NATO drew their line in the sand. Intervene when it's crossed. It's better to not bait and switch a nuclear power into war.

We drew a line in the sand when we persuaded them to get rid of their own nukes, ensuring that we'd have their back.

That we don't actually have their back will be noted by despots the world over.

You realize that we can’t control the response of the enemy we “hit” unexpectedly, right? They make one miscalculation, launch a nuclear warhead, and in 30 minutes several exchanges of missiles are launched, millions of people are dead, and cities in America and Russia destroyed. It’s not a board game.

Hitler didn’t have nuclear weapons. The calculus of war changed in 1945 after the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan.

The Russian people are already pretty angry with Putin over Ukraine. And they are going to be a lot angrier about the coming sanctions, then it doesn't really matter if they are angry with Putin or the west.

There is no way Putin will say after this war "Thank you sir, may I have another?" He'll be hard pressed to keep financing his military...

Are they? I am sure that some are, but I get the impression that he has a fair bit of support from the country.

That might fade when/if the sanctions become serious, but thus far I have the impression that he's generally popular (if not as popular as rigged polls would suggest) for his hard-line stance against the US, NATO, and Europe.

Am I wrong about that?

He enjoys support, but even from those who support him there are people who disagree with a war and the death and destruction it will bring. Nothing works like dead family members and economic hardship to sow doubt in a political leader's support. Heck, there are probably people who buy the peacekeeping bullshit but still don't want a war

There are already anti-war protests in Russia, and the war has barely started!

Anecdotally, even intelligent people I know seem to be buying the Russian propaganda about it merely being a peacekeeping mission to stop the human rights violations in Donbas.

I'm really curious about this - what do those people think of the fact that tons of world leaders (POTUS and NATO leaders, obviously, but also those in Lithuania, the European Commission, Germany, the UK, and Finland[1]) are all considering it to be an invasion? Do they think that each and every one of those countries is spreading propaganda in the same unified effort?

(if they do, I'm also curious for any analysis of their psyche that you have, because that seems to me like borderline insanity)

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/23/reac...

we've been watching for 20 years as the "West" ate itself for foolish reasons, nothing our governments say is true anymore.

We are not in the same civilizational project, I guess you just don't realize it