> The entire Russian economy needs to be punished as much as possible in as short a time as possible. This unavoidably hurts everyone.

Sanctions can work too well. After the US embargoed all oil to imperial Japan their navy calculated they only had fuel left for two years, which led to the attack of Pearl Harbor.

That sounds great, till the union dissolves and nukes start being divided up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch" mini states and all the corruption that will ensue. Either that or the nukes and tanks start flying out of Russia in retaliation. I honestly don't see how the west thinks this will go well, unless that's what they want.

Well, what's the alternative? Surrender everything to Russia and hope they decide not to nuke us anyway?

The west has drawn the line in the sand at military intervention and at some point we have to draw this line.

> till the union dissolves and nukes start being divided up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch" mini states and all the corruption that will ensue

you've just described almost exactly Russia in the 1990's.

During which time democracy became a dirty word and they were ready to embrace a strongman leader...

So honestly yeah I'm not seeing an amazing end state with this "let's punish the Russian people so they overthrow their government" strategy. In 1917 they did and got a bloody civil war. In 1991 they did that and had years of civil instability and an economic crisis. What makes people think in 2022 it would be better?

> That sounds great, till the union dissolves and nukes start being divided up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch" mini states and all the corruption that will ensue.

My read of the hivemind sentiments on that would be "Russia has no justification to do that!" Whether popular memes are substantial protection from nuclear weapons seems questionable, but it seems to be overwhelming consensus opinion that this is the way to think about such things so who knows.

What's that saying, when everyone's thinking the same, nobody's thinking?