My prior post mentioned that it is hard to feel like Ukraine is "winning" a war when 10+ million of its citizens are displaced from homes that are likely destroyed. Kurt Vonnegut couldn't even find a wry line of bitter humor in that circumstance.
As an entire country gets physically obliterated in a genocidal land grab by a nuclear-capable kleptocratic despot, we citizens of the "Western powers" are facing a disturbing moral and strategic problem...
We seem paralyzed to intervene directly for fear of escalating a two-country conflict being fought in one country into a third world war, possibly involving "tactical" nuclear weapons. Yet Russia's actions are targeting hospitals, shopping centers and apartment towers with ZERO military value and Russian soldiers are shooting civilians in broad daylight. This dynamic is not new. Putin used it in Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. In each case, a nuclear power pursued direct "conventional" military attacks against civilian populations and the opposing world forces seemed to conclude
a) sorry, not a direct ally, sucks to be you
AND / OR
b) well, we'd like to help but don't want to trigger a nuclear Armageddon so as long as they keep the nukes in the silos, we'll stand aside and hope the bad guy tires himself out on you innocent civilians
No one is arguing for nuclear escalations but this decision model seems insane - mad, if you will. Taken to the extreme, it basically says a nuclear power can use any means SHORT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS to annihilate an enemy and the rest of the world will tolerate it in a form of ultimate cynical relativism. Again, no one is arguing FOR a nuclear escalation here but if this current nightmare ever ends, the world as a whole is going to have to re-think how nuclear weapons are collectively managed and actions that need to be taken against current loose cannons in the nuclear club. The cold war strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction helped avoid mass destruction by nuclear means but now seems frighteningly incapable of avoiding mass destruction by any other lesser means.
WTH
