I don’t know the best way to describe this concept.
Sometimes, you’re in a good position. You’ve done well and things are going your way 90+%.
If you continue to push things even further, ask for more, you end up losing.
You actually go backward on the cost-benefit scale, tipping it the other way.
—Ukraine was doing extremely well before the war, economically.
—Ukraine was already ours.
—They had EU membership in reach (that will be delayed by years, if ever).
—They were military strong, i.e. we had been arming, training, and feeding them intel for years.
When you think in terms of feelings and ideologies, when you let yourself be guided by past events that are no longer applicable today, you become divorced from principals like Return On Investment and Risk. Again, not the best example, but someone once said “choose your battles” (Don’t know where that quote came from).
This was stupid: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
It caused a war.
And then the Russian stooge Yanukovich betrayed his country.