About the Russians.
Don’t forget that during WWII, Stalin sacrificed 500,000 men in a battle that had no hope of succeeding for the Russians, rather than give the Germans a clean victory. I believe this was in the battle f Stalingrad. Sacrificing 500,000 men allowed the Russians to mutilate the Germans even though the Germans technically won the battle. The Russians knew there was no hope of victory but they went into the slaughter.
This is the kind of mentality the west is going up against in Russia and China. Russia is blaming Obama for the downing of their fighter jet. The Russian/Chinese are livid and simply will retaliate in a big way.
You are right on target with this. I don’t think much of the Western world understands Russian or Asian mindsets. They expect them to react as we would and history has shown that is not the case at all.