[I know that you have just conveyed the view of DC elites on war and it is awfully alarming.
Just remember how and why WWI started and ended. I believe everyone involved expected it would be a little bit more ‘conventional’.]
It was fought for control of Europe, the crown jewels. And it ended well short of the annihilation of even 10% of any major participant’s population. And in no instance were the families or friends of the major decision makers in any danger of being exterminated in their entirety. There was also the prospect of material and territorial gain to offset the manpower and infrastructure losses. What gains would offset the flattening of all of Russia’s major cities and the deaths of 70m Russians resulting from the American response to a Russian nuclear first strike? Putin’s not an Iranian mullah who thinks launching nukes at DC might cause the Twelfth Imam to reveal himself and initiate the end times predicted in the Koran. He’s basically an atheist who is guided by cost benefit calculations like other non-Muslim cleric decision makers. Launching a nuclear strike at the US for *any* reason other than in retaliation for an American nuclear attack on Russia falls on the wrong side of the cost-benefit register.