redmonqey: [Keep baiting the bear.
I now know how cold wars turn hot.]
Wars don’t start by accident. They require massive appropriations. The Russians want to conquer. Whittling them down to size in Ukraine will cramp their style. As Vegetius is said to have written “si vis pacem, para bellum”. Actually, he could actually have said “si vis bellum, para pacem”. And the policy of these United States has been “si vis pacem, para pactum”, i.e. Pax Americana.
The Russians need to understand that if they poke any one of their traditional victims, they will lose a great deal of blood and treasure. That’s what the aid to Ukraine is all about - making the Russians pay a heavy price. The kind of price Uncle Sam paid in Korea and Vietnam, to the tune of 100,000 GI dead and just under 10,000 aircraft destroyed, thanks to copious Russian supplies to North Korea and North Vietnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15#Soviet_MiG-15s_in_the_Korean_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Korean_War_flying_aces#Soviet_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev#The_Vietnam_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-17#Vietnam_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-19#Vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21#Vietnam
https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War
We made promises not to advance NATO into former Warsaw Pact to create a neutral zone of sorts. NATO abandoned this in the war of the former Yugoslavia territory, the bombing of Libya, and meddling with Ukrainian politics. The most egergious was getting them to give up nukes for an amorphous “promise” to back them up, without an senate approved treaty.
Russia, in it’s various configurations has one common tract, paranoia, especially from the West. Before the dust from the fall of the Berlin wall, the NATO countries have made moves to only feed the distrust that Russian leaders are born with.
Like many other wars, theses always an off ramp to take but pride, paranoia or politics blind those in power from making claim, sensible recessions. The one up manship will lead to destruction.
Thanks Zhang Fei.