Would the West chance a larger nuclear war with Russia over the Ukraine?
I vote no, but our elite idiots who helped create this mess in the first place don’t really care what you and I think.
There is no “retirement” plan for Putin or his generals. You either maintain power or you are dead and penniless because your very existence is a threat to the new guy(s) AND your wealth is an easy populist target that wins support from the peasantry.
They WILL use nuclear weapons if it means they survive. I don’t know how/why more people can’t see this. I can’t understand this oft-repeated scenario where “Putin is not that crazy” so he will somehow just peacefully step down and give a farewell address and shuffle off with his hundreds of billions in wealth?
I said it from Day 1 - I cannot see a scenario where Putin survives defeat in the Ukraine. The same is true for his inner circle of oligarchs AND his military leadership. He might survive the Wagner uprising, but the Chef is not an idiot and he knows better than all of us how soft the underbelly is in Moscow. He has bet his life on this too.
On note about Reagan’s approach to nuclear war with Russia: He understood what you understand. He made it personal Moscow was targeted by literally hundreds of nuclear weapons. Reagan made it plain to Soviet leadership, that come what may, neither they personally, nor their family members, would survive a nuclear war. He need someone to make that point to Putin. Most people know, and feel, that the world is bigger than them, they care if their country and family survive. Sociopaths only care about themselves. People with these tendencies rise to power in totalitarian countries.