1. Appeasement is not an option. It just encourages them to do it again.
2. It is up to the Ukrainians if they want to fight to the bitter end. We can't make them, we can't stop them, but we can have their backs.
3. The purpose of resisting an illegal occupation is to drive up the cost of staying as high as possible. This works, even without economic sanctions. Just ask Vietnam or Afghanistan.
4. In a proxy war, countries officially "ignore" inconvenient facts because acknowledging them will cause a more complicated conflict. This happened all over the Cold War, but as recently as Afghanistan the US had to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's behavior.
5. Nothing is predetermined or strictly predictable. History is chaos. The only thing we know for sure right now is this will be hell for the Ukrainians.
1. Appeasement is not an option. It just encourages them to do it again.
2. It is up to the Ukrainians if they want to fight to the bitter end. We can't make them, we can't stop them, but we can have their backs.
3. The purpose of resisting an illegal occupation is to drive up the cost of staying as high as possible. This works, even without economic sanctions. Just ask Vietnam or Afghanistan.
4. In a proxy war, countries officially "ignore" inconvenient facts because acknowledging them will cause a more complicated conflict. This happened all over the Cold War, but as recently as Afghanistan the US had to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's behavior.
5. Nothing is predetermined or strictly predictable. History is chaos. The only thing we know for sure right now is this will be hell for the Ukrainians.