> The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.
this is a lesson of a past war, the world has moved, this is no longer a WW2 era, if you try to apply a similar foreign intervention now the chances are you'll get a nuke on your lawn.
No one, and I mean, no one... Wants to ne the first firer of nukes in anger. I could see a State nuking themselves before nuking anyone else to keep that fuse from getting lit.
You don't get to put that one back in the bottle, and you're going to have to have more faith than the Pope to think that no one will respond.
Nuclear War isn't like Civilization. It's a momentary bang followed by a lot of whimper.
I think you can call the bluff. Putin wants to build an empire not have Russia leveled. Of course you are playing a high stakes game in actually doing this though.
I'm pretty confident that Putin doesn't want to go down in history as the guy who started the nuclear war that ended Russia (and much of the rest of the world). We can call that bluff.
Your region is already at stake? What's the chance that Putin is interested in "just this one piece of land" and is also willing to escalate to WW3 to get it? If he's truly that dedicated, this is just the beginning. Estonia shares a nice long border with Russia.
How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO? How would he even do that? You think he's going to launch ICBMs?
> How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO?
Putin is not elected by a popular vote, the voice of the people does not matter there.
Estonia is a NATO member already, the current conflict has been escalated because of the previously announced red line demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) that the US diplomats discarded. It is their job to negotiate peace in the region too. Negotiations is a nasty business and the outcomes are nasty too. Those who seek easy and pretty solutions that satisfy all parties in one step are destined to escalate the situation further up.
The voice of the people always matters to some degree. Especially if said dictator wants you to risk your life or the life of your loved ones for his conquests.
