As you yourself just pointed out a few lines line above this, there's no need to take a leaf out of anybody else's book: all the US' and NATO wars of the past decades have been presented as "special operations": e.g. the war against Serbia, the war against Iraq, the war against Afghanistan, etc.

Comparing Russia to Serbia, the cliff of inaction seems almost insurmountable.

Just claim your advisors to South Korea are taking care of extra-territorial combatants from that war. No reason to declare a war on Russia when it's clearly part of the existing conflict.

But if it doesn't declare war, it now looks weak. That article 5 isn't worth very much all of the sudden. At the same time it's stupid to start WW3 over a village in the Baltics, a town in Romania, a cut cable or a few blown up warehouses. The Russians took the same "red line" idea and are playing it against the NATO and the EU. I can't interpret as any other way. And on one level, it sort of works.

> Maybe they'll take a leaf out of Russia or Israel's book and declare a 'special' or 'limited' operation though...

I'd like to believe. But remembering how much hand wringing was needed to send a few tanks to Ukraine and some F-16. Somehow, I doubt they'll be able to do anything as bold as a "special" military operation against Russia. Heck, they can't even provide air defense for Ukraine's skies. (As in use NATO's own defense systems to stop the Russians destroying apartment buildings). That's the point the Russians are providing. They are destroying NATO's reputation without even trying to too much, and I posit, so far it works.

Turns out looks and optics are much less important than money and munitions.