A couple of you have asked "are we about to have WW III start" and I saw at least one answer be "Well, it already has" which gave me a spine chilling flashback to a similar scenario.
Yes, the below parallels are very rough ... but I think the comparison is useful.
We take the Mukden Incident (1931) which was a culmination of a few years of push and shove in
Manchuria such that by Feb of 1932 it was Japan's and they had set up a 'puppet regime'
(I see a mild parallel to the Donbas and Crimea situations of the teens, though obviously not identical).
You then see another move (albeit for different reasons) in 1937 which is the year that, IMO, WW II began.
Yes, Japan invading China was to my mind the opening shots of World War II
It certainly got a response out of the Americans, particularly after the bombing/civilian casualties of Chunking (<= note aviation content!) and in due course that ongoing war informed / resulted in the serious US embargo of Japan which led to Pearl Harbor) and so on.
Yes, I know, the Eurocentric / Atlantic-biased view is that the German invasion of Poland in 1939 was the start of WW II.
Which takes me to this: if Russia invading Ukraine is the analogue to the 1937 invasion of China by Japan, we are already in WW III and we don't know it yet.
*shudders*
I sincerely hope that this analysis is incorrect, but if we have a look at the air activity in and around Taiwan in the past month or two
and
the news/rumor that the Chinese asked Putin to delay his move into Ukraine until after the Olympics (I've heard this bandied about, not sure how close to the truth this is)
I am left with
as a gut feeling.
To answer a question further up that pr00ne gave a first thwhack at (and rightly so) I reach back to some of my experiences in operational/theater level planning work (which is nearly two decades old).
The question was: why not B-2 mission into Russian airspace?
A lot of reasons, I'll give you a few.
1. It's not the right tool for the job, honestly, nor the right mission for the current situation. B-2's are a limited quantity asset.
They are a strategic asset. There are plenty of theater and tactical level assets better suited to dealing with the invasion of Ukraine that won't signal an escalation into Mother Russia.
At present, non violent means (embargos, financial constrictions) are being used for causing Russia / Russian leadership pain. Armed force isn't the form of suasion being chosen.
2. Deep strike into Russia needlessly raises the stakes in terms of escalation that might lead to Pandora's box being opened: nuclear choice opted for in Moscow based on escalation triggers.
3. The UK and the US had promised to guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty (as had Russia) in 1994. While this puts those two nations' (bilateral, not NATO) policy into the spotlight, we are not talking about an Article 5 situation.
If they can do this, adhere to the spirit of that promise without the kind of escalation that a deep strike into Russia with B-2 would create, that's the more prudent course of action.
(Mind you, the spotlight shone rather embarrassingly on the US and UK as regards Crimea ... )
There are other reasons, but these three were the low hanging fruit.
4. A practical consideration.
I agree with a few other posters that the B-2 isn't magic, and I suspect the Russians have their own counters to B-2's low vis/low signature developed by now.