I think that the Taiwanese Armed Forces would disagree with you VERY strongly.

That may all be true but still is not a test of the resolve of NATO in case a NATO Country would be attacked. There are clear regulations and mechanisms. Perceived justice is not part of such considerations.
Private persons can strap on their fighting boots, get in a car and get into the fight but for Governments and Armies this is not something that would be done by stomach feeling.

Don’t assume China is happy…..

https://www.politico.eu/article/russ...-bind-ukraine/

Putin puts China in a bind

https://www.politico.eu/article/nava...-russian-fire/

Ukraine naval base drew Putin’s wrath, then Russian fire

A live YouTube narrative on the progress of the invasion.

[QUOTE=ORAC;11189515]A live YouTube narrative on the progress of the invasion.

/QUOTE]

This guy has NOTHING to add he is making $$$$ from you tube ads, I suggest you delete the link

MoD tweet 'branded' as from Defence Intelligence.

"More than 80 strikes have been carried against Ukrainian targets
Russian ground forces are advancing across the border
Russian forces advance on at least three axes from North and NE, East, and South from Crimea,"

I feel sorry for the Ukranians in the long run, the outcome will be no different in the rest of the country as it is in Crimea. Western leaders will bluster and virtue signal as they did over Crimea but in a few years' time relations will normalize with more if not all of Ukraine's territory under Moscow's direct rule. I can't see how Ukraine can maintain any independence without western military support. Did NATO countries even supply any effective C4ISTAR support?

Russia and its proxies have relied on the belief, almost certainly true, that they are too militarily powerful to be treated like Serbia and its proxies. The only way to have stopped this was to have put boots on the ground to make the probability of 'accidental' NATO casualties too high for Putin to risk. NATO governments are no longer willing to risk the political consequences of sustaining casualties in heavily asymmetric conflicts - involvement in peer or near-peer conflicts is unthinkable for them unless their own territory is attacked. They will only wring their hands while offering ineffective and to an extent insincere support. While almost certainly legal if Ukraine's government asked, even a threat to interdict Russian forces in Ukraine if they don't withdraw is unthinkable.

Russia has been building up its gold and foreign currency reserves to enable it to ride out a situation like this.

It would have been interesting to see how Putin would have responded to a proposal in the UN Security Council for an SFOR style intervention in Ukraine including Donbas and Luhansk to prevent intercommunal violence etc.

Ukrainian Air Force Su-25 Frogfoot.

I think that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Russia as a relevant power in the world. They may well have enormous reserves of gold, but what use is that if it can't be spent outside their borders? Who will deal with them now either financially or politically, both of which require an element of trust? Putin has destroyed that and failed diplomatically, has resorted to the only means left to him; force. He has backed himself into a corner.

That's it, game over for Russia in the international community.

I would like to thank that is how it will pan out, after Ukraine has been whipped back into the FSU.

However, I have a vague hope that his megalomania may upset the Russian people and politicians sufficiently to see him removed from his throne … one way or another.

My friend in Kherson says that russian force already crossed the dniper 1 hour ago

I really truly hope you are correct, but I do not think so. I am reminded of the quote from Top Gun 'Son, a Russian doesn't take a dump without a plan'. I do not mean to make light of the current atrocity, but the sentiment is correct. I am certain that Putin has thought this through. The concerning thing for me was his private meeting with President Xi a few weeks ago. Russia is now 'dead' to the Western world - with that I agree completely, but Putin must have seen that coming. However, there are other avenues he could expoit, such as the aforementioned China. Now, the question here is what is China prepared to risk? Do they want Taiwan so badly that they, too, will cut off their own western funding? I think the answer is yes. I think we are witnessing an attempt to create a major shift in the balance of World power.

If the Western world do not intervene miltarily, Putin will very soon have Ukraine, and this simply cannot be allowed to stand. However, if we do intervene, he has issued today a very thinly veiled threat to use Nukes. There is no good outcome here - the only forseeable solutions in my view are to let him have Ukraine, or fight him and start WWIII.

The world of tomorrow will judge us by our actions today. There is no good outcome here.

The West have, for the last 30 years, taken our eyes off the ball. Whilst Europe wrote laws about the size of a loaf of bread and the suction power of a vacuum cleaner, China and Russia have just gone about the business of building their military capabilities. The West has done this also, but what I see here is that the West may be more powerful, but has no stomach for a fight - we are just beaurocrats and negotiators. Putin probably knew this, and I have to say it looks like he is correct. Sanctions will not stop anything at all - he only understands hard power.

That's not how (some) of the international relations professionals see it. Some are already expressing the possilbity that "Realpolitik" will eventually emerge and the West will have to find a better way of managing its relationships with states like Russia (and China). In my very humble, very uniformed opinion, the West have been way too complacent about the strength of liberal democracy in the Global Order and unrealistic in the expecation that democracy is the end game for the Nation State. Very little that has happened over the past two decades indicate that liberal democracy is the default option across the planet; conversley, a great deal has happened to suggest that democracy is in decline. In the short term (0-30 years or so) Western Liberal Democracies are going to have to find a way to co-exist with a majority of nation states that don't share their values or their aspirations.

How this plays out in the immediate future will depend on how this invasion pans out for Putin. If it goes badly (Vietnam style) and he lose support at home, his regime will likely topple - which in itself will be an extremely dangerous moment for all of us. If it goes well for him, the world will have to find away to deal with him on a different level that it has thus far.

Either way, we will mainly be spectators. Sanctions will have FA deterence value now the invasion has commenced and the West won't mix militarily unless Putin wades into a NATO country. Which he won't do unless he has totally lost it, in which he'll get "removed" by his own people.

In sum:

Best case: (from my perspective) Invasion goes petong and his regime collapses from within.
Worst case: Invasion goes well for him, Russia is stronger and "realpolitik" dictates future relationships.

Either way, the West is not in control of this one.

PS And since I've put it out there...IMO comparisions with China and Taiwan are Apples and Oranges. Totally different situation - historically, politically, culturally, strategically and tactically. Different in everyway.

Hopefully they don’t start lobbing shells in the direction of Chernobyl.

They are already, news is that Russian troops are there overtaking the territory of Chernobyl.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ys-2022-02-24/

The comparison I would make with China is there are a lot of countries, outside Europe, Canada, the US, and ANZ, whose governments, even those who are democratically elected, have been and still are happy to take buckets of renminbi to finance their economies irrespective of China's actions and potential consequences of default. I suspect there are those who would be happy to take Russian oil and investment while sticking two fingers up to the 'imperialists of the Western liberal democracies'. Yes, I know China is the real economic imperialist.

One word: veto. Russia is on the Security Council, permanent member, and has the same veto that the other four have.

I take your point. However I think it may come to a binary choice either you deal with the large western economies or you deal with Russia. If non aligned nations view Cuba and Venezuela as examples of choosing Russia then I think that Russia will lose many trading opportunities. China is not making many friends with its belt and braces loans, a lot of fingers have been burnt.