re: #89 No Malarkey!

No. As tragic as this is for Ukraine, we can’t risk a nuclear war. If Putin thinks he can swiftly install a puppet government in Kyiv then all will be well, he is going to learn some hard lessons we just spent 20 years learning in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For me, it’s a tough call. Maybe if Russian soldiers started committing mass atrocities against the civilian population, that might be enough to spark a NATO intervention in Ukraine. As for the risk of nuclear war, we’ve been much closer to the brink than this. Hell, the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example. The question is that delicate game of chicken: Say we intervened - how far could we push Russia out of Ukraine before the red balloon goes up?

Personally, I say the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, plus Crimea. That’s Putin’s absolute red line. He would go nuclear rather than lose Crimea.